Jane Eyre is one of the world’s most loved books. It certainly is very special to me. And with the pending film release of yet another adaptation (I’m terrified of seeing it, yet I cannot wait!), there’s been a recent influx of reissues of the classic novel, penned by Charlotte Bronte in the 19th century. New editions of literary classics are a cause for excitement and occasionally dismay – there have been some beautiful redesigns lately, in particular by Penguin. However, I was horrified to to see such classics as Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights, even Pride and Prejudice, being rebranded as clichéd young adult fiction, which strongly suggests that publishers are trying to cash in on the very loose connection Twilight‘s creator made between her vampire romance series with the aforementioned classics. But hey, if this marketing gimmick gets the kids interested in reading the classics, more power to them.

On the other hand, as a designer and observer it pains me to see a disregard for the content within on book cover designs, which could make a potentially iconic work into just another meaningless, dispensable thing. I’ve always aimed to follow the dictum that content dictates style and not …

So, it’s the end of June, and I’m halfway into my Honours project—SCARY THOUGHT. If you don’t know what my project is about, you might want to read this post though my objectives have altered slightly as time’s passed. Now is the perfect time to critically reflect on my progress throughout the first semester. We were given the opportunity to present our process and findings in a quasi-formal verbal and visual (poster) presentation on the 10th and 16th of June. (Well, actually, it made up 75% of our total grade, so it’s a bigger deal than I’m making it out to be.)

Luckily for me I was assigned to the latter date, so that gave me a while to collate my ideas together, following my marathon completion of my artist book for my elective unit. In a nutshell, I formulated a new question/thesis, emphasising the merits of ornament over modernism, excess over restraint, maximalism over minimalism. The difference being a lot of me mixed into the concoction. I turned to critical theory and other texts to validate my arguments, and I believe I was able to confidently and convincingly articulate my ideas on, and more importantly my passion for, this subject.

I’m …

Nearly gave up with finishing up this summary, but here I am! This was the last day of the forum, when the enthusiasm is still thriving but struggling to stay awake. Well, for me, it was. I still hadn’t recovered from the previous day’s madness. Who’d have thought sitting down in somewhat un-ergonomic chairs for hours on end would be so exhausting? We had free copies of Dumbo Feather, Pass it On on our seats; I had to make sure I picked a seat with a back issue that I didn’t already have (!).

Agnete Enga

Agnete is part of Smart Design. She established FemmeDen to “save good women from bad products”. It was interesting how she criticised the way products are biased towards the male target audience, when companies ought to place even greater precedence on women, who actually influence 80% of consumer products. She demonstrated the “differences” between the genders through a rather crude experiment—2 men and 2 women from the audience were asked to volunteer to come up stage, and both sexes had to hold hands. Once with the opposite sex, and once with the same sex. They were asked how they felt. I think the all-boy couple said …

Day 2 of agIdeas! A somewhat later start, but this gave Liz and I a chance to have “breakfast”, and what better way to wake up than with a large cup of Krispy Kreme’s caramel latte. HEAVEN!!

I’m pleased or not so pleased to say that no one particularly “bothered” me today; it was all generally pleasant… Though you’d think it’d be better to be roused into fury or fangirl delight. I did get Wayne Thompson’s signature on my sketchbook though; I may scan that in later, if anyone cares to have a laugh with me. :P Vincent said (somewhere along the line of) my being easily affected by fangirl tendencies. It’s called passion, and dedication, and yes, some healthy doses of obsession!

Also was able to collect our “free” agIdeas 20th anniversary book. I am so sad flicking through the 2007 speaker list. And I’m always sad about this because CHIP KIDD (The rockstar graphic designer who like, totes loves Batman, even more than me! How is this possible!) attended and I did not go to agIdeas that year. I was in first year; what did I know about design then? Zilch! This book is absolutely a brick, weighing more than …

So it’s that time of the year again—a week without classes so that we can attend agIdeas! But erm, that’s not why we go, right? Last year I started to write a summary post on my opinions on each guest speaker but that was too ambitious for me (!!!). However, I am determined this year to get it right. Just some brief words on all.

I may post pics of their works later, but for now Google is your friend. Or check out the agIdeas website for an overview of the speakers list.

Michael Mabry

A great prologue to the conference. Michael introduced his talk with a lively video using primitive but delightful animation techniques of all his “friends”, including Milton Glaser, Ella Fitzgerald and the President and Mrs Obama. There’s a warmth and humanity to his illustrations; he also showed us his process into making the “collagey, textural” look for one of his illustrations for Land of the Nod.

Richard Ferlazzo

Chief designer of Holden. Had  a perky kind of manner of speaking which was engaging and enlightening. Form may follow function but there’s a balance between the two somewhere round the middle, for what’s wrong with beauty in life if it is possible?

Eamo …