10 things that inspire me

1. Friends - Most of my friends are interested in the arts, not specifically graphic design but also fashion, and fine are. This inspires me because i gain a wide range of the different arts and different processes that i sometimes like to try in my work.
2. Architecture - Since i was very young i loved architecture and wanted be an architect myself, but it didn't turn out that way, but my love for it is still strong. One of my favourite blogs for getting my fix of architecture is http://archidose.blogspot.co.uk  this blog shows interesting buildings from around the world. My work is loosely inspired by architecture as you can get some interesting shapes from them that are usually geometric, a style that i have a great interest in.
3. Tumblr - Ive had tumblr a fair few years now but recently i have changed how i interest with it. i found that its a great place to look at other peoples designs and different styles of work, not just nice clothes and cute animals. here are a few blogs that are more favourite http://nyctype.co         http://michalva.tumblr.com          http://graphicdesignandtattoos.com
4. Instagram - Instagram is a great escape as not everything is about design, you can find things from fashion to great blogs on plants and even personal blogs of selfies. Its a good app that allows you to tune out find out what other people are doing in images not words, But you can also find very good art blogs that can be very inspiration, its similar to tumblr but is a lot more personal to you thats what makes is so great.
5. Pinterest - I love Pinterest its a great place to just admire other peoples work and again inspiration for your own design. Just one just search of one of two words will bring up thousands of images that could possibly give your work a new direction. Pinterest is one is my guilty pleasure and my main go to website when I'm stuck on where to start. 
6. Current advertisements - these are great inspiration as they get me thinking about how i interest with them, and what in the advert has made me think something or go ahead and do something. Things like this influence how i work as it makes me more aware of my audience and consider how they are going to interest with my work.
7. Behance - Is a great website to look at other people work, as most of it is at a professional level, this makes me want to push my work to be on a similar level. 
8. Leeds - Living alone is leeds has been a big influence as its made me a lot more aware of my surrounding and in starting to notice things in the city a lot more now and appreciate them, especially with my love of architecture.
9. Interior design and self projects - I recently came across a website called http://karapaslaydesigns.com  while searching for inspiration for my paisley designs. I love self projects creating new thing from old and this website shows you how she made beautiful things for her interior designs, as well as inspiration for designs for your home. 
10. Sagmeisters and Walsh - Always has and always will love his design work, Its abstract style, use of bright colour and shapes in his work has always had me interested and inspired me to play a lot more with colour than i usually would. His playfulness when using and creating type has me mesmerised as its completely different to other peoples work with type.

Creative Practice - John Peel lecture

From listening to the john peel lecture i has make me take into great consideration why i and other people create art. He made a goo point about how people used to create art as a past time to unwind after they finish their “proper” jobs. In todays era it is possible to earn a living from creating art and also be successful with it and make a career from it, many years ago this would of been unthinkable. He said in his lecture something about when wealth increase art activity increase, and that it is impossible to create art when starving, this made me think about how poverty decreases creativity as the poorer people dont have time to think about art in a serious way as they need to do things and even money to eat and live, these points he made link in with culture and how art is in many of the choices we make daily, creative or not.

He describes art as “everything that you dont have to do” this implies that its a choice, you can't be forced to do art or nothing good will become of it, you have to choose to create it. In the lecture he says art can be considered as out clothes choice, tattoos, plastic surgery, as they are all things that we dont need to do but choose to do, similar to cooking we need to eat to survive but we dont need to bake cakes, and create weird and inventive foods, we just choose to keep ourselves and others interested.

Television soaps can be considered as an a art piece, as people like to talk about them and interpret them in their own way. They feel that they can talk about a soap differently than they would if it was a real life event or something that had happened to them as it may be too sensitive, so they talk freely about a soap and discuss it differently to real life events.

‘Art’ gives you a chance to have feelings about things that aren’t dangerous to us and we can either choose to move alway from it so we dont have to look or we can switch it off so we dont have to hear it, unlike with real life.

“Art is a safe place for you to have feelings that are dangerous and you can have them because you can leave them and its not real”

book mentioned -

Mans rage for chaos : biology, behaviour and the arts - ‘arts is the exposure to the tension and problems of a false world in order that man may endure the tension and the problems of the real world’

Keeping together in time :Dance and drill in human history, by William H. McNeill - book about dancing and carnivals and situations where people synchronise with each other 

Dancing in the streets, by Barbara Ehrenreich

Study task 1 - Getting to know people

Ah ha studios started in 2010 by Carlin Cantante and Catarina Carreiras. the both started out as friends from university and it started out as an experiment and wasn't taken very serious (could be considered the reason of rather success)They pride themselves in providing a very personal service and tangible working closely with their clients to create a large variety of independent projects. Their style of work uses basic shapes, a limited colour pallet to create very simplistic designs that are also very abstract. They get inspiration from different places and putting their own abstract twist to them, heverly influenced by the travelling they did together.

Hey studios was founded by veronica fuerta in 2007 and is based in Barcelona. it started out as a shop selling tshirts with her designs on and has now expanded into a business that does brand identity and illustrations. Their designs are very geometric in style and colour is a huge influence in their work. hey studio is now a company of fie people that work one on one doing consultations for companies they are going to work with. In the past they have worked with apple, mr porter, cbs, vodafone and oxfam.

Sagmeister & Walsh is a company of four people, sagmeister himself, Jessica Walsh and two other designers. They are based in New York and it was originally just sagmeister himself. They specialise in brand identity, environmental design, animation, advertisements and also web design. Their work is known for the bright playful colours heavenly influenced by the 6o's and 70's pop art.

Hey Days studios is a Norwegian design agency based in Oslo. The company consists of 6 people that collaborate with other freelances. They create design solutions for big and small companies, designing their website, rebranding and creating them an identity. In their work they like to 'challenge the established truth' and create minimalist designs that are simple and creative with their material.

LUST

Lust is a graphic design studio that started in 1996 and is based in the Netherlands. They create book designs, and abstract pieces of design using a traditional print based media. They have a sub studio thats called LUSTlab, which the lust lab website says: "LUSTlab researches, generates hypotheses and makes unstable media stable again. According to LUSTlab, the future of digital media lies in the design of its use. Humanizing the unhuman, bringing the internet down to earth and finding the missing link between the digital and the physical. The outcomes vary from (strategic) visions to new communication tools, man-machine installations and physical products using digital content."

Studio Dumbar is an agency that started up in 1977, it is a dutch company that is the third most awarded design outfit after apple. They have studios in South Korea and China. They focus on creating branding and process management going about it in a abstract manner that is geometric in style and like to create controversial design that sometimes isn't legible.

BUILD

Build is a London based studio that started up in 2001 consisting of four designers and has recently moved to Yorkshire in 2015. The studio is internationally recognised for its work on branding and brand identity. One example of their most recent work is the rebrand of made.com. Their work is very type oriented using simple san serif fonts and a limited colour palette, their work is very flat and contemporary as they try to keep it very modern. 

Elmwood studio started up in 1997 and is based in leeds, but now has studios in London, Singapore, Hong Kong and Melbourne. They Specialise in Branding and Packaging. they are described as "the worlds most effective brand design consultancy." The company has designed its own design tools to work with, and has also get its own bran of tea and beer. The company pride themselves in not having a style only designing exactly what the client has asked for.

Bleed is a multidisciplinary design company that has offices in Oslo and Vienna. They create identities , art direction and company culture, creating 2d and 3d design. Their design style is simplistic and uses selective colour and geometric space.

FACE

Face studio was founded in 2006 in Mexico by two people, and now they employ ten designers. Their work is super modernist design and branding of products, and is inspired by the local culture. All their work is based on making sure the customers needs are attended to by trying to be honest when branding, they have questions that they give clients called ‘your homework’ so that they the information they need to create exactly what the client wants.

Dessein was founded in 1987 in Perth by Geoff Bickford and Tracy Kenworthy and they now have studios and also employ a diverse range of designers that are Italian, Korean as well as Australian. They specialise in branding, packaging and web design, creating work that is modern, clean and colourful. Quote that they like to say is  “solve it, brand it, print it, stream it, make it.” It is important for the company to know their clients values so that they can tailor they designs around this.