offenbach house

If Offenbach is a house, how does it look like?

Something incredible happend to me. Yesterday I started watching flats again,
cause in January I maybe need a new home. My plan is, to move to the east
to get another impression of living in a different part of London. The flat
was in Roman Road, Bethnal Green. When I arrived there, I felt like: Okay,
this area is a bit strange, but in general I like strange things. Honestly:
I thought of Offenbach, the city where I lived in Germany before I came here.
Offenbach is known as the bad suburb of Frankfurt/Main (although its not bad
at all) and it has a genuine style. When I came closer to that area, which
is dominated by council blocks (social housing), I saw a sign: Offenbach House.
I could hardly believe what I saw. It is one of the really big houses
(the one in the middle of the picture).

Later, when I left the flat, which was in another block, I passed this wall,
where they put all the emblems of the cities and I got the proof:
IT IS OUR OFFENBACH!

Additional information: The girl, who was showing me the flat, is french.
When she visited this flat the first time, she was a bit shocked of the area
and the name of one of the other buildings, which is Puteaux House.
Puteaux is one of Paris' rough suburbs. Offenbach, they found the right
neighborhood for you.

green / november

Although most of the trees have finally lost their leaves 

(later than at home), november is a lot more green here. 

This is the view out of the window of our living room. 

(I still can't believe that it will be december tomorrow.)

weather forecast

There is a lot of poetry in english weather forecasts
(and the chance to read them like a horoscope).
quotes taken from METRO newspaper, Friday, November 23, 2012

christmas decoration

This beautiful thing came in a letter from Germany (above). It fits to the decoration in our living room (below). I like, that Jo calls it christmas decoration. Its not stars, nor silver or gold or red or something like this. But: It makes happy, for sure. By the way, it always seems to be a wonder for me to get a real personal letter or a parcel by mail from my friends and family. Something real is transported all the way from them to my place. Its really strange that this normal process seems to be 

a wonder now and all these thousand emails etc. from here to there became normal.

the queen of the day

----------------------

This is Jo. I am happy to live with her for a while. Yesterday we decorated
ourselves with different things e.g: our new coloured kitchen sponges,
the domestic pigeon and some of the many plants. Jo is an artist, a market
stall holder at Old Spitalfields Market, a professional car boot sale shopper,
author of this wonderful blog: toot as in foot. And a lot more.

pink

When I moved in here, again I realised, 

that I own a higher-than-average amount

of pink things. The plate was the only pink

 thing in this flat before. It is presented in the

 way my flatmate Jo is selling things. 

Although you will find nothing pink there, 

you should visit her shop.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/TheTootShop

circle studies

Nazareno Crea used a nice analogy to explain how to develop creative ideas. We move in circles. Up and down, back and forth, including failure and mistakes. Having this returned to my mind, I am obsessed by circles. I remember these coloured spiral plastic toys. It seems to be a symbol for my life at the moment. Or maybe, for life in general. I also remember an exhibition in Berlin, titled 

"Every circle makes sense". Yes. Circles, everywhere.

OZZYS KEBAB

... is the next place for fast food to my house. Today, I bought some fries. 
The 1. Man: You are new here. -- Yes, quite new. The 1. Man: Where are you from?
-- From Germany. The 1. Man: Ah, Germany there are many turkish people. 
The 2. Man: Ah, you are new here-- welcome  to London! (...) In this moment, 
I felt so equal to them -as immigrants in this city- although our 
lifestyles must be very different. In between, people came in and out, ordered 
Kebab, Pizza and Chicken, talked loud on the phone, watched TV. Everybody 
seemed to kind of know each other. Good to be a part of their neighborhood.

St Bride Library

The World’s foremost printing and graphic arts library

http://www.stbride.org/

camberwell cookbook / cover

The second assignment: a collective cookbook. 

Everybody designs his/her own recipes and makes a proposal for the cover. 

For my cover, I made a typeface out of prints from vegetable pieces. 

(Try to identify leek, potato, pepper, onion, celery and carrot.)

new look for books / cover versions project

Go to the library. Chose a book with a bad cover and an interesting content. 

Design a new dust jacket for your chosen book. My choice: PAOLO FREIRE

Education for critical consciousness. The original jacket shows fish (on the left). 

My new jacket is a simple and striking typographic solution (Helvetica bold).
The changing position of the "O" is a symbol for the head and the change of
consciousness. Printed on sugar plant paper, which is rough and has a nice colour.

New Dresses.

  _____________________________

While the trees are loosing their leaves, I found some new dresses. 

(And followed the advice to take pictures of things outdoors. 

Again, it was a good test of courage to do unusual things in public.)

stationeries #2

I just couldn't resist them. How they are meant to be equal and
how different they are. The paper. The colour. The type.
And finally I know where the name of this website comes from:
http://pleasedonotbend.co.uk/

Mr. Mike Mills

from: Gasbook 11 MIKE MILLS, published in Japan 2003

    I like how he thinks about graphic design and the things he does, too.

http://www.humans.jp/01/

from: MIKE MILLS Graphics/Films (2009)

3 for 5

One of the nicest cushion in London busses. 

And a 3 for 5 offer from Petticoat Lane Market. 

Bonfire Night

Spent my first Bonfire Night in Lewes. Although it was quite hard, I imagined that
this is a quiet and peaceful place on earth. The pictures of the fireworks cannot
give an imagination of the amount of banger, that were fired. It was totally crowded,
loud and a bit scary. But also exciting to be there.

change

---just imagined these machines would really sell change---