my week off

So this is my second week off in 3 weeks and as always its very busy with design projects ongoing and places visited. so this post is just a recap of whats been going on. I stayed at a very posh hotel called down hall in hertfordshire at the beginning of the week and walked around a great forest in hatfield. If you look on my flickr account http://www.flickr.com/photos/eastdesign/ you will see some of my attempts at capturing some images of my travels. And i ended up in deepest darkest suffolk yesterday for some posh food and walk around some antiques shops, as its always interesting looking and researching old furniture i find. but while going here there and everywhere this week i have always got my design projects in the back of my mind and my sketchbook in tow. luckily after a slow start my current project for a variation of my coat rack is finally moving somewhere and im visiting the local blacksmith at the end of this week to see if he can start making the metal sections i require, so keep an eye on here and my twitter feed as it progresses. https://twitter.com/eastdesign  its been a while since i had a new project to show/promote so looking forward to getting this design out there.
  Also i have acquired a new mobile phone so i can now start adding to my instagram feed as well! (social media overload here) so keep an eye on that as im off to cambridge today to catch a show and have a look around. Always a great place cambridge. Some great funky shops which is always a must for designers to look in, to see whats out there and whats selling. And the river cam is always a great place for photos and people watching so expect some photos from me tday on my twitter feed. Then at the weekend im off to centreparcs which is nearby in thetford forest. A family/friend thing which im not really looking forward too, but the scenery should be lovely and will give me a chance to play around with my camera and the HDR settings on it (a mine field indeed)

so a very busy week which is great but means my holiday is going vey quickly and to be honest i wish i could have a week in the workshop to really progress all the ideas i have in my head and sketchbook. but thats life sometimes. best make my way to cambridge and enjoy the sun

a week off

So last week was a holiday for me from my day job, and I had a lot to cram into it, including being best man at my brother’s wedding. I won’t go into too much detail but it was a great day that I will remember forever and importantly the best man speech went down well. So a perfect day but I didn’t get any wedding cake!! Apart from doing other design related things including hours in the workshop and visiting blacksmiths, I took a day/half a day off and went to Southwold which is a gorgeous seaside town in Suffolk which I adore. I went there with the camera to get some inspiration and see what was new as I hadn’t been for a while. Included in this blog post is some photos I took, and to keep the design theme of this blog alive I have included two photos (should have taken more really) from a new coffee shop I went into called the two magpies bakery. www.twomagpiesbakery.co.uk/  As soon as I walked in it reminded me of the artisan coffee shops you find in London, with the open counters and fresh baked goodies to tempt you in. but one of the reasons I was tempted to go in was for the coffee. I am a coffee snob so was hoping to find somewhere closer to home that serves proper coffee, the only other place is honey and Harvey in Woodbridge,  But the two magpies did not disappoint, amazing coffee prepared properly from exotic blends. The other reason why I went in there was for the design of the place. For a start there was a theme of recyclability/reusing with the quirky idea of using rolling pins as coat hooks as you walk in, but what struck me the most were the tiles on the walls (see photo) just simple plywood slats about the size of a beer mat layered up like roof tiles. A simple but stunning look was achieved. Also the shelf stood out for me. Obviously a sculptural piece with the white rods representing a nest to tie in with the name of the bakery. But a large striking feature in this unique little shop. Which I loved. And don’t get me started on the tables and chairs! Again simple paired down designs with tubular wooden/trestle legs painted half way up with contrasting colours to add a modern minimalistic feel to the shop. Really great. Even the counters were made from what looked like reused plywood all tied together with simple white walls and pale colours for cushions/pictures. If you ever get a chance to head down this part of the country pop in, it’s a great little place. I will definitely be back there as I have to make more of an effort to go to Southwold regularly.

  The rest of my photos from my day trip/week off can be found on my Flickr account www.flickr.com/eastdesign  whilst on the topic on Flickr I really like the new redesign they are rolling out. Making the photos stand out/be more prominent and having some lovely little graphical icons to tie it all together. Great layout too with the changeable banners. Look out for more photos on there soon as I try and remember to take my camera everywhere I go, just like I try and remember to take my sketchbook with me. Also I need to put all my photos back on this blog as for some reason they have all disappeared! That will take a while! Trying to get the bottom of why they disappeared but can’t think why. Very frustrating.

  Don’t forget to keep an eye on my twitter feed to see what I’m up to design wise and day to day ramblings. just to note, for some reason I could not upload any photos to this blog post, so I need to look into that but please look at my flickr photo stream as this has all the photos from my week off including the ones showing the great design details in that coffee shop I swooned over. hopefully technical issues will be resolved soon