Activity in a bag

For arts and crafts volunteering over the festive season, I had designed an activity that involved both – decorating a sketchbook and drawing in it. The paper and board were waste, from the Yodomo Circular Hub in Hackney. I like waste for workshops – it’s a good thing environmentally and it takes away … Read More

Turning up

For Bowen Craggs & Co, a pair of video backdrops. A surprising amount of work goes in to making something simple, for seated and standing use (Enthusiastic arm-waving in a test video, anyone?) that also works when the room is in use as an office and meets a range of … Read More

Colour chemistry

The point of playtime… Away from my desk, I grow things, I draw things growing – and sometimes I join it up, turning growing things into things to draw with. I’ve saved petals from French marigold dead-headings. For a while, I’ve been using the basic method of hot water and salt … Read More

The value of the unexpected

The mechanics of the design process are often set out as diagrams – templates offering a route to creativity. They’re useful in explaining how things work. But they miss out one crucial thing – the bit where the magic is. The unexpected. Learning to be open, to let things go wrong … Read More

Just looking

“Ooh, look at that ampersand!”… Exploring anywhere with me is a thing of constant distractions. Here, two signs I designed for a pepperpot lodge house in Suffolk, created to do their job in directing deliveries and visitors while being part of the place and its setting; and from a visit … Read More

Shopping for knowledge

Learning about people from a personal project… My Autumn / Winter range of t-shirts, sweatshirts and hoodies has gone up on my Teemill shop. It’s an offshoot of my Dispatches from a Small World blog, which started as a lockdown project (do keep up…). But it’s also a lab that’s … Read More

Making an effort

“How does Lydia do this!”… It’s always a delight when a client enjoys the work from a live sketching commission, here, an assignment for long-time client Ideas Foundation covering the Disrupt Space exhibition at The Department Store, Brixton. And this time, my client Heather’s comment set off a stock-take of … Read More

On being a human

Humans of Here East… I co-work at The Trampery on the Gantry, at innovation and technology campus Here East, formerly the press centre for the 2012 Olympics. Interviewed for its impact report case study on responses to the pandemic, I’ve been talking about the value of having brains to pick, … Read More

Reportage sketching, nosiness and chipolata fingers

A blogpost about a blogpost… Photographer, collaborator and Trampery compadre JC Candanedo blogs. Properly. Articles, interviews with people, that sort of thing. So I was delighted when he asked me if I’d join him in conversation for a blogpost. Answering questions often answers questions because I have to unpick my … Read More

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