Chipshop awards

Winners from this year’s Chip Shop Awards. Yum.

high times

As most of our esteemed friends and associates are more than aware, this weekend just gone was my main event. I took off to Cark Airfield at Grange Over Sands, to throw myself out of a plane at 14,000 feet to raise money for stray dogs. Prophecy fulfiled!

Not off to a great start – we pitched tents friday in the middle of a mild thunderstorm with only several bog rolls, a bottle of Jagermeister and a dozen tea lights to keep us occupied. The weather didn’t improve either for saturday, so followed a big night in Grange Over Sands on saturday to drown our sorrows. It wasn’t until 8.00am on sunday that I could finally experience the pleasure (and rush) of freefall at around 120 mph on my very first skydive, what better a way to ride out your sunday morning hangover?!

I’d like to extend our personal ‘thanks a mill’ once again to everyone who made donations and made it happen. Here’s the proof just for the sceptics (you know who you are):

HIVE

Welcome to HIVE, Pennine Lancashire’s latest Creative and Digital Industries Network. This event is all about you. Come and meet the rest of your creative community and find out who else shares your dreams and challenges. Come and start to make new relationships. Launch event takes place on Thursday 24th April 2008 5.30pm – 8.00pm at KoKo’s Club, Burnley. Places are limited, please contact mary.msl@btopenworld.com or CALL 0800 977 6027 for more information.

Please sponsor

Helen Cooper from Designed Living is running the BUPA Great Manchester Run on 18 May 2008. Helen and her friend Jo have decided to support Guide Dogs, and would be really appreciative if you would support them and give her the boost she needs to take on this task. Donating through Just Giving simple, fast and totally secure. Guide Dogs will receive your money faster and, if you are a UK taxpayer, an extra 28% in tax will be added to your gift at no cost to you.

Pecha Kucha Night

The Forum : Winckley Street : Preston
Speakers from 6.30pm : Networking from 8.30pm
Entry Free : Register here

(taken from Group Hub)

Pecha what? A global phenomenon with its roots in the Japanese create scene, Pecha Kucha is a fast and furious presentation format designed to condense large portions of inspiration, information and insight into a dainty selection of creative canapes.

This event will feature 6 speakers (TBC), mostly from our own ranks, each delivering a 20-slide presentation based on things that inspire them. The rub is that each speaker will have only 20 seconds to wax lyrical about each image before it moves to the next. Result: a bite-sized creative concentrate of 6 minutes 40 seconds and huge dollop of comic potential. Creative karaoke? Kinda.

Industry Awards night

Pictures from the Industry Awards Night in Preston have been posted online. Thanks to all the crew at Group Hub if you guys are reading – twas’ a marvelous evening and the free bevvie went down at treat. For everyone who missed it you can view all the pictures here.

E4 sting vote

 

Voting for E4’s sting competition is up and running. There’s some really sweet (and not so sweet) DIY-style animation work up there so get voting now! The two E stings with the most votes will receive an E4 commission worth £15,000, with the four runners up each winning £1,500 worth of kit.

Things I Have Learned In My Life So Far

‘Things I Have Learned In My Life So Far’ is on show at Deitch Projects until Feburary 23. The show is a continuation of Stephan Sagmeister’s book of the same name which is out later this year. Each piece of work serves as a visual expression of the following things (listed below), which Mr Sagmeister has learned in life and were later to be adapted into commerical graphic design projects for his clients:

1. Helping other people helps me.

2. Having guts always works out for me.

3. Thinking that life will be better in the future is stupid. I have to live now.

4. Organising a charity group is surprisingly easy.

5. Being not truthful always works against me.

6. Everything I do always comes back to me.

7. Assuming is stifling.

8. Drugs feel great in the beginning and become a drag later on.

9. Over time I get used to everything and start taking for granted.

10. Money does not make me happy.

11. My dreams have no meaning.

12. Keeping a diary supports personal development.

13. Trying to look good limits my life.

14. Material luxuries are best enjoyed in small doses.

15. Worrying solves nothing.

16. Complaining is silly. Either act or forget.

17. Everybody thinks they are right.

18. If I want to explore a new direction professionally, it is helpful to try it out for myself first.

19. Low expectations are a good strategy.

20. Everybody who is honest is interesting.

This reminds me a bit of an arty version of that Baz Luhrmann tune which was released a while ago:

group hub

Nice to see tomorrow night’s Group Hub event getting a bit of coverage on The Drum. See you there! I’ll be the one wearing a name tag and hovering around the buffet before the cling-film comes off.

gomi goldmine

Last year we posted some information about the GOMI-GOLDmine exhibition which made it’s first debut in the Singapore Design Festival 2007. GOMI started off as a collaborative project between THE SERENDIPITY STUDIO [Singapore] and WINKER [Japan]. The underlying concept of GOMI is based on the theme, “Recycle, Reuse & Reinvent”. “GOMI”, meaning “rubbish” in Japanese, is a project based on the notion of recycling as a way of propagating new creation. Highlights of the exhibition can be seen on the website.