Feel good friday...

Sam Flax is just the coolest.

He is my playlist for half day fridays. Nothing says lets relax after a long week  than playing Sam Flax's 'Fire doesnt burn itself'... If you don't believe me, hear for yourself.

Expect 80's influences, upbeat beat pop, edgy sounds, and a general sense of frivolous fun...

you had me at hello...

I don't really think I have any words to describe Anagrama's, a Mexican brand intelligence group,  incredible graphic and packaging design. Its probably everything I would want to be if I was a box, carton, or business card. 

Their design approach is clean and minimal, with none of the unnecessary bits usually seen in packaging and graphics. Its hard to pick and choose the best of the best, but I have selected a few of my favourites from their portfolio collection...

All images © Anagrama – Website

As the beatles once sang...

I thought the title was quite appropriate for my farewell, and I do love the Beatles so why not. Being me, I just had to design an invitation didn't I?. If I had a budget, I probably would have printed them all out and posted them too.

As most South African get togethers go, a braai is the best way to send me off to Europe, so a braai it is...

Almal is lief vir koek...

About 2 weeks ago, my nearest and dearest Will asked me to bake a birthday cake for 20 people. Naturally I accepted the challenge, not quite knowing what I was getting myself into. Usually when I  bake a cake, its just for the fun of it and not something I really 'plan'. I only really bake when I visit my folks In Pretoria, and my moms pantry is stocked with icing sugar, flour and all the other baking necessity. So again, I never have to 'plan' for any ingredients I might need.

So I went scouring the Internet for a recipe that I hadn't used, and decided on a Coconut custard cream layer cake. What a mouthful!. The recipe was take off Angie Batis's blog Lucky Pony from which she re-blogged the Hummingbird Bakery's recipe. I knew this was a good decision because I had baked off Hummingbird's recipes before and they turned out astronomically delicious.

I started baking on the Friday afternoon around 4, having to triple the recipe. This I had to actually do in three separate sessions due to my mothers mixer simply being too small. The entire baking process lasted till 11:30 that night. 3 fat layers of cake lay there, just wanting to be tried and tested. I whipped up the custard cream the following afternoon and iced it up. What I loved about using the custard cream as apposed to a butter cream frosting was how light and airy it all was. I may have undercooked the custard slightly but I wasn't nearly patient enough to stand around and wait. The cake was then decorated in coconut chips\shaving which made it look like a cloud or fluffy ball, I just loved that!

I know it was just a cake and I'm making a pretty big thing of it, but this was truly a  momentous task that I took on and I was really impressed at the outcome. Needless to say, I don't think I will be baking a cake for another birthday unless an overseas trip is thrown in the mix...

The celebration took place on the Sunday at Voodoo Lilly Cafe in Illovo and all the staff were oohinh and aahing at the arrival at the cake. They were extremely accommodating and even let me use their beautiful cake stand as a pedestal for this ginormous cake. I'd never been to Voodoo Lilly before so was really looking forward to trying their food. I had the duck and orange pie with a roasted butternut salad. Truly a delicious meal.

Desert was of course the cake which everyone loved. Then everyone went home and put on their fat pants.

The end...

Oi Chap...

Okay. So it's decided, I'm going with Chapel's Rider backpack as the lucky contender to accommodate me on my little overseas adventure. You may think "It's just a bag ,go on and buy the damn thing if you want it". But I've never been the impulsive buyer which is probably a good thing. I make a pro's and cons list, deliberate over it for months and compare it with other products. So the last thing on my list is which damn colour to go with. I'v been told countless times that us Industrial designer aren't very adventurous with our colour choices and "they're" probably right. But I like my neutrals. So I'm going to stick with them.

So whoever is feeling full of opinions today, tell me which one you would pick and why?

On a lighter note, here's how chapel came about...

'Chapel began when we started riding bikes around Cape Town and couldn't find a backpack that we liked and was made locally. So we mocked it up, tried it on our friends, and started production on what is now one of our best sellers, The Rider.

This idea of locally sourced material is our foundational value and governs the whole design process. Everything used to craft our products, from the leather to our fine woollen lining is made here in South Africa – and this core value creates the type of challenge that our team has a passion to solve. We keep pushing with what we've got until it meets our standards of excellence and durability'- taken off their website

Back to Bandcamp...

Bandcamp weekly no 13: Pieces of summer

Quite Ironic how this weekly is title 'Pieces of Summer' and here we are in the dead of winter. Regardless, this is a great weekly. I regularly play Bandcamp's weeklys whilst at work and let them run all the way through. It's nice not to have to take control of being a DJ at work and just letting Bandcamp do all the work.  This weeks 'Weekly' actually features Johannesburg's Vampire9000, with their EP 'Honesty'. Their sound is classified as  dance dreampop dreamwave pop and tropical, and I do love me a bit of dreampop...

Produced, Mixed and Mastered by Jacob Israel at Benjamin with all songs written by Christian Henn.

Blue and white...

I have a fascination with Dutch design, and more so when it's a contemporary take on tradition. The Dutch porcelain company Royal Delft has launched a new contemporary brand, Blue D1653 designed by Arian Brekveld, Chris Koens and Damian  O 'Sullivan to name but a few.

For those of you who aren't familiar with what Delft pottery is and a bit of it's history, Here's the lowdown. In the late 16th Century, ceramics were only available to the wealthy. By the 1600's, Chinese Ming porcelain was becoming more available to not only the rich in the Netherlands, but the middle class too. Local potters lost a lot of business due to this, and began imitating the colours and patterns in a Dutch way, inevitably creating Delftware. Potters did away with Asian scenes on the porcelain replacing them with Dutch Imagery, making it a national icon even today. 

Great, now you all learnt something today...

Yellow dipped horses...

I first heard Joy Smith play at the Pop Art theatre in Braamfontein about a year ago. I was completely mesmerised by her sound and had not heard anything like it in South Africa. A month after seeing her play in Joburg, I ran into her in Cape Town whilst out with mutual friends . I got to know her on a more personal level, a girl with a friendly and quirky personality.

I truly believe Joy has amazing things coming her way, and has already started recording her first album, Next. She was recently featured on Balcony TV singing ' Yellow', the song that initially caught my attention. My favourite line in the song is 'white horses dipped in yellow'. Somehow it just sticks with me....

Shade those eyes...

Monday. No comment

But on a more enthusiastic note, Today features Frederico Mauro's  'Famous sunglasses'

This is a personal project, just for fun. These images have been randomly selected via Internet search to improve my style and to learn to appreciate other people’s taste. The selection of these images is an informative example of things that I like' - take off his website

Backyard Bill: Hannah Dilworth...

I discovered 'Backyard Bill' through who other than 'Miss Moss' . Diana is a pure genius when it comes to finding beautiful things, so thank you!

Bill is just your average kind of guy who started photographing people in 2008, and from then has really developed an interest in documenting people, their style and their homes. Its hard to pick a favourite from his wide selection of ' subjects' but one of them I would have to say was of that Hannah Dilworth. Probably because of her effortless style, and of course her short hair (bias much)...

Where do you live?
Brooklyn, New York.

Where did you grow up?
Bucks County, PA.

What is your personal soundtrack at the moment?
I’m completely obsessed with Bruce Springsteen, and have been seeing him in concert religiously since I was 15. Besides The Boss, my go-tos are Paul Simon, Sam Cooke, Bob Marley, Tom Pretty, Harry Belafonte, Fleetwood Mac, and Robyn.

Your star sign?
Virgo.

Who is your style icon?
Jean Seberg and my Bubby (grandma). I also just got back from living in Australia and I’m really into the up and coming designers coming out of there, and I love the cool relaxed vibe that the Aussie girls have.

What do you do or what would you like to do when you grow up?
Right now I work as a freelance fashion stylist, which I love. But I have always said that in the future I want to open a great little clothing boutique where I can play good music, my dog Henry can hang, and I can introduce people to new and interesting designers.

hannahdilworthstyling.tumblr.com

pinterest.com/hannahdilworth