Beth Ditto

Beth Ditto is a columnist for The Guardian newspaper. Although she acts as a kind of agony aunt for women who wirte to the paper, I found a couple of articles based on money saving tips:

One for make up:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/jul/06/ethicalliving.lifeandhealth?INTCMP=SRCH

One for "cheering a house up on a budget":

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/oct/12/gender.homes

Collecting the Tips...

I'm going to get asking people for their top money saving tips straight away... at work tomorrow and all week next week, definitely a good place to start. I may even pluck up the courage and ask people in town in my lunch break.

Little Book of Aga Tips

I have found this little book at home:

I really love the tiny size (about 105mm x 105mm) and the way the font is inside with the most important words larger and therefore highlighted. The book has 50 Aga tips with one tip per double page spread and no illustrations. I like that there is only one tip per spread, but this will mean more paper and make the book more expensive to print. I also think that the lack of illustrations makes the book less light hearted...

Changing my mind...

I have decided to change concepts for this brief.

Its pretty hard to ignore what's happening in current politics and the economic climate so I have decided to base the brief upon austerity. Life's hard, and it's going to get harder. I want to collect people's ideas on ways to save money and illustrate them in a book. The audience for the book will be people who are struggling for money in 2011. It will be pocket sized and available for people to buy for little money.

Nocturnal Animals- Owl and Badger

Two nocturnal animal drawings I have done so far...

Foggy Foggy Forest

I went into my old school today and talked to my old art teacher. I want to aim the brief at young children and Mrs Brennan has a two year old son, so I thought it would be useful to get some feed back on my work. It was great, Mrs Brennan was really helpful! She showed me some of her son's favourite books and I fell in love with one in particular:

"The Foggy Foggy Forest" by Nick Sharratt

it's a very unique book where the images have been printed onto tracing paper. This means that you can very faintly see through the whole book making it appear "foggy" The child has to "peer through the foggy pages" and guess what the silhouette is. As you turn the page there is a vivid, full colour illustration on the other side revealing the answer. I have to admit that this book has gone on my Christmas wish list.

M.R James

Book Jacket Designs I like which would be suitable for the Visual Language Brief:

Waterstones

Today I went to Waterstones bookshop to gain some inspiration for the Visual Language brief. One book from the children's section caught my attention:

Visual Language

I have decided to create a collection of flip books based upon the theme of nocturnal animals. The illustrations will be in silhouette form and for children.

http://www.aboutbookbinding.com/anatomy/anatomy.htm

A useful website about books...

Collection:

collection |kəˈlek sh ən|noun1 the action or process of collecting someone or something : the collection of maple sap | tax collection• a regular removal of mail for dispatch or of trash for disposal.• an instance of collecting money in a church service or for acharitable cause : when she died, they took up a collection for her burial.• a sum collected in this way.2 a group of things or people : a rambling collection of houses.• an assembly of items such as works of art, pieces of writing, or natural objects, esp. one systematically ordered : paintings from the permanent collection | a record collection.• ( collections) an art museum's holdings organized by medium, such as sculpture, painting, or photography.• a book or recording containing various texts, poems, songs, etc. : a collection of essays.• a range of new clothes produced by a fashion house : a preview of their autumn collection.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collection