electrifying

If I had all the money in the world, and happened to be developing a second season helen furber collection heel..(which sadly I am not..quite yet anyway) I have just found exactly what I would do. This.is.amazing.

You can "trap lightening" in plastic..aka a "Lichtenberg figure" and which are actually sold on the website "capturedlightening.com". IMAGINE THE POSSIBILITIES!! imagine the heels - ooft.

via notcot.org/popsci.com

animation station

So have been madly trying to cast my wedges over the past week as well as try and pull together all of the presentation material. Today has been really exciting as I worked with the LCF digital studio and created an animation of my shoe construction from the CAD models. I can't believe how fast it was done and looks great! Just needs to finish rendering and then title sequence will be added in. In the meantime I was doing lots of animation/technical video research and have decided dyson is a really great example of how video is used to explain product innovation to consumers. So much information is packed into 21seconds of film..I'm convinced.

IOMmmmmmm

So I went to the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining last week which was exciting and inspirational. The institute holds both a reference library and library of physical material samples which I and a friend were very kindly allowed into, and where you can look at and touch materials ("but wash your hands if you touch any goos!"). Apart from finding all sorts of exciting materials there was a whole host of sample products including an F1 carbon fibre nose cone, kevlar army jacket, the new D30 intelligent cushioning point ballet shoe and all sorts of other delights. I left feeling mega inspired, with a whole host of new project ideas and feeling really grateful to have visited the resources and very helpful IOM3 technical advisor (many thanks!).

through the oven door..

Here's a wee snippet from some sketchbook pages of what's inspiring me at present and hopefully a bit of a feel for my style..

spaced out

Very excited at the arrival of a book I ordered: "Spacesuits, The Smithsonion National Air and Space Museum Collection". After seeing the V&A Cold War Modern exhibition last xmas I was obsessed with the space suits they had on display there but couldn't find any books which showed them in detail. Until this one. And it's so good! Padding and zips and pleating and chiffon (sort of) and..off to design!

save the best till last

Today was a rather productive and exciting day because I went to Springline to choose my lasts for the collection. This is pretty crucial as it will determine the silhouettes, heel heights etc so a little daunting (incase of major error - you never quite know how they'll turn out) but nontheless exciting. Off I went to Northampton for a root on the shelves of the UK's only remaining last manufacturer. After several hours and a very nice bloke in a white coat explaining lots of stuff, I chose two pairs and arranged for two single feet I had collected to be made into pairs. No shopping for me for a while then, but can't wait for them to arrive to start drawing on them!

studies in form

by Herb Greene, 1951 from an amazing and inspiring book I found today called Visionary Architecture:

"The work in this book was produced by architects, artists and designers who remained outside of the mainstream, whose work was ignored at the time, or who refused to make compromises. This book is dedicated to to all those who have followed their imagination in the past, and to all those who will follow it in the future, no matter where it will lead them". Ernest Burden (Author)

big freeze

Back home for xmas and the frozen countryside is rather nice

call of nature

I found these amazing pictures of bugs this morning by Thomas Shahan which made me feel a leeeetle bit squeemish but i think they're awesome. The colours and textures are so rich and inspiring, and after feeling like anything outside of red or black wasn't going to work for me I'm now thinking these could be such amazing colour inspiration..

It's a wrap

Found this still of a film collaboration by echolab & korb for MTV (top) on notcot and it kind of reminded me of the work of Christo which I'm happily revisiting. His work fits in nicely with the Gina wrapped car concept, and i find the tree wrappings particularly interesting as you can see through to the branches inside.

kite related design

Since seeing the BMW Gina concept car last year I've been fascinated by the idea of moving components covered in web/fabric and how I can apply this to shoes. I was sooo happy to find the work of kite related design who do amazing kite sculptural installations. SO feeling this!

Kite Related Design Installations, BMW Gina Concept car (Core 77)

view from the 55

bubble squint

Being inspired by abstract colours and textures at the moment. I went to the Margiela exhibition in Munich in January and found this beautiful Gerhardt Richter painting when I was there.

and this amazing video by phantomcolour which sadly won't let me embed..but here's a screen shot. all about the bubbles. Maybe surface texture?? Bubbly heels..woohoooo!
l'ascenseur" - squint from phantomcolor