Righty, well! The observant amongst you might notice that although this post says that it was written on the 26th of September it in fact wasn’t. Basically, I’ve been up to a fair bit lately and rather than let my laziness be reflected on my site I’ll just cheat instead. So, Scooby Doo style time travel back to September….
I’ve just got back from London [ahem] where I’ve spent the last twelve days or so. A big thanks to Fash, Will, Ed and Dave for being so patient and offering me a roof over my head. I think I’ve successfully earned the title ‘squater’. The main reason for my trip was to volunteer and earn myself some valuable creative industry brownie points. However that didn’t stop me going to Fabric first… The night before I was due to start.
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|DJ Yoda Super Mario Bros Video|
The first weekend of the London Design Festival was pretty quiet, however the area around the South Bank centre was not, because all weekend it was the Thames River Festival! Kate and her bar crew were working it too so a few sneaky free cans of heineken and no tea and I was on my way for a great night. And of course Cat was working Saturday night, and so was my bestest West Country pal Brendan [kidding Kate].
Cat came up again on the Sunday with her mum and we watched the carnival and the fireworks to finish it all off. They were awesome. So awesome that in a fit of pyromania I recorded the whole display on my spangly new camera.
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|Thames River Festival Fireworks Video|
So finally the actual reason for my trip down to London in the first place [other than to escape the siege at home]. The London Design Festival was an eleven day long series of design orientated events across London. I volunteered to help out on the nitty gritty elements of running a festival but was pleasantly surprised when the rest of the volunteers and I were able to get into London and report back for the Backstage Blog.
In addition to the 7:30am starts [for the FT of course], 10 hour days, blogging, vlogging, and heavy lifting I did get to see some awesome design, learn ALOT, eat some free food and drink the occasional free beer/cocktail [simple things for simple folk]. I was also really fortunate to sit in on i-Design: Design for life talks which focused on digital design and how it is affecting, and can affect our lives. I even asked a question and referenced Bertrand Russell, I was shot down pretty quick mind.
And of course I spent 11 days with some really cool people. I’d like to thank Will [the man behind this] for giving me the opportunity to get involved, and also a big hand to Jay who would have been my podcast partner in crime had the technology worked, but instead just gave me advice on life [not a bad trade I reckon].
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|LDF Backstage Blog|
|iDesign: Design For Life Podcasts|