We’re giving away 5 of our clinky glass postcards inspired by our favourite moment from the Queen’s visit.
To enter simply tell us what you like by finishing the sentence “one likes …” in the comment area below.
Winners will be announced on Friday 10th - good luck!
Our fun little graphic inspired by the Queen’s visit is now for sale!
If you too are a fan of clinky glasses why not tell the world with our A6 postcards - add to cart button below the image.
Ships to Ireland and the UK only.
I spotted these gorgeous Plumen light bulbs in the Design Museum last week, they won the overall award for the Brit Insurance Designs of the Year 2011.
All of the things I dislike about energy saving bulbs have been addressed and solved beautifully by these clever yet simple designs. They are a little more expensive than your average energy saver, but they will last and last, and no need to cover them up with a shade, you can display them with pride!
To read more about about the concept behind the designs, or to snap one up for yourself, click here.
While Rachel was zooming around in helicopters last weekend, I was having a lovely time in the Sunny South East enjoying strawberries and champagne at the Sunny Wexford Strawberries’ launch party.
Check out their facebook page for more photos of the day.
Sunnys are campaigning to get their Wexford strawberries onto supermarket shelves around the country. Working with Pivotal Communications we designed and built the new Sunny Wexford Strawberries website.
The site shares information about the strawberries and their growers and gives users the opportunity to request that their local store stocks the brand. To promote the launch we also created email and print invites.
We’re really pleased with the results and it was great to see all our work come to fruit-ion at the launch!
What a weekend! I have just returned from a quick trip over to London and Chichester. Traveling is a great way to get a fresh dose of inspiration.
I can’t count how many times I’ve been to London, but it never fails to impress. It is an amazing city full of colour, sights and sounds, plenty to get the creative juices flowing. I have ticked another few things off my London to see and do list, but it still has plenty on it to justify another few visits!
The first place we visited was the Design Museum. Currently the Museum has two main exhibitions, The Brit Insurance Designs of the year 2011 and Wim Crouwel A Graphic Odyssey. Having studied the work of Dutch Graphic designer Wim Crouwel in College, I was very excited to see some of his famous poster designs in person. Here are a couple of examples… what do you think of them?
1. Hiroshima Poster 2.Vormgevers Poster
Wim Crouwel uses very strong typography, shapes and colour in his designs, and he bases all of his designs on a grid structure.
We also visited Covent Garden, the National Gallery, the London Eye, and Tower Bridge here are a few photos I took along the way.
To get from place to place we used the incredibly efficient and easy to use London Underground. Every time I use the underground I am amazed by how smoothly it is run. The most impressive and iconic symbol of the London Underground is the tube map design. It was originally designed in 1931 by a man named Harry Beck and although it has seen many iterations over the years, it is still based on his original design. The design of the map is so successful because it relies on two main design elements, colour and the very legible typeface Johnston. These two when combined, create an easy to follow and legible reference for tube users, whether they are familiar with the routes or not.
We really did use every mode of transport possible on our trip, the most exciting was our flight on a brand new helicopter! My uncle is a helicopter pilot with Elite Helicopters near Chichester and he very kindly arranged to take me up up and away for a bird’s eye view of the countryside. I was sitting in the middle of the helicopter so I didn’t take many photos, here are a few…
I also spotted the next business purchase I think curious should invest in, who needs a company car when you can have a company plane?!
Inspiration trips abroad could soon be a weekly occurrence!
Last week, after months of protesting that I didn’t really need one, I eventually took Rachel’s advice and got an iPhone. I think she’s regretting encouraging me now - I’ve become a little obsessed. So much so it even made the (cork) news!
Of all the apps I’ve installed (and there are many) my favourite by far is teux deux - a beautifully designed and incredibly useful to-do list app from Swiss Miss and fictivekin.
While my to-do lists are getting ever longer as every aspiration now gets typed into my phone, the smugness induced by tapping tasks off as they are completed makes me very ‘appy indeed.
What’s your favourite app?
Last week we shared some photos from our launch party on Easter Saturday. Today we’re writing a little about the planning process, our inspiration and some of the elements which made the day so special.
The first step in our planning process was a brainstorming session about the type of party we wanted. We are a friendly, creative company and we wanted a playful, pretty and informal party to reflect this. Since we are called curious we thought a treasure hunt would be a fun activity which would allow us to emphasise our name. As we were launching around Easter the initial treasure hunt idea evolved into an Easter egg hunt with afternoon tea.
With our theme in place the search for a venue began.
We needed to find somewhere that suited our style, branding and budget, with a garden area suitable for the egg hunt. This was not an easy task! After lots of research emails and phone calls we finally found the beautiful Conservatory Restaurant in Laragh, Co.Wicklow, with yummy food, a lovely garden and a light-filled conservatory perfect for the props and photos we had in mind.
The next step is one of our favourites - researching and gathering visual inspiration.
Every design project that we undertake, be it an event, website, branding or poster, involves this research stage when we compile images and ideas from lots of different sources.
When we have gathered enough visuals, we combine them into mood boards like the one below. We then decide which ideas we would like to explore and develop.
Image Credits: 1. www.marthstewartweddings.com 2. www.newenglandfineliving.com 3. www.snippetandink.com 4. www.mymagicmom.com 5. www.fortheloveofskinny.wordpress.com 6. www.newenglandfineliving.com 7. www.snippetandink.com 8. www.metmymatch.blogspot.com
Armed with our moodboard as a reference, we set to work creating invites, props and decorations based on our branding.
We took inspiration from our logo for the light-bulb photo props, wooden letters and cogs, egg hunt stickers and mini pencils. Our colours of yellow and white were everywhere from our pom poms, balloons, pinwheels and bunting to the bon bons we filled our guests’ goodie bags with.
Of course the most important ingredient for any party is some lovely guests!
Thanks again to everyone who attended, young, old(er) and canine. We hope you all enjoyed our launch as much as we did. See if you can spot yourself below…
We had an amazing day at our launch party on Saturday, thanks to everyone who attended or sent good luck wishes!
Over the next couple of weeks we will be adding posts about how we came up with the theme for our party and how we pulled it all together. First of all though, have a look at a few of the gorgeous photos our photographer Magda Lukas took of the design details…
We chose to hold our party on Easter Saturday in the stunning Conservatory Restaurant in Laragh, Co.Wicklow. Luckily the Sun Gods answered our prayers, and we had beautiful sunshine all day, providing perfect light to capture our yellow colour theme. We couldn’t have picked a better day or a more suitable venue.
We’d like to say a big thank you to all of our trusty suppliers, particularly to Lisa from The Conservatory Restaurant. We will be featuring The Conservatory in a blog post soon.
Photographer: Magda Lukas – Moments & Memories
Venue & catering: Lisa de la Haye - The Conservatory Restaurant, Laragh, Co. Wicklow 0404 45302
Chocolate eggs: The Chocolate Garden of Ireland
Flowers & Bunting: Marie Lane
Wooden letters: Jimmy Tyrrell - Jigsaw wood designs 087 9205214
Invitations and styling: curious
With 95 years of title design in 2 and a half minutes there’s plenty of inspiration to be found in this short video by
Ian Albinson from Art of the Title.
I love the titles for A Series of Unfortunate Events and Anatomy of a Murder as well as Six Feet Under and Dexter - so many to choose from!
Which sequence is your favourite?
