The Play's the Thing!

Okay, so I may be pushing thirty but playing with my new toy theatre over the Christmas holidays wasn't just for fun dagnammit, it was research! That's right, research for my personal portfolio that'll be unveiled to the impatient masses in the New Year. Here's me playing with my new toy carrying out some vital research:


Credit: Theatre designed by Peter Jackson. Published and distributed by Tobar Limited - St. Margaret, Harleston, Norfolk, England, IP20 0PJ. Telephone: 01986 782222

Down the Rabbit Hole

We both love the Alice in Wonderland tales and I thought I'd share these book samples of Alice inspired artwork by that I found on a website called Issuu. They were illustrated by an artist called Ian Richards:

Get your own - Open publication

Get your own - Open publication

Wishing you a Kooji Christmas!

As another year approaches we wish you all a very happy Christmas and best wishes for the future!

Kooji Creative x

Stop, Look and Listen

Stop-Motion Animation is a very time-consuming, patience straining art-form, but it's also a very rewarding practice that gives you a much greater understanding of timing, movement and pace. Here's a stop-motion film by an artist called PES, which I 'Stumbled' over today and it got me thinking about the work I did at Art college years ago and my first year studying Multimedia Technology. Take a look and be inspired!



Western Spaghetti by PES



Trap Door created by Terry Brain and Charlie Mills



Morph by Aardman Animations



The Ray Harryhausen Creature List

Related Post: Patience is a Virtue

A right Jackson Pollock

I found this website today after signing up for StumbleUpon and 'Stumbling' around for a bit. It's a flash, interactive, thing-a-me-jig. I made this pretty splatter pic with it, cool huh?


If only my art tutors had seen this...


I was going for a Dalmation kinda feel with this one. Be honest, it's good innit? I really put my heart and soul into it, took me all of 10 seconds too ( : |

Seriously though, I thought this flash website was pretty good. It brings traditional and digital art together, in one big.. kinda traffic collision. Go play :P

O Kooji Tree

O Kooji Tree, O Kooji Tree!

How are thy leaves so verdant!
O Kooji Tree, O Kooji Tree,
How are thy leaves so verdant!

Not only in the summertime,
But even in winter is thy prime.

O Kooji Tree, O Kooji Tree,
How are thy leaves so verdant!
Kooji Tree, O Kooji Tree,
Much pleasure doth thou bring me!

O Kooji Tree, O Kooji Tree,
Much pleasure doth thou bring me!
For every year the Kooji tree,
Brings to us all both joy and glee.

O Kooji Tree, O Kooji Tree,
Much pleasure doth thou bring me!

O Kooji Tree, O Kooji Tree,
Thy candles shine out brightly!

O Kooji Tree, O Kooji Tree,
Thy candles shine out brightly!
Each bough doth hold its tiny light,
That makes each toy to sparkle bright.

O Kooji Tree, O Kooji Treee,
Thy candles shine out brightly!

Original words found here.

The NO!SPEC Campaign

This poster has been donated by Von Glitschka to the No!Spec Campaign

Okay, so here's the Bread Crumb trail that led me to finding this yesterday. I signed up Design Float after browsing through the Social Media Directory for Designers, then found this article: 5 Ways To Break Your Design Habits - Just for Fun on Spyre Mag. I spotted this small banner in the side bar and followed the link:

Here's what I found on the No!Spec website

The NO!SPEC campaign: Serves as a vehicle to unite those who support the notion that spec work devalues the potential of design and ultimately does a disservice to the client.

Our mission: To educate the public about speculative, or 'spec' work.

Our target: Those who use creative services, as well as creative professionals (designers, photographers, illustrators, typographers, writers and those in marketing, branding and advertising).

What you can do: Read NO!SPEC's Protocols. Place a "NO!SPEC" logo on your site. Sign the NO!SPEC petition. Distribute the "NO!SPEC" posters. Contact us with your thoughts, comments, articles and insights.

Requirements: The only requirement for participation is putting the appropriate value on your profession.

This poster has been donated by Jeff Andrews to the No!Spec Campaign

This is a really important initiative and it needs our support. We didn't realise that things like this happened until we began working in the industry. It's really shocking but moreover it's a disgusting practice which is being self-perpetuated by both misguided designers and so-called 'clients.' It makes us angry that people out there who do this don't value our work, or even realise the sheer work that is involved in the creative process.

Speculative work definitely DOES NOT include doing unpaid work for charities (this type of project has great ethical and moral value), or 'freebies for fun' for your mates. Obviously, its your choice which projects you focus your energies on, but be careful that you consider all your options thoroughly before you agree to do unpaid work (check all the T&Cs before entering design competitions too!). Just look before you leap ;)

How many of the designers reading this post have heard any of the following?

This poster has been donated by Rob Gough to the No!Spec Campaign

Also, be sure to have a look at this article by Mark Rushworth. He mentions QBN.com in the first paragraph (hence yesterday's blog about World Toilet Day - What can I say? Wave something shiny at me and I'll get distracted ... a bit like a magpie!) but goes on to describe a recent case where the company Aquent 'a talent agency for designers and marketers' put an advertisement up on the 99designs for a 'contest' to design a new website for them, with a 'prize' of 500 dollars for the 'winner.' Unbelievable!

Aquent Vs the Design Industry

Keep yourself informed of Creative Industry News by checking out websites like Design Float and QBN.

"Design Float is a social media site dedicated to the design industry. Design Float aims to collect and organize design-related content from across the web while letting the community float the best articles to the top pages of their categories and sink the most irrelevant one’s to the bottom." Design Float

World Toilet Day

I found this article today on QBN - Design Industry News & Discussion. At first I thought it was a joke about crazy toilet designs, but its actually about something much more serious. It's a day to celebrate toilets and raise awareness of the global sanitation crisis.

"The WTO (World Toilet Organization) is committed to improving toilet and sanitation conditions worldwide. An estimated 2.6 BILLION and - including 980 million children- don't have access to basic sanitation." Wendy Cohen

The Economy Is In The Can; And It is WORLD TOILET DAY

NOVEMBER 19, 2008- World Toilet Day
Theme: We Deserve Better
5 Ways YOU Can Help

World Toilet Organization (WTO) stands up for the 3 "WE (s)" in the theme "We Deserve Better".

• WE: Toilets deserve better social status. WTO has been striving to elevate the status of toilets to make them a status symbol and an object of desire. WTO speaks on behalf of toilets "WE DESERVE BETTER SOCIAL STATUS".

• WE: The second WE are the toilet cleaners. WTO aims to professionalize the sanitation and restroom industry and to upgrade the skill sets of the restroom cleaners. WTO speaks on behalf of the toilet cleaners "WE DESERVE BETTER PAY, RESPECT AND PROSPECTS".

• WE: WTO speaks on behalf of 2.5 billion toilet-less people, "WE DESERVE BETTER PLACE TO DEFECATE, A TOILET".

This information can be found also at our Get Involved Link

© Fountain 1917 Marcel Duchamp

5 THINGS YOU CAN DO TO SHOW YOUR SUPPORT FOR WORLD TOILET DAY:

1. JOIN the cause on Facebook: Toilets for the Poor
2. BLOG about the cause 19th November, and write an article about why we all deserve better.
3. PROMOTE November 19th, 2008 by putting your instant messenger or Facebook status as : TODAY IS WORLD TOILET DAY :) http://www.worldtoilet.org/.

4. CREATE an event in your school or city. Add your event for World Toilet Day and email nora@worldtoilet.org to inform us that you have prepared your own event to spread the importance of why toilets are important, and we all deserve better sanitation. (Other events can also be viewed on our Get Involved link)
5. SHARE this information with others by "cutting and pasting" this message to all those who you feel deserve better or believe in our cause.

** Lastly if you can't do any of these, but you have 5 USD (dollars) to spare, then DONATE to http://www.worldtoilet.org/donateform.asp

Thank you for your time in spreading the word!
Sincerely,
The World Toilet Organization Team
----------------------------------------------------

Toilet Art Exhibition, 2008

"Professional artists and art students from renowned schools in Singapore, Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA) and La Salle are painting 100 toilet seat covers which will be exhibited on 19th to 21st of November at the 2nd level of Scape and series of exhibits planned until first quarter of 2009. Each toilet seat converted into a piece of art will convey message on toilet and sanitation." World Toilet Organisation - Get Involved

© Uta Brauser Source: Fish with Braids

© Isotope Source: Madame Blavatsky Overdrive

© Isotope Comics Comic Rockstars Toilet Seat Museum

© Tony Harris

© Alé Garza

© Alex Pardee

This last artist, Alex Pardee has an incredible portfolio called Eyesuck Ink and his Blog is pretty cool too.

Kooji Creative's Blog has Gone Multilingual

It dawned on us today how important it is for people to be able to understand us. Not only by explaining our thoughts and ideas in a straight forward (non designer jargon) way, but through language itself. The 'Designer Client' relationship is always something that needs to be handled carefully, but this is especially so if you don't share the same language. Our Polish clients from Fundacja Między Nami (The Among Us Foundation) have been very understanding of this fact. Marzena Bochenek, the Vice-President of FMN, is our primary contact and fortunately for us is multilingual. This is a skill I really admire and I hope that one day I'll be able to talk to her in her own language.

Until that time though, I thought that this Google Gadget would help us to break down the language barriers. We have several friends who speak many other languages aswell including: German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish too (plus my Dentist is Romanian :D).

We've added the Google Translate My Page Gadget to our blog and we recommend you do the same. Check it out :)

Image taken from The Internet Movie Database from the film 'The King and I'

The actor Yul Brynner was multilingual and could communicate in several languages including French, Russian and English. He truly was a King.

Is Your Web Truly World-Wide?

UPDATE:

Google Translate adds 10 new languages...

There's a new version of the Google Translate My Page Gadget ! It's been updated to include many other target languages to translate from. The older one above, is customisable (this new one doesn't seem to be) but there are less target languages to choose from. The decision is yours :) 18/11/08

Fundacja Między Nami Aktualności

In other words: 'The Among Us Foundation News and Current Events' Blog has gone live!

We first visited Fundacja Między Nami in 2007 as part of the International Volunteering project 'Leeds Met Poland.' For two weeks, along with a team of volunteers and staff, we worked with adults who have physical and learning disabilities. During our stay we took part in various indoor and outdoor workshops including ceramics and painting. We even had the opportunity to help put an exhibition together to celebrate the work of ‘Stash’ one of the artists from Matki Teresy z Kalcutty (Mother Teresa of Calcutta) - A day centre in the city of Lublin which is closely involved with FMN. It was an incredibly rewarding experience.

When the opportunity arose to give them something back, to help them in their creative endeavours and to raise an awareness of their pioneering work we both leapt at the chance. We felt that this could be best accomplished by integrating this project with the final year of my BSc and in parallel through our branding and promotions company, Kooji Creative.

http://fmnlublin.blogspot.com/

After the preliminary version of the FMN website was produced as part of my degree, we have since been in the process of completing the full version. This blog will be used by the Fundacja Między Nami to promote their events and to keep readers updated with their news. It links directly from their main website.

Many thanks go once again to Blogger for providing such a great service. Particularly for offering their service in several languages, including Polish.

Dziękuję Blogger!

Roots of Creativity

I was just tucking in to some Sunday soup today (it's the same soup for every other day but on a Sunday instead) and spotted this new post for Jacob Cass at Just Creative Design.

image taken from: Brian Yerkes

"I want to get your feedback on Just Creative Design and as an added incentive I am offering a prize to one lucky random winner!" Jacob Cass.

He's a nice chap Jacob and so we thought we'd help out (it was the possibility of free book goodliness that finally swung it for us though ;) ). Anyway, here was our feedback, including our category rankings and suggestions for improvement:

(1) Creativity (with a name like Kooji Creative, it had to be our No 1 really didn’t it?)

(2) Inspiration (It’s one of our main reasons for browsing the web)

Image © Tablefy

Tablefy Water Lantern

(3) Tutorials/ Knowledge Transfer (Lifelong Learning is a priority for us)

(4) The Online Design Community (Networking with other creatives is incredibly powerful)

(5) Giveaways & Competitions (Let’s be honest if we hadn’t spotted this post with a freebie book we wouldn’t have been as inclined to post feedback :D )

(6) Anything Programming related (Don’t get me wrong, without programming our stuff wouldn’t work, but we’re more interested in the design/ the front-end - CSS, XHTML, SEO, - all these things are important, but we prefer to focus on the design side)

Image © Yasny Chan

Labyrinth


FEEDBACK - This is a wonderful resource Jacob, and it’s where we began our search for online design info (we found you through your free ebook). There are links that branch out across a network of designers, blogs and social media sites - it’s fantastic.

It’d be great if you could add more visuals and interactivity to your website (flash is good for this and it’s less confining). People tend to skim read and images are read faster than words. Video content would be a great addition - Maybe something showing how you work?

One last point - Digital art is incredible and a superb result of today’s creative technologies - but it’s important to remember that it’s still just one of many tools available to us, and that we must always acknowledge how it all began: with a pencil, with paint and a canvas or a stick on a cave wall. Maybe a post about the Roots of Creativity would be beneficial for all?

Thanks for JCD :D

Katherine and Johnny

------

image taken from: http://www.myspace.com/seaorchids

So that was our feedback for JCD - which ended up being a being a full blown epic novel instead of just a children's fairytale (a bit like Lord The Rings eh? Okay, maybe not :P)

We'd really like your opinions on this. Do you think it's important to acknowledge your creative roots? Do you care about where creativity all began? Is the computer your only tool as a creative or do you like using traditional mediums aswell?

Patience is a Virtue

I've been fascinated recently with RSS Feeds and have been adding lots of design resources, magazines and blogs to our Google Reader (Many thanks to Calvin Lee from Mayhem Studios who recommended this reader). There's so much high quality material out there, that its hard at times to choose what to look at first.

Anyway, despite this bombardment of inspiration I managed to pause for a second and take a look at a blog written by a great guy I met a while ago now, called David Parrish. David has a brilliant blog called T-Shirts and Suits with lots of information for people who run creative businesses. I was drawn to this post about viral marketing and this video in particular, by BLU:



MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU

This must have been produced by a painstakingly patient person. Not only is the artwork spreading across a huge amount of space, but its being drawn and redrawn countless times. Imagine creating something beautiful and then redrawing over it to produce yet another beautiful piece of artwork. Its a wonderful example of stop motion animation combined with some top-notch graffiti.

I found BLU's Blog and, after looking through some wonderful photos of the team at work, began looking through their blogroll list and found a link to ekosystem: a street-art & non-hip-hop-graffiti gallery. Here I found a section with links to blogs by this community of artists and this one, BO130, yet another fantastic artist had posted this video:



I Met The Walrus

Animated Short :5 min 10 sec
Written, Directed & Animated by: JOSH RASKIN
Produced by: JERRY LEVITAN
Pen Illustration by: JAMES BRAITHWAITE
Computer Illustration by: ALEX KURINA
Starring: JOHN LENNON and JERRY LEVITAN
For more Info: http://www.imetthewalrus.com/

We've just seen this video last September at The Smalls during The London Design Festival. It's a superb video and another great example of patience. The video was made 38 years after the audio was recorded. Take a look :)

Beanie There Done That

To celebrate my Dad's birthday each year I insist on designing something wacky for his card and this year I decided the theme would also be based on his love of flying. With this card I wanted to illustrate how he could progress from the paramotor to the 'next' level. Of course there is a 'Calvin & Hobbes' reference in there too since he's always been a big fan ;)

Happy Birthday Dad!!!!!

Designer Pill to Cure What Ails Ya!

Its important to remember that education doesn't end with school and that really it's an ongoing process that you shouldn't let slip. It's easy to say we know everything there is to know about a subject when really if we're being honest we don't. Johnny and I have been keeping up to date with our design skills by tracking down relevant tutorials on the net. Here's something I made earlier with a great tutorial I found through Arbenting.

Arbenting - The Act of Being Creative
Arbenting is a design blog written by Robert and Angie Bowen providing resources , freebies, tutorials and more to the design and development communities.

Arbenting have put together an Adobe Tutorial Series and we've started with Illustrator as its one of our most favourite programs:

30 Tutorials That Will Teach You Illustrator

This link in particular caught my eye about how to create a 3D Pill.

So remember you can never know too much, and you should never say you're a know it all, because no one is!

Yarn Spinning

Jason Dainter from Leeds Inventure, a local society for entrepreneurs, got in touch recently to let us know about an upcoming event, High Spirits:

"Inventure is teaming up with the amazing people at Yarn Spinners Tours to bring you a spooky evening of dark and macabre tales of Victorian Leeds. A ghost bus will be pulling up at the Town Hall and inviting on board 25 lucky people for a tour of the cities most creepy hotspots, and afterwards we'll be ending up in the Reform Bar for a drink or two to calm your nerves (you're going to need it!)."

Here I am posing with our Ghostly Guides, Brandsby Carloff is to my left. Check out the ghostly, eerily spooky Ghost Bus ;) WoooOooo

We were some of the lucky few who were taken round Leeds and regailed with spooky stories from our hosts. It was a really fun night out and great to be able to catch up with our fellow Inventurers. We even managed to end up taking away an inflatable Bat at the end of the night, which was... unexpected.

Keep a look out for a brand new schedule of FREE events for 2009 from Leeds Inventure :)

"We hold free events aimed at all people who share a passion for business. We're quite different to your average networking events, as all our events are informal, open to all, completely free and most importantly are FUN!" Jason Dainter, Leeds Inventure.

They're Creepy and They're Kooji

Happy Halloween everyone :) Have a great time and don't eat too many sweets! :P

Leeds Digital Week 2008

Gill Howard invited us along to an exhibition at Pavilion called 'Twelve Dogs, Twelve Bitches,' a series of photographs by Jo Longhurst. Jo worked alongside several British Whippet breeders over many years during this project.

"Although I photograph dogs, the questions I ask are always specific to the question of 'what it is to be human'." Jo Longhurst.

(Sounds similar to my dissertation title for my art degree: "Artificial Intelligence and Natural Man: An Investigation into the Meaning of Humanness," although there weren't any photos of genetically manipulated dogs and Deckard was nowhere to be seen).

The exhibition is being held as part of this year's Leeds Digital Week. We think its wonderful that so many events like this are going on in Leeds, this week in particular has been very busy throughout the city.

Image © Jo Longhurst 'Twelve Dogs, Twelve Bitches'

During our flying visit we bumped into Jonathan Smith, Director for artsmix*, who I first met almost two years ago during a competition I took part in called 'Yomping the Nations.' Jonathan very kindly offered to give myself and my team mates some advice after we won the regional event and were about to enter the nationals. It was lovely to see him again (and for him to remember me too!) and great to hear about his involvement in artsmix*.

"artsmix* is an enterprising and creative Leeds based Social Enterprise providing sales and development platforms for artists and quality arts projects across Leeds and the wider Yorkshire area." http://www.artsmix.co.uk/

Jonathan introduced us to his colleague Gina Yates, who told us about the Arts Markets they'll be running weekly later this month. artsmix* @ The Loft looks set to be a fantastic opportunity for artists to get their work out there and we'll definitely be there to see it!

artsmix* Arts Markets weekly indoor markets from 23rd November 2008

© Don't Get Ripped Off

The topic for this month's Creative Networks event was Intellectual Property. Gary Townley from the IPO gave a really useful presentation on how to protect your IP; he also explained the differences between Copyright, Designs and Trade Marks.


Gary gave a similar presentation at the Flying Start Summer School last year, and this one was no different: really entertaining and memorable. Here are a few key points he made during his talk:

Copyrights need to be assigned by the contractor otherwise it remains with them, not the client.

Anything produced whilst under the employment of a company means that the copyright is theirs not the creators. (e.g. Wordle was produced by Jonathan Feinberg, but the copyright belongs to IBM, his employer).

"As mentioned on the credits page, I wrote the core layout algorithms on company time. That code belongs to IBM, so it isn't mine to share. I'm sorry that I can't share it with you." Jonathan Feinberg.

TM (Trade Mark) has no legal power in the UK (in the US however it means that an application for registration has been sent). The Registered Trade Mark symbol ® is the one that should be used to prove that your logo has been protected. It doesn't hurt to use the TM symbol though in the meantime, to scare people off ;)

If you enjoy listening to the radio in your workplace, your employer really should have a licence for this as it is classed as 'Public Performance.' That also includes using music on your phones while your caller is on hold. (I know... unbelievable).

Use watermarks on artwork you put online. This will help to prevent people stealing it (Although at 72dpi no-one could steal it to use for print anyway!).

Put the copyright symbol © on work that you want to protect (don't forget to update the year!).

The pantone reference 2685C (purple) has been registered by Cadburys. They could only register this as a trade mark once it could be proven that it had become recogniseable as Cadburys.

image taken from http://www.britishsweets.com.au/index.php

Jelly Babies were originally made by Bassett's, but they only registered the design (shape), not the trade mark and so when this expired anyone can now make Jelly Babies.

Polo has registered the shape as a trade mark (again, only when it could be proven that the shape is recogniseable as a polo) - and its registered only as a 'mint confectionary' not the fruity polo.

Toblerone did the same - but their registration covers both the chocolate and the box.

ASDA has registered the 'two pats on ya bum' gesture as a trade mark as most people recognise this as theirs.

And finally here was the best point Gary made: Always check your logo before sending an application to register it as a trade mark. The company OGC spent 14K on their brand spanking new logo, had lots of promotional materials produced and then to their horror made a terrible realisation:

image taken from: http://www.ebaumsworld.com/pictures/view/385510/

OGC unveils new logo to red faces - Telegraph

Good Things Should Never End

I got sucked into a black hole this afternoon and only just managed to scramble back out. Go visit and see what you think. Look out for my friend 'Buzz the Robot' while you're there ;)

We won two mobile chargers and a sim card while we were there too! :O Bonus.

Big Draw: Beyond The Line

On our way back from a meeting in Leeds we happened to pass by the Learning Centre at Leeds Met and spotted this display running along the corridor. Students from the The Leeds School of Contemporary Art & Graphic Design have put together an exhibition which celebrates and promotes the importance of drawing.

The Big Draw was launched in London this year with a festival called 'Drawing on Life.' This marked the start of a month of national drawing events. The educational charity, Campaign For Drawing produces publications for educators which show drawing to be an invaluable part of learning. It's programme The Big Draw has over a thousand venues across the UK all hosting drawing events for enthusiasts of all ages and abilities.

These drawings were painted, etched and drawn onto the glass panels along the side of the library, inspiring passers by to grab a pencil and join in :D

The trail of doodles following along the wall next to the library was stunning. Each sheet spread into the next with a repeater image joining them together.

We found this piece next to the lifts in the library. There was a post-it note that someone had attached to the wall next to it. It said 'Whoever did this, you are amazing! X' We totally agree. This is incredible work; its made up of several sheets of A1 and has been drawn in charcoal - beautiful.

"This annual programme shows that drawing is the perfect medium for observation, self-expression and fun." http://www.campaignfordrawing.org/

Blog Action Day 2008: The Domino Effect

Yesterday, while Johnny and I were having a quick break from decorating, I came across this post from Octwelve, a design blog written by MaryLuc Melgar. Luc has written an article as a contribution for 'Blog Action Day 2008.' What's that then I hear you cry? Well...

"Blog Action Day is an annual nonprofit event that aims to unite the world’s bloggers, podcasters and videocasters, to post about the same issue on the same day. " http://blogactionday.org/

Blog Action Day 2008 Poverty from Blog Action Day on Vimeo.

This year's topic is poverty and bloggers everywhere are encouraged to write about this subject, giving it their own unique spin.

Today, I was reading through an email from Just Creative Design, a fantastic design blog written by Jacob Cass. Jacob has a weekly feature called 'Designer in the Spotlight' and this weeks focussed on a really talented designer called Doug Cloud. I took a look at Doug's blog and found another post, similar to the one on Octwelves called Poverty of the Heart. It's strange I thought that I hadn't heard about this before so I looked at JCD and sure enough Jacob's written about it too, here.

BAD:08 was on 15th October, so although we're a little late here is our contribution to this year's Blog Action Day.

Just over a year ago we both got involved in an International Volunteering project called 'Leeds Met Poland 2007.' With only a couple of weeks to prepare for the trip we were able to secure sponsorship from many companies including Dean Clough Art Gallery in Halifax, The New Technology Institute in Leeds and Yorkshire Forward. We travelled to the city of Lublin on the East side of Poland (one of the poorer areas) to work within two arts therapy centres: Matki Teresy z Kalcutty (Mother Teresa of Calcutta) and Fundacja Miedzy Nami (The Among Us Foundation). For two weeks, along with a team of volunteers and staff, we worked with adults who have physical and learning disabilities.

During our stay we took part in various indoor and outdoor workshops including ceramics and painting. We even had the opportunity to help put an exhibition together to celebrate the work of ‘Stash’ one of the artists from MTK.

This is our diary from the Leeds Met Community, Partnerships and Volunteering webpage. Here’s what I wrote about our experiences after we returned last March:

Nine months have passed since our first visit to the arts therapy centres. The experiences we had and the friendships we made during our time in Poland were extraordinary. The artists are so talented and the people running the centres, so visionary that when we were asked for our help in promoting their creative endeavours we both eagerly accepted.

Working with disabled artists was at first a daunting prospect but after seeing for ourselves the warmth and kindness that they have to offer the nervousness just melted away. Our first visit was incredible but returning to visit our friends for a second time was a real honour and a joy. We entered the centres believing we were there to teach them something when in fact the opposite was closer to the truth. They taught us more about ourselves, how fortunate we are and what we have to offer the world than any amount of teaching we could offer them.

Me, with my new friend Agnieszka who's sporting a Fundacja T-Shirt. We had these made to hand out as gifts.

When the opportunity arose to give them something back, to help them in their creative endeavours and to raise an awareness of their pioneering work we both leapt at the chance. We felt that this could be best accomplished by integrating this project with the final year of my BSc and in parallel through our branding and promotions company, Kooji Creative. The end of the degree is now within sight and it has been a hugely rewarding project but it doesn’t end here.

I wrote several reflections after this trip as I felt I needed to let everyone know how eye opening it had been. Here are some relevant snippets from the ones that were published:

It's amazing how one decision in your life can affect so many others. The experience was so fulfilling and really opened our eyes to new possibilities. It made us realise how fortunate we are and how important it is to make the most of what we have. This single opportunity began to branch out and when we were asked to help them by promoting the centres and their artwork we were very keen to do whatever we could. By integrating this with the final year group project on the BSc and also through our business, Kooji Creative, we were able to involve so many more people.

However impossible something may appear it is important to reach out and grasp opportunities, to make the most of every day and to see how in turn, you can make a difference to the world around you.

International Reflection – 26th March 2008

Community Reflection - 21st April 2008

It was an incredibly rewarding experience and our involvement is ongoing. Most importantly we learned to appreciate what we have and to remember that there are always others less fortunate than ourselves.

Secret Message

I had a quick look at the 4IP website after receiving an email from Screen Yorkshire and found this article: The Obligatory Wordle Cloud. I remember Monica Tailor from Kilo75 recently twittering about Wordle so I thought I'd have a play. Wordle takes the words used on your webpage and creates a 'cloud.' Depending on how often each word is used the bigger it gets.

Creative seems to be the most used word on our blog which is good to know, but more interestingly the words seem to spell out a message: 'Leeds Made Yorkshire Creative.' It must mean something...

images created with http://wordle.net/