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After going to TEDxBrisbane and seeing Dallas Clayton’s video on publishing “An Awesome Book” I have been feeling inspired to self publish a book. I’ve also been reading a few old zines, the FaT GiRL zines from the 90s in particular, and I thought I’d start out by publishing a zine on body image – your body image.

So, I put up a question on a Google Form: Tell me about your body in 10 words or less.

Lots of people have contributed their statements already! Some of them are sad, some are funny, but all of them speak to me of honesty and struggle.

So, how do you feel about your body? You can contribute too. You don’t have to put your real name, but a name is nice because I can illustrate your words and then attribute those words to you. The end product will be an A5 sized zine – I am yet to figure out the details, but I hope to have enough interest in the book to have it colour printed. I will also make the zine available online for free.

If you’re interested in a printed zine, please let me know so I can start figuring out numbers!

I came across The Colour thanks to Mishy, and spent a good 45 minutes browsing through the collection of fantastic Australian creative talent. I thought I’d do an art/ illustration/ design curation of fance based on talent I found through The Colour.

Laura La Rayna, a performer particularly noted for her aerial ring prowess. Laura worked with Brisbane institution the Vulcana Women’s Circus and now lives in Melbourne.

I have known Lilly Piri as an online friend for a few years now, which is funny considering she used to live just a little bit away from me! She’s now in Heidelberg with her husband and fellow awesome illustrator Heiko.

Sarah Hickey’s work is new to me, but I was instantly drawn to the bright colours and the clashing textures in her work. This piece in particular is very Mucha-esque but a lot of her work is inspired by Catholic iconography.

Matt Huynh is a Sydney-based illustrator who self publishes comics. I really liked this piece in particular because it evokes a sense of panic and loss of control within me. Not a particularly fancy theme, I know, but it’s illustrated beautifully.

Ahh Kat Macleod, I will forever envy your loose yet elegant style! Kat is one of the luminaries of the Australian illustration scene in recent years, and has done an incredible amount of really fabulous and consistent work.

Go check out The Colour – you can collect your favourite images and even contribute Australian creative talent yourself. I think it could be an amazing local ffffound-like resource!

One rather exciting thing that happened recently was that I was one of six featured lettering artists in How magazine’s 25th anniversary issue.

See, there I am! The write up was really lovely too and made me feel all busy and important. If you’d like to read the page I was profiled on, take a gander over here. Thanks How!

I love fiddly things that take hours to finish – it’s almost like a type of meditation for me (the girl who can’t shut her brain up to do actual factual meditation!) Recently I started playing with tiny bits of cut paper because I loved the patterns they formed as well as the meditative aspect. I’ve made a few cards with this technique to give to family members and friends, and I was thinking about selling similar ones on Etsy but I need to work on how much time I spend on each card while still maintaining the effect, because I know people probably won’t spend too much per card (even if they are pretty!)

I may get out my Gocco and print up some designs in the next few weeks, ready for cutting and pasting tiny bits of pretty paper!

Alannah Hill has completely ripped off the “Once Upon” logotype that was designed by Tabitha Emma for the show of the same name. Yep – that’s the show I was recently part of. I’m pretty shocked, to tell you the truth, because I have admired their dresses for years from afar. Apparently this isn’t the first time they’ve dabbled in copyright theft either: I’ve just found out that some Alannah Hill dresses are copied from indie designers too! After hearing all of this news, I’m not so bitter that the label won’t extend their collections to plus sizing.

This kind of thing is completely uncool. It’s hard enough to be a young graphic designer or illustrator and working your butt off to break in to the market, while big brands are just plucking whatever they like off the internet for their own means. Google Image Search is not your own personal OR professional stock images collection. I don’t care if you’re Alannah Hill, whoever she hires for graphic design work, or ANYONE!

I’m pretty pissed off right now and I hate to post on such a sour note, but graphic designers are sick to death of being ripped off like this – especially by big companies who should have legal departments AND in-house/ contracted graphic designers who know better and should advise against this sort of disgusting practice.

Boo Alannah Hill. As a graphic artist and someone who likes fancy clothes, I’m really disturbed by this.

ETA
Because this post is getting a few hits, I want to make clear that the original logotype was designed by Tabitha Emma, not me! I am a part of the indie art/ design scene in Australia and I wanted to support Tabitha and Once Upon, who’ve welcomed me into the community with open arms. We are a tight knit group of young Aussie creative people, and it’s just sad we have to defend each other’s work from being plagiarised wholesale!

@LeeLooDogBlog posted a list of the stores where confirmed sightings of the decals have been recorded: Chatswood, Paddington, Pitt Street, Doncaster. If you’ve seen the copycat decal in a store you’ve walked past, please take a photo and post it on Twitter for @LeeLooDogBlog.

I hope desktop number 12 finds you well, it’s the culmination of a whole year in my creative practice and a milestone of commitment for me. At the beginning of the year I had the idea to do monthly desktops on a whim but I’m really proud of myself for sticking with it because I have learnt so much and used the exercise as a way to explore my own visual language.

People have asked me if I’ll continue doing these desktops in 2010, and you know what? I probably will. I’ve thought about doing other regular and ongoing projects, but none of the ideas I’ve come up with have really been as practical and useful as monthly desktops! Thank you so much if you’ve used my desktops throughout the year, I always feel an odd mixture of pride and embarrassment when I see them on people’s computers and phones.

I have done a special limited release desktop for Blanket subscribers only this month. If you subscribe, I hope you enjoy it, however if you don’t subscribe go and grab December’s issue because there’s an interview with me in it!

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320×480 – iPhone

240×320 – mobile phone

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.
You may not upload this desktop to other websites, nor may you use it for any other purpose than to wallpaper your desktop. This also means it’s uncool to alter it and reupload it somewhere as your own work. Soz

I just stepped into the 21st century the other week: I got an iPhone. The best part about having an iPhone is having an iPhone – they’re just so lovely and sleek and well designed. It’s like having the internet by my side, where ever I am (so long as I have Optus coverage!) I’ve used the Epicurious app to look up recipes, found my way to the airport with Google maps, and freed up about two hours a day where I don’t have to sit at my iMac.

The one app I’ve not downloaded is an augmented reality app. I’m not entirely sure I want my reality augmented, because it’s hard enough trying to separate the fact from the fiction. Governments lie to us, the pictures we look at aren’t especially truth, and anyone with enough money can bias anything. Augmented Reality has scared me, insofar as it could just be another veil to rip off. Luckily, at the moment, Augmented Reality has kept itself to small, amusing and sometimes useful things – like this month’s issue of Esquire magazine, demonstrated in the above video.

I can’t deny that it’s cool – it’s actually really super awesome in terms of providing even more content. I just worry that if I choose not to opt into Augmented Reality, that I’d miss out on things – and I’m the sort of person with enough privilege who can choose to opt in and out!

What do you think? Have you seen any other cool/ scary examples of Augmented Reality?

Today I went to the Brisbane Finders Keepers markets on a whim, despite being apprehensive about being amongst such talent and gorgeous knick knackery. I got this vintage dress in the mail last week, so I decided to seize the day (and the overcast weather) and wear it out before it gets really really hot. “Nana chic” really appeals to me so I am very glad to have another dress that I can wear with my pewter patent “Nana shoes” (even though they give me blisters!) I’m squinting in the photo because I thought my sunglasses completely wrong for the outfit, thus you get this furrowed brow!

Dress – beesipea on etsy
Shoes – Roberto Figini
Belt – Yours Clothing
Bag – Satchi

You might notice I look slightly shorn on one side… After agonising over this hairstyle for a month or so I decided to go ahead with it. Most of my friends know I care approximately naught for what other people think about what I do with my body and I’m pretty sure it’s a hairstyle that divides opinion, but I’m really enjoying it so far!

My favourite stalls from the Finders Keepers Brisbane markets included:

• Kim Wallace of Udessi – lovely ceramics pressed with doilies and pieces of lace.
• Cherrymorris – an accessory label featuring these fantastic cast pewter pieces.
• Miss Amy Lane – very whimsical millinery that I was completely drooling over. Had I the money, I would commission a top hat for my husband because it would look so awesome on him!
• Lola & Bailey – jewellery designers who have created pieces I have lusted after for years! I actually bought a Dial D necklace today, and I’m already planning outfits around it!

My new Lola & Bailey necklace! ♥

I also went past the Leeloo stall but I was too shy to go up and say hello. I’m such a fool! I could have let Angela know that my Once Upon piece might be a day late, as I posted it on Friday. Nick thinks I’m totally silly for not introducing myself!

I’m glad I went to the markets, but I do feel like I ought to be stepping my game up a bit – to use an oft abused phrase! I have so many ideas but I just don’t know how to even begin to start manufacturing things… so I end up making a huge amount of prototypes and then store them away somewhere, or give them away to my loved ones. I keep thinking “if only I had enough money to do x” or “if I had enough capital I could set up a store” and I always trip myself up over details and get so overwhelmed that I keep my plans on a shelf. Next year I am going to start creating as much as possible, and putting those things up for sale straight away without worrying about creating a whole stable of products first. The most important thing is to at least start selling things in order to build up a bunch of money I can do even more fabulous things with. It’s exciting and scary, and I’ll probably need your moral support!

A couple of weeks ago I was notified that I’d been picked by Pilgrim and Stefan Sagmeister as a finalist in the “Happy” design contest on Red Bubble. I was pretty stoked (read: squealing) to be hand picked out of all the entries, because Mr Sagmeister’s approach towards graphic design is one I am very influenced by.

My prize was a copy of Stefan’s 2001 monograph “Made You Look“, complete with a personal message scrawled in his own distinct penmanship. I don’t get to buy books often, especially the most luxe of design and art books, so this is one I will put in the “pool room” along with the Marian Bantjes – Fox River Paper promotional booklet that I managed to get shipped over to Australia by a kind fellow designer!

The book is infused with the spirit in which Sagmeister undertakes all of his work. Written by Peter Hall with loads of hand written notes, his story to date is fascinating and inspiring and speaks of his quest to design things with meaning and heart.

This little flick animation is just one of the surprising things in the book! I love how I felt encouraged to really use the book, as if it wanted me to pour over it and find all it’s little secrets.

Thank you so much Red Bubble and Stefan!

I am addicted to Google Reader and the treasure chest of inspiration it offers me, but with so many fabulous blogs out there in internet land, it’s very easy to get congested and overwhelmed. I recently did a massive purge because I was finding it very difficult to keep up with all my feeds however when I came across these blogs, I couldn’t resist adding them to my Reader. (And I haven’t regretted it!)

Distillate is an Australian blog that covers design, craft, food and living stylishly. I know there are a bunch of blogs that cover this “niche” but it’s nice to read an Australian blog on an internet that assumes everyone is American!

I’m not sure how I ran across Lauren Rae Holtermann’s blog “Holtermonster“! It covers her own illustration practice as well as her take on the world, and I often find myself cracking up at her posts!

I’m going to be honest with you, I’ve been following OutsaPop Trashion for a long time… but I don’t think I’ve ever declared how much I love her blog! Ms Outi posts tons of fashion inspiration and her own “trashion” tutorials. Trashion is all about reclaiming “trash” materials and turning them into fashion, and she’s absolutely inspired me in my own use of reclaimed objects to make accessories!

Lauren is the Pocket Rocket, a sassy blogger covering fashion for plus sizes. I love that she not only reviews plus size fashion but also straight sized fashion – even though plus sizes can’t buy lots of stuff off the rack, doesn’t mean we can’t be influenced by OTR or haute couture trends!

Spokes ‘n’ Daggers is a gorgeous (Australian!) blog written by Gaby and Jane featuring utterly beautiful things like photography, fashion, movie stills and design. I’m always surprised and enamored of every post!

Pimp your favourite new blogs in the comments, or on your own blog! (Feed my blog addiction, go on!)

ETA: Oooh! If you use Google Reader, add me on there! My shared items are here – I’m not entirely sure how it all works, but if you add me I’ll be able to add you back