Borough Market

After a morning trip to see the Globe Theatre, we needed lunch. And just a little ways down the river walk, is the Borough Market. This market, in the grand tradition of London markets was full to the brim with limitless kinds of delicious, locally sourced, fresh food. Yum!

But with so many options, the vendors have to get creative to be eye catching. Some of the coolest hand-painted signs I've seen here in London were in the Borough Market, and I've attached pictures. They all had very vivid colors that popped off the poster. 

The V&A

One of the closest museums to our flat here in Kensington is the Victoria and Albert Museum, known to locals and in the know tourists (like us) simply as the V&A. We saw one of the hottest exhibits in town, Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty, which was a huge retrospective of his career. The exhibit had an incredibly vast array of his works, I enjoyed the "Cabinet of Curiosities" room of the exhibit, which had some of his most famous catwalk outfits and sets, with corresponding videos.

However, we weren't allowed to take photos inside the exhibit, so I've attached a couple of other pictures from other parts of the museum that also had beautiful signage and design.

When you enter the museum, you're greeted with this sign. 

A very interesting exhibit looking at what luxury is, and what artists believe it might become.

I didn't have time to make it into this exhibit, but it looked very interesting!

The courtyard in the middle of the V&A.

Design in Castletown, Isle of Man

The Isle of Man is a far leap from London in population. Visiting old friends on the island allowed me a quick break from the never ending hustle, bustle, and noise of the city--and also some fresh areas to scour for design! Castletown is one of the small villages on the island, dominated by (surprisingly) a castle.
The two buildings that each door is connected to are right next to each other on the same little street facing a canal, but you'd never know it from just the doors. The materials and colors of each door give off completely different vibes; the blue door has a nautical look in a more classical way (accompanied by a decorative, blackletter/script hybrid typeface) and the other door has a much more modern feel being surrounded by stone, with the clean lines of the door and a beautifully faded Oldstyle nameplate. The font used for the police station sign was an interesting contrast, a fairly chunky san serif font looks more fun than imposing; and it looks even more out of place on such an old and serious looking building!

The Castle

Door #1

Door #2

 

The Police Station 

Police Sign

Wayfinding in British Heritage Monuments

Over the past couple of weekends, I have been lucky enough to explore a number of amazing British Heritage sites across the country. While each site is unique in what occupies the land, the signage, wayfinding, and branding are unified across them all--providing a very convenient and satisfying visit. All the signs use solid san serif fonts, which are clear and readable. Most use the black and white motif of the last sign from Stonehenge, which has a good amount of contrast and again contributes to the readability. However, as you can see from the two castle information signposts, in an effort to color-code, there is a loss of contrast (especially the yellow and white sign) which makes them less readable.

I'll post pictures of the actual castles tomorrow, hopefully!

Carisbroke Castle, showing the different buildings.

Peel Castle, Isle of Man

Peel Castle, Isle of Man (Continued)

Castle Rushen, Isle of Man

Stonehenge

The Signs of Luxury

For GrC, at least one of our posts needs to focus on signs throughout the city. I've decided to focus even deeper, and after a recent excursion through a number of London's fantastic department stores, I have a beautiful selection of signs from some of the biggest fashion names in the world. The signage for the stores and the various brands help perpetuate the image they are trying to portray for themselves. 

Selfridge's Exterior Metal Sign

Harrods Metal Sign

If you go nowhere else to gaze adoringly at how the other 1% shops, Selfridge's and Harrods it is for you. Both Selfridge's and Harrods have brass plate signs on various parts of the exteriors of their stores. Signage like this is a classic. The metal plates on stone scream "old money" and "solidarity". These are stores built to last, and they sure have. Harrods uses a whimsical decorative font in the photo I have attached to this post, but it doesn't take away from the effect at all. Harrods, in addition, has a signature font and shade of green that it uses on all packaging and some of the exterior awnings. The green is a very reserved British Hunting Green, and the font is a classic script. Very posh. Selfridge's does something similar, but in a garish yellow. Not at all as polished. 

Harrods' signature font and green background.

Currently, Harrods is putting on their huge annual sale (tag line: "There's only one sale"), and they have this interesting campaign going with a woman and her entourage carrying all of her purchases. I can't tell if she is creepy or incredibly chic... I'll let you decide.  

Harrods in all it's glory.

Harrods' Current Sale Campaign Poster.

London Design Museum

The design of a museum's exhibit greatly affects how interesting and engaging it is to the viewers. Before listening to the Design Museum's forum about their Design of the Year, I walked through their exhibit on Camper shoes. Camper is a Spanish shoe company that has used a number of unique marketing campaigns and designs to draw new customers in. 

The exhibit had a number of beautiful displays showing off Camper's originality. One of my favorites was a collection of all the iterations of a popular Camper shoe, the Pelotas. They had a huge collection of the shoe, showing how a Camper original became an icon.

The exhibit also highlighted a cool line of shoes that Camper produced, called the "Twins". They underline the expressive personality that Camper designs allow the wearer. 

Twins #1

Which came first... Chicken or Egg?

GrC: Hand Lettering in Oxford

Oxford, known mainly for its prestigious collection of colleges, is also known for a great number of excellent pubs! After a tour around the town's center we were hot and ready for lunch (as usual).

Some friends and I went to The Turf Tavern, which is apparently a hotspot for students when school is in session. Students are currently on summer holiday, so it was mainly tourists, but the food was still delicious.


Outside the pub there were a number of beautiful signs that utilized hand lettering, which gave them an artsy and welcoming look. They seemed to be in the middle of a fun marketing campaign, "The A-Z of Summer". I've attached a couple of examples of the signs, but sadly didn't get a picture of the menu which had a fuller A-Z collection. 

Coming soon: a more full post about Oxford in general. Stay tuned! 

GrC: Typography at New Designers 2015

On Thursday of this week, my GrC class went to tour "New Designers 2015", which is a huge expo of college graduates showing off their work to prospective employers and other members of the public (like us). 

Each illustrator had a booklet of their work.

The show had a huge range of projects from futuristic car designs, furniture and clothing promoting sustainability, and (most relevant to us) a huge number of illustrators and print makers. 

The display that struck me as the most interesting was a collection of illustrators from one of the design schools, and what was interesting was how they all used different typefaces to evoke different feelings associated with their work. For example, Alicia Jennings used a script typeface, imitating a more child-like handwriting, which would make one think that her work would be good for illustrating books for children or other media types like that. On the other hand, Roxana Radulescu used a very clean san serif font. A san serif font lends a much more professional air to her business card/booklet, making her work seem like a more appropriate choice for marketing collateral or some other business application. 

Roxana Radulescu's typeface choice.

Alicia Jennings's typeface choice.

Highlights from the Lowlands (Part 2)

Saturday, day two of our Edinburg adventure started early (again) with a hike, this one was a little more serious. On one of the hilltops on the outskirts of Edinburg is Arthur's Seat, which ended up being quite the trek. Turns out that we first hiked around the base of the hill, before starting our ascent, but this allowed us to see even more of the beautiful Scottish scenery. We then spent a good amount time on the top taking in the view and taking pictures (of course).

Almond cake, vanilla latte, and cucumber mint water. Perfect.

After surviving the ascent, we found out that there was a much easier and quicker way down, which we of course took and zipped down into Edinburgh. We stopped at the first cafe we found and feasted, I had Carbonara Pasta and it was delicious. Next stop was the hostel for a much needed shower and a little bit of time spent recharging after our high mileage adventure.

We decided to explore across the river which is considered the "new town" within Edinburgh. In a previous post I profiled the typography, Caringorm provided both vanilla lattes and chocolate almond cakes, both of which we were in dire need of!

From there we split up and I managed to spend even more money, but who needs to eat anyway... right?

After everyone grabbed dinner and reunited at the hostel we went on a more sinister adventure, an Edinburgh Ghost Tour. Apparently much of Edinburg is haunted, especially an old bridge that had been bricked up and inhabited by medieval homeless people. Very fun, very creepy.

Oops, took me a long time to finish/publish this post... hope you enjoy!

     

Highlights from the Lowlands (Part One)

Back in class today, but last weekend was fun enough that I think I'll make it through.

The view from the castle towards "new" Edinbugh

Eight of my friends from Cal Poly and I set off from London on Thursday night and took the train from King's Cross (very Harry Potter) all the way up to Edinburgh. The scenery was beautiful, and because we're so far north it was bright enough to see the countryside for most of the trip.

We stayed in a hostel in the center of town, about two minutes from the train station and a ten minute walk from the Royal Mile (which is the central shopping/eating area of the "old town" section of Edinburgh).

Burgers and local beer? Yes, please!

On Friday we woke up early and walked up the Royal Mile to tour the Edinburg Castle. Be warned, the tickets are on the pricy side (16 GBP), but the views and castle were magnificent enough to be worth it! The castle offered a number of war museums, the old dungeons (creepy), and the Scottish national jewels. After the castle we found a delicious and cheap (!) pub where we all feasted and caught up on our wifi connections.

Once we were recharged, we then braved the clouds and eventual rain to do some shopping on the Royal Mile. I scored a tartan blanket, and a Clan Ross magnet, which is a huge win for someone who usually can't find anything personalized!

Elephant House 

After a couple more hours of exploring, it was time for more food. We went to the Elephant House, which was where J.K. Rowling began writing the Harry Potter series. The coffee and pastries were delicious, too.

All and all, an exhausting, but very fun day in Scotland!

Coming Soon: Day 2 in Edinburgh.

Coffee in Edinburgh

Dear readers, if you know one thing about me, it should be the fact that I love drinking coffee (extra points for trendy coffeeshops). So this will no doubt be the first of many posts dedicated to cool coffeeshops.

This shop's signs all featured beautiful sans-serif fonts which give the signage a very clean look to them. 

Edinburgh!

Hiked to the top of the castle, now enjoying a delicious pub lunch. Friday!

Kensington Society

LMy inspiration for the title (subject to change...) comes from this very cool sign that was posted across from one of the houses on the side alleyway I mentioned exploring in my last post.
This sign is a good example of the beautiful typography that can be found all over London. To get technical, it is an "Oldstyle" font, with slight curving serifs. Learning!

Now on our way to Edinburgh, photos to follow! 

"Window Box Award"

Above, a much more decorative font used on a mirror sign. 

More classic serif fonts!

Hello from London!

Greetings family and friends!

Finally, as promised, this is my London travel blog. It will focus on my experiences here in London, both related to class and on my weekend adventures. Hopefully it'll be as fun for you to read it as it will be for me to write it.

Anyway. With the awkwardness of first posts aside, for this post I'm going to attach a couple of pictures from my new home neighborhood of Kensington. Kensington is home to some of the wealthiest people in London (Hi, Will and Kate!), so it is unsurprisingly beautiful.

For my Graphic Communications class (GrC for short), a number of my posts will be focused on design, and this one isn't an exception. The buildings are all individual masterpieces, but together they form a very cohesive character.

Some lucky homeowners are off on small alley-like side streets that offer a lot of privacy and quiet. Very removed from crazy modern-day London.

A closer view of one of the very beautiful homes I walked by.

The "less fortunate" (ha) of Kensington live in these big beautiful row homes (the white ones).