Julie Oakley, BA Hons, MA RCA, MCSD, FRSA, MCIM and Complete and Utter Eejit*
What do you think about people signing off using their educational and professional qualifications after their names? When I first started out in business I had two lots of business cards printed, one with letters and one without. In the end I grew up and realised I looked such an idiot handing out cards with qualifications that I threw them away.
Now, I find I cringe whenever I see people adding letters after their names, especially when with some membership organisations, it seems like the letters only seem to represent the fact that a friend or relative has recommended you and you’ve paid the subs.
I’d known a couple of friends of mine for about ten years before I discovered they each had a PhD – now that kind of understatement is what really impresses me.
*I don’t have most of these – except the CUE
Welcome, Creative Review visitors
If any of you hundreds of people visiting from the Creative Review blog have ended up on this page, after being directed to my website just remember I’m probably old enough to be your mother and your mother probably said ‘If you can’t say something nice then don’t say anything at all’. I wouldn’t go that far, I welcome intelligent, robust debate, but if you leave your manners and your brain at the door, your comments will be deleted.
I planted six trees today!
A beautiful spring morning and after drawing in Langley Wood, Xavier and I came across the last Heartwood forest tree-planting session of the year and made our mark – three oaks and three ash trees. We picked a spot as close as possible to an existing large old ash tree so that in fifty years’ time Xavier will be able to identify the location.
The weird family - first stage of scanning
It’s amazing what children can do. Xavier has really got the bug for drawing and making things, although he has no qualms about plagiarising if it suits him. This scan is part of a piece he calls ‘The weird family’. It’s a sheet of paper folded up into sections with characters all with their own detailed biographies drawn on each section on both sides of the piece of paper. Then in addition various flaps and extra pieces of paper have been added and stuck on to add to the family — like Topsy it’s just grown. Horror of horrors, he thought he'd lost his precious piece of art, which he’s been carrying around in his pocket and adding to for ages now, but fortunately it’s been found. So, before he loses it again, I’ve taken on the job of attempting to scan and stitch together all the bits into one picture for each side, so the images will be out there in the interweb for posterity.
Hugo on mother's day
This boy is as likely to sit straight as he is to give up breathing.
Recession, what recession?
I just came across this letter on a UK freelance forum which made me laugh out loud
Hi
I am looking for a graphic design champion to work on a wide variety of exciting projects including the design of logos, posters, flyers etc and I also need some maps redrawing as vector artwork. If you have award winning web design skills that would be great too.
You will need to be a top class designer, with a background in servicing blue chip clients and producing world class designs - your work MUST be groundbreaking and innovative, creativity should ooze from your pores instead of sweat.
I could do much of this work myself, if I could only be bothered, I have a very critical eye so expect me to pick many faults with your work.
To be considered for this role please send your CV along with PDF samples of your best work, also any URLs to your breathtaking designs. Once I have shortlisted the best designers I will then set them a few design tasks, to sift out the wheat from the chaff. I will not pay for these test designs but you can use them in your portfolios afterwards.
The chosen designer will need to work quickly and at very short notice - I will state the time allowed for each project so you really will need to be GOOD!
I am willing to reward the successful candidate with a rate of £6 per hour - that is more than minimum wage!!
Just so non-UK people understand minimum wage here is £5.80 per hour.
Furry Xavier
Another on-line drawing tool that you can play with here.
Another toy
If you haven’t tried this it’s enormous fun. I fed in the address of my One Mile from Home blog to get a capture of the words used. Go to the Wordle website to try it out.
Our latest bed-time reading
For bed-time stories we’ve decided to take a break from the Harry Potter collection, and I read Xavier the first of the Just William stories. I was delighted that despite the fact that the book is nearly 90 years old he was nearly sick with laughter. As I put him to bed I said how much I enjoyed reading him a book that we both enjoyed and thanked him for never wanting me to read any of the tedious Thomas the Tank Engine collection. My other bête noire in children’s books is anything with the dead hand of Disney over it – they can do films, but my goodness don’t they just suck the life out of any book that they ‘adapt’?
Like father, like son
That’s the weirdest thing about family likeness, not how they look but how they have the same movements and gestures. See earlier to see what I mean.
Some things I did today
Coloured and edited this wonderful 70’s logo for Robin. Experimented with Tumblr (sort of halfway between Blogger and Twitter). They have really beautiful templates over there – make Blogger look a bit tired.
Yet another Robin sketch
This must be the most sketched husband ever. I’d be drawing him whatever he looked like, but thank goodness he has all those lean, highly defined bits that make drawing him more interesting.
