Category Archives: Friends

Follow-Up

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I meant to write a follow-up about Beck’s Canvas exclusive preview party last week but I found myself being busy redesigning the gloves online shop which seems to be a much bigger design project than I could’ve imagined. Not just design-wise there’s also a lot of code hacking and tweaking. It’s fun, it’s definitely a learning curve and adds to the skills department. Odd thing is -or perhaps the positive side- that I noticed some are charging £1000,- for an ecommerce redesign and it doesn’t look half as good as what I’m doing [and I ain’t bragging].

I wonder if I might have missed an opportunity or perhaps I’m creating a new one… The ‘garden landscaper’ website is almost finished and hopefully will be going live next week, I’m waiting for hosting details. Once that’s online I could start one for Monica, another that will be exciting and challenging. Yes life is busy and focused… In the meantime I’m suffering from a serious cold and high fever since a few days now. Not fun while it’s also 28C° in my office, I’m gonna keep it short so I can get away from the computer every now and then and rest a bit.

About Beck’s Canvas… I went to Farringdon to pick up MvdM. from work, we took the Circle line to High Street Kensington, from there we walked passed the Dutch embassy to the Royal Academy of Arts where the paparazzi was waiting for us outside. Later at the reception I was told that some celebrities were expected, some were actually there. No I did not ask, I just stared… *hehe* My friend KB. and her partner missed their connection so they showed up an hour later. In the meantime MvdM. and I went in, went straight to the bar for a drink -because waiting for others makes you thirsty- and had a look at the exhibition.

I wasn’t allowed to take pictures of the exhibition but kindly received some through the PR agency which I will show below. My favourite label was by Riitta Ikonen, she’s got some cool stuff on her website. I love her sense of humour, have a look at her amazing mail art and her ‘Snowflake project’. I really like her artwork that’s used on the label of Beck’s. And since I was allowed to take pictures of the reception I will leave you now with a small selection. I had a great evening, got slightly intoxicated, met some really nice people and bought a lovely chocolate ice cream on my way home to match my dress…

ps I received my friends invitation this morning and only realised today that next week I’ll be in Scotland, time flies! She told me she had received lots of wonderful reactions about the invitation [which I designed for her] and I’m so looking forward to seeing her! She was in the Lowlands and brought back purple plastic wine glasses from the Hema for the party. Only Dutch would see the fun in that and especially those who live abroad *hehe* There is no such thing as Hema anywhere else… which is a true shame. We love our Hema!

© Beck’s, The labels and artwork

By Riitta Ikonen

Preview party

Preview party

Preview party

Mental Detour

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The weather has been pants for a few days now: I’ve had thunderstorms and vertical rain. I don’t really mind because I don’t have to go anywhere and have been extremely busy sorting out chores that have been on the to-do-list for ages already. I finally started to mend some dresses and skirts and I finally finished my chocolate satin dress. I don’t know what happened but last week one thing led to another and all of a sudden I was sick and tired of the mess that has been lying around for some time now waiting for me to fix it or finish it. Oh… I remember what caused it: be prepared to dive into my warped mind…

Last Friday I received a wonderful surprise in the post all the way from New York, the package from Ismoyo that I’d won a while ago. Thank you, it’s totally sweet! So I wanted to take some pictures, I always take pictures of everything and that’s what it all started: me wanting to take pictures. I have a small desk near the window where my sewing machine sits and it’s the best spot to take pictures since the light conditions are always perfect. But the desk was piled up with dresses that needed fixing. So basically I ended up cleaning up the mess. Halfway I decided to sort out my CD collection too, all the archive CDs that is.

And before I knew it I was throwing out stacks of old CDs that my Mac refused to read and burning Gigs to DVD, reorganising years of archiving. Then I got all hyper and realised that I only have two LaCie Porsches that I really needed to sort out because I don’t have the extra backup space anymore. Well I do basically but it needs a lot of reorganising. So while working on websites for clients I suddenly realised that if one of those Porsches would crash I would have a serious problem: I don’t have the extra backup available, the second Porsche became home to my music collection instead.

What happened next is that I started my online research for internal and external HDs to see if I could afford one. I asked Christiaan for advice since I had a slight idea what I wanted but wasn’t sure if that was the best option but he confirmed my feeling *thank you!*. So I decided to buy an extra 500Gig internal HD since that is the cheapest way for now and I do need to invest in this if I don’t want to get myself into trouble. Over the weekend I ended up wasting time waiting for others to help me so I lost a few hours there but have been catching up these last few days.

Why the detour you wonder? Because I need to get rid of clutter: all the clutter around me on desks, the clutter on my Mac which used to be organised but most of all the clutter in my head. I’m probably over-criticising myself again because some from the past told me I was the most organised person they’d ever met and I guess I can see why. But you see, I can’t design new projects if I don’t have a neat place to work: neat place clean of clutter means no clutter but room in my head… So I decided to throw out and declutter starting with the pile of clothes waiting to be mended.

And since I finally have a clean window desk I finally took some pictures. Now if you’ll excuse me I need to get back to decluttering so I can start some web design soon!

I’ve finished my chocolate satin dress, more mending to be done…

Lovely surprise in the post all the way from NY

Cute Japanese generosity I received from Ismoyo, thank you so much! :)