good morning sunshine.

whilst it’s been lovely (although cold) weather the last few days i haven’t had chance to capture it.

hopefully this shot comes close, taken near to my new temporary home in reading.

tttthings i’ve found recently: letterpress express.

 

sometime ago i went to a beautiful letterpress exhibition (reverting to type) near old street. it contained some beautiful and well thought-out pieces of graphic & letterpress design.

shown above are a handful of iphone snaps taken of my favourite pieces. if it was still open i would suggest going to see it, unfortunately it has now closed, shame, but hopefully you won’t miss the next one!

wish i could get my letterpress out this weekend. hmm.

baker street.

it was a few months ago when i took a visit to the london transport museum. whilst there i took a photograph of an illustration showing how the station looked when it originally opened, curious to find out how it looked today i finally pulled into baker street and took a photograph of how it looks today.

rather suprisingly and happily i saw that it hasn’t changed much.

good to see that not everything is ruined on the underground.

oh dear stagecoach.

now i don’t particularly like complaining and certainly not in writing, but the stagecoach bus i got on this morning was a real shocker. the images i’ve uploaded don’t really show the state of what was happening and if i had video on my phone (someone please buy me an iphone 4 haha) then you would have been able to get a better understanding.

sitting upstairs, in what was a pretty fowl stench, i noticed by my feet (as the driver pressed the brake) a gush of water flood towards the front of the bus, after which it all gushed back again when the bus accelerated. it was horrible (lets hope it was only dirty water). on top of that the was plenty of mould on the windows as well as water dripping from them, just shocking!

had this been a free bus, it might be slightly more understandable, but paying an over priced fare and then sitting in conditions like that (don’t get me wrong i went downstairs in the end) are far from acceptable.

stagecoach you are a disgrace, people in hull (one of the poorest areas of the uk) shouldn’t be paying high fares and then expect to board a bus in that condition!

enough ranting for now.

good morning type.

i’ve been living in hammersmith since the new year but only just spotted this typography when stood at platform three at hammersmith station.

i quite like it so i thought i would post it up.

red bull: mini drome.

a good friend of mine (mr. joe stuart) came to visit me in london in january. he found a fixed gear event based in bethnal green and organised by the good fellows at red bull.

the event involved 107 contestants riding around the smallest velodrome (mini drome) in the world. there was a qualifying round followed by head to head heats.

i’ve uploaded a few crappy iphone snaps but fortunately joe had the foresight to take his little point & shoot video camera. there will be a link to the edit i’ve done using his footage soon, but until then it’s worth tapping ‘red bull mini drome’ into google.

nice one.

here’s the link: http://vimeo.com/19868949

the kings speech.

if you haven’t seen the kings speech yet, i strongly suggest that you do before it exits our cinemas.

i was lucky enough to see it a couple of weeks ago and went in thinking ‘this is probably going to be overrated’. as it turned i left saying ‘that was brilliant’.

if you get chance it’s definitely worth checking out!

tttthings i’ve found recently: five

i’ve had a bit of free time lately (well it has been christmas), and i spent a fair few hours late on during christmas eve and the big day itself going through videos on youtube, most of them were music videos this time. i’ve compiled another ‘tttthings’ post so that you can view as many of them as you please. you might not like any, but those that have made it into this post are ones that i thought were well produced but also had a good track (which is pretty necessary really).

hopefully you will agree and will enjoy listening to them (probably late at night with your headphones on, trying not to wake the neighbours up).

i’ve also thrown in an ellie goulding live lounge video, it’s a great cover!

happy boxing day to all.

tttthings i’ve found recently: four

it’s been a long long long time (three longs) since i posted one of these up. but i’ve got plenty to show on this occasion. there is bound to be loads of stuff that i’ve forgotten to put in, but so what, that happens.

most of what is on show are videos, both music and mini documentaries, all pretty impressive (at least in my humble opinion). there isn’t much you need to know about each video, so i won’t bore you with the facts, and instead i’ll just let you watch them all. for those of you who have me on faceache, you might have clicked and watched a few of these videos before through my occasional links on there, however there’s not much harm in watching any of these twice (or more).

peas & carrots.

nme’s top 50 tracks of 2010.

in last weeks nme there was not only a list of the top 50 albums of the year but also the top 50 tracks of the year. the tracks (47 that are on spotify can be found in this playlist).

there is without doubt a fair amount of crap, mixed with some decent stuff and a few really great tracks! unfortunately arcade fire are nowhere to be seen as their music isn’t available on spotify.

headphones on? skip botton at the ready!

(and a big thank you to charlie edwards for taking this photograph, i haven’t ask for your permission though, oops).

snull (a mixed of snow & hull).

another trip to hull this weekend. this time the snow was particularly deep. over the past week (since i made the last hull based snow post) there has been plenty of the white stuff falling from the sky. weirdly (unlike the rest of the uk, especially london) things were running pretty much as normal (just like they should). anyway here are a few snaps from the last 24 hours (or less). they don’t really show how deep it is because the pavements that i’m stood on in a few of the shots have around 6-10 inches of compacted snow between my feet and the pavements surface. its like being over half a foot taller! (the walls and street signs seem a bit low).

southfields in summer.

currently southfields station is a snow heaven (or hell if you don’t like this fun stuff). but as i’ve been sat on this train bound for an even snowier platform in hull, i’ve had a look at some old iphone snaps and found this one of southfields station during tennis season (southfields is the closest station to wimbeldon).

this was a huge stretched tennis court laid down with big asda strawberry adverts across the station. it looked cool but it wasn’t easy to play on, difficult to get the ball back!

tube strike (again).

earlier this week a created a post about a recent tube strike. we had another this week (monday) and i’ve taken photos from similar positions & times as i did previously.

turns out i was pretty lucky when it came to getting to and from work, although i did expect more disruption than i got (in fact the journey was more pleasant than the average day).

over & out.

tube strike.

monday will probably be a difficult day on the tube, with another strike taking place. in order to get in the mood, here are some pictures from last time. they show embankment rather dead and empty on the bakerloo northbound platform (around 8.30am) & the view from the district westbound platform (around 6.30pm) looking rather packed across the station.

more of this tomorrow i believe.

snow up north.

it’s been cold lately, and to top it off it’s been snowing in hull. i made a quick weekend visit to see friends and family and was greeted by plenty of snow. didn’t have time for snow angels, maybe next time.

if i had a radio show: covers ‘remastered’.

so far i’ve ‘released’ a few different spotify playlists as part of if i had a radio show and some of you seem to like them, which is pretty positive. and fair play some feedback is crap because they contain poor songs, but most of them aren’t always what i listen to or even like, they just seem to fit in with the theme of each category and the skip button was invented for a reason.

since the last addition to if i had a show was released i’ve finished university and been living in london with minimal internet connection, hense the lack of posts to this blog. but i’ve recently tweaked some of the covers for the playlists and i’m going to release a new one soon. any-who without sounding too self involved about my design work, i’ve tweaked the covers so that they all follow a constant theme: photographs from my past. a few of the covers already have this, but i’m going to do it for all of them now. yawn.

until the next post. ta-ta.

www.thomaswood.co.uk

tokyo bike.

even the thought of owning a fixed gear bike makes me worry about my bank account balance, which is probably why i don’t have one yet. if i did i wouldn’t mind one of these beauties.

the pop up london shop (tokyo bike) is surprise surprise located in fixie heaven just off brick lane. (sorry if this post is annoying you ric, i’m just not that good with my fixed gear knowledge).

you can see some images above that i snapped on the appalling quality of my iphone camera or check out better ones by going via this link to the its nice that post about the shop.

ta.

www.thomaswood.co.uk

who said london was expensive?

the creators project opened yesterday (i believe the exhibition is continuing until 6pm today just off southampton row if you fancy it) there was some pretty cool bits of work/exhibits, a favourite has to be the photo booth!

the first thing we saw on the night (apart from the free bar) was this cassette playa thing, some fashion based idea which din’t make much sense. after that we moved around a bit, and spent some time near a mini blue room. dario had the guts earlier in the day to pick a song and dance solo to it, the idea being that the footage from everyone dancing would be used later in the evening for vj-ing. we saw peaches do her dance a few minutes before her dj set. weirdly she had broken her leg and came out of the blue room shouting about equal rights for all, strange because she isn’t disabled. her broken leg was neatly rested next to her turntables during her set, a sight if ever there was one. the set was pretty good and a classic piece of vice material occurred as a lass turned up in a swim suit and decided to erm, pour a few free drinks over her head.

eventually we hit the ballroom to see mark ronson, pretty sweet set, followed in style by kele playing his debut album. loved it. finally tinchy stryder came on stage, although by this point the crowd was long gone after kele’s success and a seriously reduced set meant the 4-5 songs were enjoyed mainly by staff. despite that, it was a great night and it seems even better after waking up this morning with the same money that i started with.

i think the creators project is doing a worldwide tour so if you’re reading this from across some distant water then keep an ear out for it coming to a city near you, it’s definitely not something you will want to miss.

www.thomaswood.co.uk

off the map (taster).

before i upload a somewhat unchanged website (hopefully today) with the css code all sorted out (do i hear you yawning?) i thought i would give you a taster to my final major project. you might (big might) have seen seen a small example on the’ from falmouth’ website but just incase here are four of ten posters. there will be much more on show with the update.

i’m going to be sending this work off soon too in the hope that it gets used across the london underground. oh yeah i better explain it! well this project is a self initiated one, its to help people discover the hidden and unused london underground stations. i’ve designed a map and such like (all on show on my website shortly). the posters all show a story behind the station, and as you learn more about the station (through a series of matching booklets) it becomes more apparent what the illustration is showing.

i hope (fingers tightly crossed) that you like it. i’ve had a few requests for posters already and if there are anymore (or to confirm that you want a copy of anything) then please email me: info@thomaswood.co.uk

thanks folks!

www.thomaswood.co.uk

the joys of a british holiday.

true to form, me and karl went away for a few days. this time we had a lot less money than last year, so decided two nights in blackpool would be the best bet. this was a follow up to last year when we went to the lake district & on our return went via blackpool (skint) and said we would have to return someday.

this time we were prepared, we even had pre-booked tickets for the pleasure beach (i know, dedication right?). excited we packed (although i was rather last minute) and arrived to our hotel, a huge 56 room palace (well palace for dirt) and soon discovered that the pair of us made up 33% of the weeks bookings with only two other rooms in use. but for the price we expected it, we didn’t really expect to be in the hotel and took to the streets. amusements and a bit of grub later (followed by alcohol) we awoke half-ready for the pleasure beach. hangover cures complete we found ourselves on the big dipper, the fun began and continued throughout the day (i would post up photos of the park but i didn’t take any so i can’t really). still the pepsi max was nerve racking, karl said it’s the tallest roller coaster in europe, whether it is or not, i was nervous, very nervous.

we found this sega driving game in two of the amusements, and it was the best thing we found! i’ve never been a fan of the driving games in amusements, over priced and the words ‘game over’ appear almost as quick as the money is entered into the machine. this one was different, racing against each other, motion seats and plenty of time before the dreaded game over words appeared we raced and raced, until we had no change left. the only issue i have is they let karl win (a lot).

after plenty of rain we finally left blackpool happy with everything but the weather, shame it was a short break. i’ve inserted some of the iphone snaps i took, they are far from special visually, but they help to show the dive that this holiday resort has become, actually they don’t, they show the developed parts but blackpool is still stuck in the popular 60s and 70s, just a shame the people have left and the paint hasn’t been touched up.

www.thomaswood.co.uk