About mothers and handbags

Oversized shwe shwe bag. I use it for weekends away.

Brown heart bag. The centre circle motif was saved form a T-shirt a special friend brought me from London.

Black velvet and ribbon bag

Green raw silk bag with smocking detail

Hey Audrey!

My mom and I have a handbag thing. I (because I'm vegetarian) think leather bags unnecessary, and she likes sewing. So I make sketches of handbags, and then she makes them for me, beautifully. The green silk one she made as a birthday present for a special friend. Her love is evident in the time-consuming details. When I walk around with these bags, it feels as if my mom is right there with me. It's a good feeling.

Good for the heart

Hey Audrey!

I love it that my friends get how much I adore you, and not in the crap from Mr Price kind of way! Ria (from Green Grass Design) had this lovely wooden heart engraved for me, with something you said. She thinks if one substituted "dogs" for "cat" I could just as well have said it myself! The cute but upset little doll was a gift from my friend Marilyn, she knitted it herself. She also liked taking her cats for walks.

More Audrey for me

Hey Audrey!

You'd be happy to know that some really cool books have been published about you, and as your No 1 fan, I believe I own the best of the bunch. Recently I received "Audrey Hepburn. A life in pictures" as a gift. Bless the person who gave it to me! (or follow her blog: days-like-today). The layout and typography are exquisite, and of course, so are the photo's. It has a forward by your great friend Hubert de Givenchy. He says "She brought to the clothes her own innate grace," and "working with her became a pleasure. We amused ourselves, we danced!" I think he really loved you, Audrey. I wish I could be a fabulous designer's muse. If I sit up really straight today, then maybe....

PS. I wonder if Givenchy test their cosmetics on animals?

A special gift

Hey Audrey!

I don't know if you have ever received a gift where the way in which it was wrapped was as special as what was on the inside. Two special girls, who are best friends, recently gave me a thank you gift with a travel theme (they live on two continents), with illustrations of them, made by them. Wow!

Something old, something new

Hey Audrey!

A very long time ago I designed this annual report for Rand Merchant Bank Holdings. Banking and financial institutions can seem so cold, old-fashioned and square. I set about trying to make the institution seem more creative, because choosing opportunities and investing in growth can, and should be a creative process. The theme of the report was "we drive and reward entrepreneurial spirit," so I created a set of illustrations to depict aspects of this theme. I also created three icons to be used throughout the report to show at which stage of growth the featured company was at: still a seed, busy growing, or a fully developed tree. I was thinking that this device would have worked well on a a website too.

The state of my heart

Hey Audrey!

I recently became friends with someone who has a very open heart. Her open heart came as such a surprise to me. It made me think about my own heart. I have worked so hard at protecting my heart so that it's not so vulnerable to assault from the outside anymore. I am wondering how much protection is enough until a heart becomes impenetrable. On the other hand, I have recently been feeling as if I have to fit so many people and emotions into my heart, that everything becomes muddled up and then just starts unravelling.

HG Wells: Words to love

Ann Veronica: hard cover. I used a word that summarized the essence of each book on the hard covers.

Ann Veronica: reversible newsprint dust covers

Ann Veronica: the covers as posters

Mr Polly: dust covers

Mr Polly: posters

Love and Mr Lewisham: dust covers

Love and Mr Lewisham: posters

Hey Audrey!

You already know that I am obsessed with book covers. I want to show you these covers I designed as a solution to one of the D&AD 2010 student briefs (www.dandad.org). The brief was to design covers for HG Wells' lesser known novels that would appeal to a younger audience. When I read these books, I was struck with how powerfully they were written, and decided the best way to sell them would be to put the words right out there: on the front cover. The covers are reversible: the one side starts a snippet of writing from the novel in simple typography, which is continued on the reverse, which is more photography based. As the characters in all three novels go through a transformation, I chose photos of people set in the London Underground waiting to go somewhere, or already on their way there. The font I used was Frutiger, designed by my favourite typeface designer, Adrian Frutiger, for an airport wayfinding system. The typeface consist of many beautiful variations, which I used to emphasize the meaning of the words. The covers were printed on a newsprint-like 100% recycled paper stock called Cyclus. Oh, and one can put them up as posters on the wall if one really likes them. I really enjoyed doing this brief.