eight. and I hope that you'll remember me

The Victoria & Albert Museum was full of many treats past the Alexander McQueen exhibit. For one, the poppies that were installed at the Tower of London were displayed. It shows the use of additions to architecture and how they can be used for greater symbols. By taking iconic buildings like the Tower of London and adding the red poppies that are used to symbolize the loss of lives in World War I, it created an absolutely stunning image.

In addition, in a moment of rather intense nerdiness, I found a small model of the gateway that leads to Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu's Mausoleum in Japan. Considering the fact that the Sengoku era and the following Tokugawa era are odd historic specialties of mine, I was very excited to see a little piece of it in the V&A. Given the difference in architecture, it was striking compared to the rest of the very Western models that were displayed in the Architecture corridor of the museum.

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seven. dress it up in lights

John Makey reflects on how London was built outward and not upward, horizontally but not vertically. Although it's hard to always see in the light when everything is equally illuminated by the sun, the nighttime truly brings out the spread of the city. When wandering by Harrods, the sheer majesty and largeness of the building was magnified by the use of lights that marked the entire property, decking it out decadently in lightbulbs and making it stand out starkly compared to the rest of the rather dim street. On another night, a venture to the bar located 4 floors away from the top of the Shard gave a stunning view of the London skyline. Like a sea of twinkling lights, London was spread it for everyone to see -- yet even then the Tower Bridge managed to be the most prominent part of the horizon. Although it was once said that the "sun never sets on the British Empire", the sight of the capitol in the night is one that simply can't be missed.

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six. if the city never sleeps, then that makes two.

 Getting to see my absolute favorite performing artist live at Wembley Stadium was truly a blessing that I never expected. Ed Sheeran made history as the only artist that would be performing solo, entertaining an entire stadium that can hold 80,000 people for three sold out nights in a row. I was able to make it to the first night of the tour and also treated myself to a souvenir flag. Considering the fact that all Ed had was his voice, his guitar, and a loop pedal and still managed to entertain everyone for two hours straight, it just truly spoke to his talent. He performed songs from his two most recent albums, the ones that were released widely: + and X. Now what I personally love about these are that the way you read the symbols is 'Plus' and 'Multiply'. They're so simple and yet you can tell they're part of a series, part of Ed's growing repertoire of music.

Wembley Stadium was lit up green, the same color as the X album cover and was just painted with X's. I consider this an example of signage as it shows Ed's album that spent weeks at the No. 1 spot, with nothing more than a simple combination of a symbol and color. My flag only had the same symbol, though it does add 'Ed Sheeran' for good measure just in case. It's simple yet effective and it means so much to thousands of people, as shown by the fact that so many people went to go see this one person perform.

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five. with love, foyles.

The Foyles flagship store at Charring Cross is one of the largest bookstores I've ever been in, spanning six different floors of books, including the ground floor. On the left is an example of the wayfinding that the store provides, all the different types of genres of books as well as the floor number that the category can be found on. In addition, once you're on the actual floor, there are adorable signs on the ends of each bookshelf to tell you exactly what you're looking at -- for example, the Sci-Fi and Fantasy and Crime novels being next to one another, having adorable and simple drawings to make it absolutely clear that they know what you're looking for out of your reading experience. However my personal favorite touch was a small shelf dedicated entirely to books with fictional languages -- however the sign itself was written in what I imagine to be a fictional language. A beautiful little bit of clever wit to go along with the comforting setting of a book store.

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four. somewhere beyond the sea

To quote my own Facebook post, "It felt awkward being in the capitol of what was once the British Empire on America Says We Are Never Getting Back Together Like Ever Day so.... I went to Brighton instead?"

Brighton had a lot to see! For one, the Brighton Pier gave me the best ride that I think I could've gone on for only four pounds, which was the Galaxia. But in general, the town itself was just beautiful. When I was with Cheyenne, we reflected on how, even though we're from California, everything just seemed prettier in Brighton. There was even something about the ocean -- how you could see the gradient of blues based on the depths of the sea -- that made the experience all the more magical. Other things that I noticed on that oh so bright and sunny day were the large amounts of graffiti everywhere! The one to the left marks a lovely edge of the town and the one below pretty much sums up my feelings on the matter. Enjoy graffiti and enjoy every single colorful nook and cranny of life!

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three. little museum of wonder

What will surprise absolutely no one who knows me well is that I've already gotten lost countless times during my time in London. The one time that I got somewhere early -- to our scheduled tour of the Museum of Brands -- we ended up wandering about, getting distracted, and ended up being the last ones to the tour. That said, I don't regret it for even a second.

Keep Creating by Mr Brainwash

While lost, I found a small free, public gallery that had pieces from a number of famous artists called the London Westbank Gallery. The above is a piece entitled Monet Talks by Maximilian Wiederman that's essentially a laser cut oil paining on top of an LED Lightbox that's advertised for 7500 GBP. The pun is one that I can actually appreciate, given the context and commentary that comes with the piece. There were other beautiful pieces such as the one showcased to the left of this text, which uses a text message over an acrylic painting to get its point across. Something that I personally find funny is that the alignment for the text is Justified, which adds another layer of meaning to the piece. The fact that I have a friend back home who absolutely loves Mr Brainwash and his work is just the cherry on top.

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two. mind the media!

More pictures from the trip to the Museum of London and Imperial War Museum! On the left is the design on the wall that was imprinted in gold in order to show the way to the "Victorian Walk" area of the museum, which had a bunch of cute shops that were done in a way to resemble life in Victorian England. It was really cute and I love the way that this sign was done! In general, I think that there's something really classy about pairing black and yellow together but even the lighting to illuminate it manages to pull it all together nicely. The font chosen is very delicate and refined as well, which definitely resembles Victorian England. It was really fitting!


Next up is the bunch of signs that were used in World War I to act as guides for those who were embroiled in trench warfare. Some of the familiar names "Eton Lane" and "Piccadilly Circus" were put up by soldiers who would miss their home. It's just very real, especially as the other names are brought up like Hellfire Corner and Death Valley. It's really sobering to just see it all laid out like that.

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one. you'd think I'm an English major....

On the 24th of June, we went to the Imperial War Museum in the morning and afterward, we went to the Museum of London to explore all the artifacts that they had stored there. I didn't really think that I would find a lot that would interest me -- I stored a lot of information about history, but European history was never my forte -- and I found myself pleasantly surprised. On the left is a page from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, in particular from "The Clerk's Tale." The page was printed by William Caxton and is dated back to 1476. On the description it reads, "[T]he letter type reproduced a contemporary writing style." though it most closely can be placed in the category of Blackletter as it evokes very gothic imagery with painstaking detail put into every capital letter.

However my favorite find from the museum was the following: a program from the St. James Theatre when the play The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde was performed on February 14th, 1895. It's my absolute favorite play and seeing this artifact that related so closely to my interests was fantastic. The use of different versions of type, including Decorative, Blackletter, and Oldstyle is very effective as your eyes are drawn to different parts of the page. It seems to hold a lot of old history to it and I love looking at it and feeling its age in the way that it was designed. 

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