Tag Archives: Scotland

Follow-Up

Posted on by

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

Perfume Tag

Posted on by

I guess it was bound to happen one day… I’m tagged by my friend Wen, a fellow blogger and expat living in beautiful Malta. I must admit I’ve tried to stay away from the tagging thing that seemed to be a hype in the blogosphere at some point. I’ve managed so far but when I read her request on her blog I simply couldn’t refuse *hehe*. I’m just very aware of the fact that this is a book tag and the one book I’m still reading at the moment is the one that I’ve mentioned in my previous posts already. So I’m gonna bend the rules slightly or else it’ll become a bit of a drag to read.

The rules are:

1. Pick up the nearest book.

2. Open to page 123

3. Find the fifth sentence.

4. Post the next three sentences.

5. Tag five people, and acknowledge who tagged you.

I also won’t tag five people… Why? Because most of my readers are in hiding mode and probably too shy to take part in this, leave a comment or they simply don’t have a blog of their own. So I’m not gonna bother them unless they want to [then feel free to let me know!]. I have a slight dilemma though because rule number one tells me to pick up the nearest book. My desk is right next to my bookcase so I guess that leaves me with plenty of books to choose from. I will behave and skip my seventeen technical Bibles: PHP, Actionscripting, Flash and all the -vintage by now- Mac OS troubleshooting ones that I used back when I was a sysop.

My choice is one of the most hilarious books that I’ve ever read years ago. I will read it again once I’ve finished my other book because I’m in need of a good laugh. I wonder what’s on page 123 because some might be offended but I’ll warn you, I’m really not gonna take responsibility for the sentences that I’m about to copy below. So stop reading while you can… here goes:

‘For miles around the mountain, there lived not one human being, nor even a respectable mammal -at best a few bats and a few beetles and adders. No one had scaled the peak for decades. Grenouille reached the mountain one August night in the year 1756.’

This an excerpt taken from the book: ‘Perfume‘ -the story of a murderer, by Patrick Süskind. And lucky me it wasn’t that bad at all *hehe*

The cover from my copy of this book, old and worn…

Well, that was today’s tag… The other bit of my life is less exciting at the moment, just much of the same ol’ same ol’. I’m dying to hear from a bunch of cool people about a role very close to where I live which involves education and a CMS called Drupal. They’ve checked my online web folio twice now so please keep your fingers crossed for me, I so want this role! I’m designing an invitation for my friend IvS. in Scotland who is going to throw a party in August: my flight is already booked. I’m really looking forward to seeing her, hubby and kids again because it feels like ages, although it was last year when they came to London for the Chelsea Flower show, it’s gonna be great. 120 people are invited to the party and they will receive the invitation so it might be a good idea to leave my mark somewhere…

I’m asked to redesign a B&B website for people up north in Scotland. I’ve designed their business cards a few years ago and another website recently in February this year. I’m also still busy working on the ‘hush-hush-project’ which is another website design for a real and a virtual shop. And in between I’m working on my own new project which involves fifties design and an online shop which for now is another ‘hush-hush-project’ until the launch of the website. It’s quite a lot of work so don’t expect anything soon, I’m still in the research phase: looking for proper software because I need to be able to adjust the look and feel of the shop, reading about online payment methods because I need to know how much they charge etc. and designing content in the meantime.

Lucky me MvdM. didn’t ask me yet about his business blog project, I will have to design the templates for the blog and start writing posts for him on a weekly basis once the blog is up and running. I won’t have time to do this at the moment. Talking about time, I really need to do something about time management, but that’s another post… If you have any suggestions?