doing work.

web site development, this is my current desktop with all my windows opened. What a mess. I have been picking at my portfolio site all day and getting somewhere with it. I feel bad I haven't left my flat yet today as the sun is slowing going down outside my window.

poster

I made this poster about advertisement tonight as well. It will correspond with the presentation and me a possible take away item. I'm thinking of a folding book that unfolds into a poster on the backside.

Do work.

Today i accomplished work. I'm finally getting onto using Neo Office, which is an open source program and much better then Microsoft office. I'm working on a presentation that compares and contrast advertisements in the States to London. There are small bits I notice day to day and want to look into it more. This is the start.

Dim sum.

I had my first ever proper Dim Sum Chinese meal on Sunday for my friend Qings birthday. Dim Sum is the name for a Chinese cuisine which involves a wide range of light dishes served alongside Chinese tea. Yum Cha(literally "drinking tea") is the term used to describe the entire dining experience. We went to Imperial China in China town. It was amazing, I would of had no idea what to order if I went on my own so it was a good thing we went for her birthday. Even the little bunny looking squash things tasted awesome.
I'm in the same building as Qing on the right and Katharine on the left. Happy Birthday Qing.

green day.

A fifteen year old dream of mine finally came true on October 22nd. It took me six years and living in London to get to a Green Day Concert. I have grown up listening to the band who has now been around for at least twenty years. The concert was the O2 in London. the O2 is just a massive indoor venue in London which holds around 22,000 people and is host to many international acts, shows and concerts. The age rang of people at the show was huge, from young groups of boys with their mom and dads, to older men who have listened to Green Day for years now. I took a few pictures and captured a video, needless to say it was amazing! The stage performance put on by those guys was great and much more then I expected to see.

paris in a day.

Last Thursday my parents and I took a day trip to Paris France. The only downfall was sleeping on the hotel floor the night before to wake up at 4am to get a cab to the train station and catch the Eurostare to Paris. The perk of it was that I got to go to PARIS FRANCE!! The train was a two and half hour trip under the English channel and through the countryside of France. Once in Paris we didn't stop moving, we jumped a bus around town for a quick sightseeing trip on our way to the Eiffel tower which was followed by a river cruise, then off to the Louvre and our last stop at the Opera. We did it all in one day, amazing. It was really fun to be able to take a trip out of London with my parents and see a whole new world in Paris. I hope they enjoyed it as much as I did.

For my parents it was London in a week and Paris in a day. I hope they survived the week that was filled with endless walking, sight seeing and dealing with a bit of jet lag. The week had zoomed by with classes during the day, followed by sight seeing in London and getting home to get some work done. It was all worth it, getting to see my parents half a world away from home. I might have been more tired then they were. My time in London is going fast and I best enjoy what i have left. I'm planning a few weekend trips away from the city to see some more of the country and hopefully make my way to Dublin for a weekend. Its all so close and rather cheap to get to.

A little of this and a little of that. A week summed up in photos.

mom and dad, by Big Ben
Fish and Chips
Paris, France
Louvre, Paris
Effel Tower, Paris

found this.

A friend of mine brought me to Masion Bertaux in Soho today and showed me a art installation by Jonsi and Alex of Riceboy Sleeps. There were some amazing pieces hidden around the corners of the entire second floor of the cafe.

It just so happens the owner of the cafe is also a art dealer and sells the pieces. She had a limited run of signed prints for sale, so I picked on up.

Parents week.

October came so fast. My parents had been planning the big trip across the pond to the mighty UK for a few months now and now they are here. After an hour in the tube I arrived at Heathrow airport only to walk out from the tube and see My mom and dad waiting for me. I had planned to be their before them and had a sign made welcoming them to London.

Their first big day in London I dragged them to the first place that pops into peoples mind, Buckingham Palace. After our visit to the queens quarters we ventured around the parks and towards the Hour of Parliament and Big Ben. Four hours later we had walked enough for a day and ended our day at a Pub near Kensington eating a pub favorite of fish and chips.


This entire week has been filled with seeing the sights and running around town with my parents. Its been amazing! Its good to be a tourist in the city where you are living. Its good i have some sense where I'm going day to day and know how to get around on the tube. My dad seems to know more about some bits of London then I did. He did his research.


After some time in my courses I'm getting into some of the lectures and projects we are working on. My web production class might not be exactly what I expected. I walked into a PC based lab and he told us to open dreamweaver. In the course I will have time to get a new updated website for my personal work.

Besides for for my parents in town and a week of classes, everything in still great in London. Even better, get to have a day excursion to Paris! I'm going to need a vacation after this week. After all the walking, hours on tube and nights of class work i will be burnt out.

I also entered my resume into a competition as well as some pictures for a chance to win some cash. Here's a few of the pictures. Maybe i can make a income off of winning some stuff in London.

its rains here.

Yesterday London was overcast all day and rained for the majority of that day. I better get used to it rather quick, from here on out till I leave it will be getting colder and raining more. I still ventured off to Oxford street to snap a shot of a war memorial in Liberty (a fancy shop on regent street) for a professor back at MCAD. I also got some paperwork taken care of at the central hub for University of the Arts London. The rain forced me to take the bus back to my flat which took over forty five minutes, but it was nice.

I got home soaking wet and my flatmate Matilda wanted to head right back to where I had just been for a 20% off sale at Topshop. Topshop the equivalent of Urban outfitters, it had a upstairs for guys what is called Topman. I will admit I have bought a few shirts and a new bag from Topman, but thanks to being a student I got 15% off, so its alright to spend a few pounds. By the time we got to the tube station it was the beginning of the peak hour and a massive Que to get to the platform for the train. We decided to skip it and headed to Angle. Angle is a smaller area of shops and markets. The bu there was only about fifteen Minutes, got there walked around the shops and ended our trip at a coffee shop sitting in old leather plane seats while sipping cappuccino. Last night was the first time I could see my breath in the air, shows its getting colder here. All in all the raining London day wasn't that bad I had a good time with Matilda.

hard at work.

I'm finally getting into class projects and work. I have found the class

structure at LCC to much different then that of MCAD's. Its a change that
I think I will benefit from in the end. Each day is started out in lecture
for one hour then followed by a seminar where we break away from other
marketing and advertisement students to have a discussion about the
lecture. Each class gives out one main assignment at the beginning of the
year then spend the semester working at it while picking up new
information along the way.

One of my projects is a group based marketing campaign for apples new
touchscreen tablet that has not been announced or even names yet. (Have a
look here) For the project we are to design an entire strategy for the
campaign of the product. This will include the AD design, style guide,
process book and a few other bits. It should generate a good portfolio
piece.

Everything here feels a little more laid back and almost casual. Its not
up to par with the MCAD high stressed deadlines and late night studio
work. I say that now, things could very easily change. For example on my
first day our seminar was not held because the professor failed to how up,
or there was miscommunication about who was teaching it. There is a lack
of organization here. I have a semester to go, so we will see how things
change over the next few weeks.

Here is the list of my courses in no particular order.

Resource Management
Managing Creativity
Buyer behavior
PPD 2 - which is a lecture hall
CCC 2 - Communication, culture and context - another lecture hall
Web Media Production


They all seem like good course and I will get new ideas for each of them
based on learning in another country. I'm considered a BAMA 2 student. The
whole reason I'm here, gaining a global perspective on advertising and
marketing. I also hope to do some networking while in London. I want to
get into some Design firms and see what type of work they are doing. Maybe
land a job here? Who knows, I would love to get some work experience here.
It would look amazing on a resume for back in the states.

I took the picture in the lower level of the Elephant and Castle shopping center
right across the road from LCC.

sketch

I also got a tour during my orientation of the area around the central University of The Arts building on Davis street. A graduate student who had opened her own shop in the area gave us a tour of places we would never have gone to. She took us through the Dover Street Market, Carnaby and Oxford Street. She took us to this place called Sketch, a small trendy cafe during the day and hip/retro club by night. The interior design of this place was amazing. it many cool little separate rooms available for private parties and this amazing main dance floor. I took a quick video of it.

LCC's Printshop

Today I got a chance to get a little taste of LCC's print shop and the work they do there. All the schools printing is done in house and they do outside work as well. The workshop I attended was apart of the freshers week festival and was on print production and finishing. It was a lot of information I had already picked up from working in the service bureau at MCAD, but on a much larger scale. All the tools I learned about are for large production pieces of work, like making the University's catalogs. The workshop went through book binding methoids and the finishing process for prints. I took a few pictures of the workspace, its nice.

I also got a tour of the school and received my timetable (schedule) of classes. The school in much larger then MCAD. Its something I will enjoy and be able to interact with many more studnets then I ever would have at MCAD. It will be a good semester.