Christine's Design Blog

If my mind were a wall, this is what it would look like at the moment.

Inspired by:

Also influenced by listening to the Across the Universe soundtrack while drawing.

Oh, to have a safe home for my drawings and large-ish prints! And a room that can fit that home.

Making something everyday, I am aware, is far from a groundbreaking concept. From Obsessive Consumption to Daily Drop Cap, creative minds are obviously in need of constant stimulation for a plethora of reasons.

Mine? Being fresh out of school and needing to, as James Victore would say, ‘stay hard,’ as I try to find work. And making something, after all, is why I chose this business.

So commences Project Make Something, with my first sad little drawing done on the wrong kind of paper with the wrong kind of ink, but I said I’d make something, not a Renaissance masterpiece. This little scratchy drawing has a story behind it. Remember Phileas Fogg? Well, I felt it was time I really got to know the character by reading the actual book, and where I left off, Phileas Fogg was traveling via elephant with his faithful servant Passepartout, from Kholby to Allahabad in India. Apparently the railway was not yet completed at that time between the two locations, so Mr. Fogg had to improvise. Cheers!

P.S. I get nice sunlight in my room between 10 a.m. and noon, as shown in the photo. Exact hours vary between seasons. I wish it would stay sunny all day!

Fresh off the Vimeo, the Oliver Jeffers CreativeMornings video! Makes me want to hug SwissMiss.

2010/04 Oliver Jeffers from CreativeMornings on Vimeo.

In other news, Pratt Show installation happening today. Lugging my world and books up to 34th in a few hours’ time.

Time for another break!

The day started early, but it started marvelously, because it was Swiss Miss’s CreativeMornings time again, and this time it was none other than my hero, Oliver Jeffers! This was very special for me because this is the tag I wore for the first CreativeMorning that I attended, which featured Michael Bierut. The tag read ‘If I could ask for a CreativeMorning speaker it would be:’

I suppose it wasn’t entirely fair that I wrote Oliver’s name, because I knew that Tina knew Oliver lives in Brooklyn when I wrote this. Ah well, no apologies for cheating.

Anyway, it was a lovely talk hosted at HarperCollins on the 9th floor. Oliver gave a funny presentation about his life and his work, many things that I’d known before, but also many interesting details that I was pleased to learn. I can’t wait until the video is up on the CreativeMornings site.

One piece of wisdom that I really liked was that he said in deciding to move out of Northern Ireland, he chose to take the bigger challenge by moving to New York, rather than London or anywhere ‘easier.’ He said that he tries to do this with many things, like going after the bigger publishing houses and working his way down from there, since it makes sense to try to go for where you want to end up. In other words, dream big and act big! I like. Here are some photos:

This is where he started, on Earth.

Much better photos can be found on the CreativeMornings Flickr page, one of which I stole here. I’m the one with the red coat hanging on the back of my chair. Is that what my hair really looks like from the back??

I owe Tina a huge thanks for adding me to the list after she’d already submitted it to the HarperCollins security people (they’re very strict with safety, it ain’t no joke!), so thanks Tina! Also thanks to Oliver for signing a book for a special friend and for always being so nice to me :)

Like many others, it was a great day to be in New York City.