Impressions of London

For this project we had to make 8 A6 post cards based upon our experiences of living in London.

I started with a london tube map, then I erased all of the stations that I didn't care about and filled the map up with my memories.

Then I edited it down to just the more eastern part of London, as that's more my part of London.

However, I then felt that London really is the centre, and that I ought to focus on that rather than the east end.
Once I had got the memory stations sorted out I chose the ones that I felt were the strongest memorys, which were: hyde park, Earls Court, Tower Hill, London Bridge, South Kensington, Trafalgar Square, Parliament Square and Euston Station.

I then got Gracey to accompany me about London, photographing me in the location of my memorys with appropriate props. This was part of a deal whereby I would then film her practising polo for her Jack Wills seasonaire video competition, which I'll have to put together for her and will probably be on my youtube channel at the time of reading this if you want to see it.

Then once I had a photograph of me in each place with my props I made them black and white to represent the past aspect of it, turned them into post cards and then wrote messages on the back, I typed the message out first and then had to edit it down to fit on when I wrote it in pen, here are my original sentiments:

Hyde Park:

Dear Grace and Neil, do you remember when we sat here on a sunday afternoon? We'd had a small party at my house the evening before, and then instead of going to sleep we dressed up smart and visuited Buckingham Palace before going to Hyde Park. I must confess my brain wasn't in the most well functioning state, but I enjoyed sitting in the sun here and drinking a tiger beer with you both.

Earls Court:

Dear Elena, because you're short sighted and don't wear your glasses when we meet (neither do I but at least I have contacts) I'd imagine you don't remember this scene; but I was enthralled to see that the Tardis is parked outside your closest tube station. You walked me back to your fathers house whilst he was away in Australia and we had that awkward moment where neither of us really knew where my hand that came around you ought to be.

Tower Hill:

Dear Ollie and Jack, this was the first time I smoked a joint in zone 1, and had all the thrills of fucking wih the system near the middle of the system. We were on our way to see Nick up in Tottenham. On the way back we saw a real life dead person at the bottom of the escalator of Tower Gateway, the first time I had ever seen a dead man in the flesh. I learnt from that experience how to tell if someone is dead: the paramedics stop bothering.

London Bridge:

So many fond memorys here! There is Cable, of course, where I took you Ollie to show you what the London club scene was like. It is where I met you Elena, where I headbutted you Becky, where I set Grace up with Steve and where me and Chloe lost our minds for a short time. Then at the Cross Gaming Club I played my first game of Infinity, and decided that it did well and truly smash Warhammer off.

South Kensington:

Alex and Tom, thankyou for inviting Grace and I to yours for Valentines day, it was very sweet of you to get me a card and a red and pink rubber duck considering we hadn't met. We drank your flat dry and I made a fool of myself trying to fix a chair on the way out. Next time something is that much of a struggle to put back in I'll be sure to try turning it 90 degrees sooner rather than later!

Trafalgar Square:

Billy! Do you remember last year when we tried to sell portraits around London tourist spots as part of a graphic design project? We only sold a few, and truth be told the best charicature I ever did was one of the practice ones I did in halls the night before, but all of customers paid up, so in the end we had only a small loss. And I still learnt a valuable lesson, if you can't go up and proposition people then you won't make any money unless you're already famous, but you can't make it to being famous without pushing yourself on people to begin with.

Parliament Square:

Dear Grace and Annie, I'm sure you'll remember well when we went to watch the royal wedding. We camped out all night, sleeping with our heads on the curb. It was at that time that I discovered why tramps are always drunk, it's impossible to sleep on the streets sober! Although we all felt quite groggy the next day it was still a good experiance, and a far cry from a few months prior when I was protesting outside the houses of parliament!

Euston Station:

Dearest Tara, I remember how I'd stand here, expectantly watching for when your train would get in from Watford Junction, and then I'd run down to the platform so that one of, if not THE first things you saw when you got off the train was me, and then at the end of your visuit I'd bring you back. Or I'd get the train to you from here, this station felt like the gateway between us. The gate is shut now, but I don't think I'll forget it.

Then I stuck a stamp on and addressed them to the place where the memory happened. As a final perversion I put my 8 post cards into an envelope.

Here's how they looked in my portfolio:
Thus concludes my 2nd year of graphic design. It's been a good year, I much preferred the first year though. Having a project every week really kept me motivated, I know that it's a weakness within myself that needs addressing, but I find that when I have a lot of time to do things I will after the initial buzz of an idea leave projects to simmer until closer to the time of serving. Which isn't the way it should be as my graphics work isn't food and doesn't need to be hot, it needs to be well done, which means cooking it at full power for aaaages. But enough of my cooking metaphors, I'm annoyed we finished so early really, I would have been happy to have had another project. Here's hoping I can get some fun designery stuff to do over the summer. Here's looking forward to the third year.