PG Live 2012

Diamond Jubilation

Tomorrow is the start of the two day specialist greeting card trade show Progressive Greetings Live 2012. I'm going to be manning the Cards For The Queen stand! We've asked all Greeting Card Association members to design cards to celebrate the Queen's Diamond Jubilee. Visitors can pick a card and write a message to the Queen; after the show we're hoping to send all mail directly to Buckingham Palace! Long live the Queen!

If you're a retailer, do come along and say hi! The show is free to attend, along with a free two course lunch and drinks throughout the day. We have over 250 greeting card publishers exhibiting, so it will be a fantastic opportunity for you to discover new products and place orders.

PG Live 2012

Tuesday 29th May: 9:30 - 18:00

Wednesday 20th May: 9:30 - 16:30

Venue

Business Design Centre

Islington, London

[Nearest tube Angel]

To register online and for more information, please click here.

I'll be taking my camera tomorrow, so proper photos coming soon!

Sharon [CEO of the GCA] and I at the Cards For The Queen stand, PG Live 2012

Cystinosis Foundation UK

Hi everyone,

I'm going to be walking 30km on the 21st June to raise money for Cystinosis Foundation UK as part of the Cardgains Charity Challenge. Your support and any donations, little or large, would be extremely welcome and most appreciated.

Cystinosis is a rare inherited condition occurring in 1 in 200,000 births, where the amino acid cystine accumulates within cells, causing damage to the kidneys, eyes, muscles, pancreas and brain. Currently there is no cure for Cystinosis, however the money raised would go towards research, improving medication and developing a cure.

Please visit my Just Giving page to make a donation.

Thank you!

Rabbit Indoctrination

Continuing on from the first sneak peak I gave you all, I ended up becoming quite attached to the Japanese style rabbit character I made, and have since branched this out into range of its own. [Those of you who have recently seen my Facebook, blog and online shops will know that this rabbit fella is now everywhere!]

The first rabbit creation was my first real dabble with the Adobe programme Illustrator; I liked the clean look as an alternative to my usual style. After the seventh design, I think I'm beginning to get the knack of it! This is my latest design, it is a good luck greeting card with the rabbit as the star of the piece.

The rabbit took the best part of a day to edit into clean vectorised lines. I've been drawing my designs out by hand, scanning them in, live tracing them on Illustrator and editing any unclean lines with the pen tool. If you're familiar with Illustrator, you'll know how time consuming this is. I'm looking to buy a graphics tablet, but until I have the funds - this method will suffice for now!

The text was created using Helvetica as a base, with multiple four leaf clovers layered on top. I'm quite pleased with how it turned out, I was a little skeptical whether it would look good or not! I do need to see how it would look on an actual A6 card, as the clovers within the text will look even smaller.

Beauty In The Making

I went to this lovely exhibition yesterday called Beauty In The Making in Victoria House basement [nearest tube Holborn]. It explores the creative processes behind things we take for granted on a daily basis, for example the paper we use, and typefaces like Helvetica at the touch of a button. We rarely give much thought to the skill and craftsmanship involved behind typography, or that there's more to paper making than simply chopping down trees.

The exhibition is very interactive, with a live demonstration of turning dyed pulp into paper, letterpressing and envelope making. Sharon and I spent a good half hour making three envelopes, so it really boggles my mind that people at GFSmith make 200 envelopes an hour by hand! We also saw the actual design plans by Eric Gill for his most famous work, the Gill Sans typeface. As well as all this, there are daily talks with different speakers for each day. Check out the Talks Programme for more information.

As part of the exhibition, we got given a lovely goody bag to go home with! This included a beautiful notebook by GFSmith, with assorted coloured paper and exposed Spanish binding.

Unfortunately when I visited Beauty In The Making, I didn't have my camera on me - but I intend to go again before it's over! This exhibition is perfect for paper and stationery lovers, make sure you visit before it finishes on Friday 27th April.