Hello and welcome to my first blog post of my new site design. I'm going to try and keep this updated with a mixture of updates on projects I'm working on and my thoughts on various aspects of design. Hope you enjoy it!

At the moment I am studying for an MA in Communication Design which concludes in September this year. As part of my course I have been working on an entry for this year's RSA Student Design Awards so within the next few months I will be adding that to my own portfolio, as well as a couple of other side projects I'm working on right now. Keep checking back for more information and updates!

The final project of my MA explored the theme of transformations with underlying themes of transforming time and space within my works. My work in this project has been an ongoing transformational body of work and I feel that my major outcomes for my work represent the ongoing processes I explored in my work and portray the transformational nature of my project. My work in this project is highly experimental and explores lots of different transformational processes with a view to creating dialogue with the viewer and explore these ongoing processes. 

In the MA degree show for this final project I have displayed recreations of three of my experiments; Dyeing Roses, Shibori VI and Sugar Crystal String to allow the viewer to explore the works up close. These are accompanied by observational drawings and photographs taken during the documentation of my initial experiments, capturing a single moment in the transformation and freezing it in a permanent manner.

Accompanying these three experiments is a short piece of text I wrote that sets the tone for my exhibition:

Art is not magic... But why is it not magic? In its metaphysical development essence, it is the development of a concept through skill and imagination, or does some final transformation culminating in a magic reality to enchant the viewer.  If creation is not magic, and the outcome cannot be is magical, does that make the artist no more of an artist than a magician?  

During the course of my MA I conducted a sustained investigation into mould as part of one of my projects. Initially I had intended to explore sustainable food storage and to aid with my research I set up some experiments, documenting the process of food degradation in low-tech materials such as newspaper and muslin. I chose to look at six staple foods: bread, cheese, potato, tomato, apple and meat (specifically pork, which) and wrapped these in six materials: greaseproof paper, cling film, tin foil, brown paper, newspaper and muslin, documenting on their progress daily.

As my food experiments progressed I found that my work became more focused on visually exploring mould, I was interested in the parallel of my documentation of the mould growth as a record of the passage of time so I decided to create an alternative calendar using my data. Throughout the food experiment I had been making observational drawings of the food in carbon and I used these as a basis to develop the images for my mould calendar. All of my data was colour coded and I used these colours to highlight the changes within the food.

Documenting the food experiment was a long process and I wanted my outcome to reflect that, which is why I created a calendar, to draw a parallel to the amount of time it took to gather my information in order to create the calendar itself. I also wanted to try and make the calendar visually intriguing and remove the element of disgust by abstracting the images. Mould is usually seen as horrible, dark and usually unappealing colours so my final outcome has overturned this to make the imagery much more colourful and bright.

Back in November 2011 I began working on an entry for the RSA Student Design Awards, responding to a brief titled 'Something for Everyone'. It was focused on designing something to promote intergenerational activities so I created an allotment project called 'All Four Allotments' which I entered into the awards when submissions closed last month. 

I received an email this morning informing me that I have been shortlisted for an award which is very exciting! There is a mentoring session and then an interview to go to about my project and the winners should be announced by June I think. I'm really pleased to have been shortlisted and I will keep this blog updated on the result.

I have also been asked to design a catalogue for the Print Odyssey exhibition that is going to be happening at the end of May at the Stew Gallery in Norwich. It's a 12-page newspaper catalogue and I'm really looking forward to working on it!