There are new coins leaking out. This isn’t new, I expect it’s an 11/9 memorial 50p, but it’s the first time I’ve seen it so now it’s new.
There are also new 2p and 5p coins, but I’ll get to those on future slow days. I’m like the BBC or something.
Realistically it’s not often that, being a fully-fledged adult with responsibilities and bills to pay and whatnot, that you actually get a whole day to yourself. In fact, it never happens. There’s always cleaning to do, or people coming round to take away your old furniture, or something that stops you doing whatever the hell you want. Every day. That’s why today, I wanted to take some time out to do the stuff that I want to do (after I’d done the cleaning, and a guy came round to take away an old wardrobe - coincidence?). I wanted to:
So, after the cleaning and the wardrobe guy, It was computer time. The cat, sadly, had different plans. She loves my laptop - it’s so comfortable, and if she sits on it just right, it makes an awesome sound constantly. If you watch Futurama closely, you know the sound that my laptop makes. Ami loves this noise. So first I had to move the cat.
Once I managed to stop feeling bad about moving her, the music was done and we went for our walk. On Commercial Road, they’ve been redoing a guitar shop. It’s now done and it looks badass. It totally stands out against all the other shops on the whole block. Kudos to those guys for doing something different.
Round the corner of the concrete jungle, we spotted this awesome apartment that has bright pink flowers framing their balcony and is the only one on the entire block. Stands out like a sexy thumb.
Onto type. There’s no reason for this, other than the fact that I know some good compositions can emanate from great fonts, and the ones that don’t breed decent compositions are just nice typefaces. You’ll easily be able to spot the ones I could see something good in! Others are just font.photo.leave!
This was hilarious. I love this simple sans font, I have no idea what it is but it’s tall and narrow like Helvetica. A bored waiter obviously saw me admiring their sign and enquired as to the reason for my photos. He wondered whether they were for personal use. Luckily for both of us, these aren’t going towards my freelance work as a professional sign photographer. Ass.
This is right next to it. Stuff like this is just so unnecessary! Such a contrast to the last one, which is just like a simple print job, some poor person has laboured over this and I really appreciate it. In a totally understated place, and serving a seemingly minimal function. A little diamond in the rough (Aladdin. Awesome).
This building was pretty much my reason for even starting this. I can’t really explain why, but I love this building and I love their sign.
Tucked away on a side-street, this empty building bears a classic-looking, thin, simple serif font that doesn’t really fit where it is. If you spin round 90˚ there’s a huge, ugly, 60s block of flats.
And finally, I am always drawn to this worn 14, just down the road from our flat.
It’s occurred to me that this is essentially a 60/40 split between examples of type and examples of type as a focal point for a photograph. So sue me!
A while ago, I wrote about shoes. Specifically, the fact that it’s really difficult to find shoes that are properly suitable for vegetarians. I’m not talking about just leather-free (although even that’s hard enough!), I’m talking about animal-glue free as well. The very helpful matt left me a note on a few brands that do vegan lines, one of which being Macbeth. We discovered today that RAW do Macbeth shoes, and they even stocked the vegan Manchesters, modeled and photographed expertly by my good self here! They’re really comfortable and look totally awesome. I love them a lot.
If you’re one of those girly types, RocketDog do some great vegan shoes, too. They don’t make any mention of it on their UK website (that I pointlessly linked to!), but their American site has a whole vegan range, so check it out. Some of them are pretty cool, if your feet are attached to a girl.
We went for an inspiring walk around the lake today. The building looks so good from across the water. It’s such an incredible place to work, so rural yet it’s right on the motorway!
Eva seems to be grieving. She’s not eating a lot, not drinking a lot, being mopey and just generally making us quite sad. Her and Amelie seem to be getting on really well, though. Playing loads, leaving each other alone when they need to, chilling out together. It’s quite lovely to see them looking after each other.
I still don’t think I’ll get used to Teagan not being around. It’s so horrible to come through the door and only see one of them sitting there.
Our littlest girl passed away in the night. We don’t know how or why; all we really know is that life sure can fling some shit at you at times.
We’re going to miss her so much. I just can’t believe this.
No time.
Time has just disappeared this evening. I’ve been trying to put together a preliminary concept for a new design for the site. It’s going to incorporate a couple of new areas, so it’s not right around the corner but the design is something I’ve been wanting to do for absolutely ages. That’s the problem when you work with really talented designers; they make it look so easy and you’re like “I can totally do that” - then you go to do it and it turns out you can’t! The new design is going to be based around excellent type, and a greater observation of spacing. Basically it’ll hopefully show some acknowledgment of uniformity and at least make an effort, unlike the current layout.
I’ve been reading type sites forever, and it’s given me a great big love of yellow and black so, unless everything changes drastically, that’s what we’ll be going with!
Exciting.
(Widow. Sorry Matt)
Today has been a day of medium to heavy overeating, with an emphasis on apple-goods. I’m not normally a fan of stewed apple, but these are really smooth and light.
Sadly, today has also been a day of complete lack of inspiration. I can’t seem to layout the text for my new layout and it’s driving me crazy. I want to keep it simple, but simple-looking != simple-doing. I’m really going to have to look at a few more sites before I do this, I think. Damned internet.
This building is a bit ludicrous. It’s down by Southampton train station, an area I like to call the concrete jungle. Largely because of the fact that there are 3 or 4 massive buildings, which constitute around 2 blocks of pure concrete. They are a bit of an eyesore, but I love them!
This is the HSBC building (though it never looks very busy, I don’t know how used it is). I’ve always meant to take a photo of it, but I’ve never been able to see the building as I want it to be recorded, so I never have. Today, we both felt a bit rough whilst wandering through town, and this building just presented itself as a great abstract/lines subject so I thought I’d use it to test out my new memory card. I got a whole bunch that I liked, but they’re all pretty similar so no need to post!
Happy weekend!
