Nixon - Graphic design, Cornwall
Recently…
What we've been up to over the last few months
St Ives or bust…
Last weekend saw a glorious (and rather rare) sunny saturday with high blue skies soaring over west Cornwall. After a month of rain and mist I rather hastily decided it would be a brilliant idea to take my faithful hound Ruby out for some fresh air with a bracing walk along the coastal path from Zennor to St Ives, where we’d then hook up with rest of the family after their cultural excursion to the Tate. Naively I thought it wouldn’t take that long- after all in the car you can reach St Ives in minutes! Ruby and I tramped down to the coast path path from the Tinner’s Arms in Zennor, after a quick pint and marvelled at the sight of Zennor Head in all its glory.
Picking out the path across the cliffs we encountered some beautiful sights, I put my iphone to the test so you can see for yourself. After a good hour or so, I found myself reassuring Ruby that around the next headland we would see St Ives in the distance, but no such luck, the path wound on to another sweeping bay, and then another, and another… after 2 hours we came across a sign which frankly stunned me- Zennor 3 miles, St Ives 3.5 miles! I thought we were nearly there.. the path on this stretch is pretty tough going and we started to combat some rough territory not least crossing two waterfalls (not easy when you have to carry your walking companion too!)
With no signal on the phone and having seen no other walkers for the entire trip I did wonder what would happen if I sprained an ankle.. or worse if Ruby or I fell off a cliff. At long last with much relief we rounded yet another headland to see St Ives in the not that near distance. We arrived with aching feet and sore paws, exhausted but rather chuffed to have walked 6.5 miles in 3 hours. The experience certainly reminded me that we live in an amazing part of the world and that next time I should check a OS map first.
-
- Zennor Head
-
- Near Wicca Cliff
-
- Wicca Cliff
-
- Go on JUMP!!
-
- Above Wicca Cliff
-
- Hepworth’s inspiration?
-
- Keep going!
-
- Are we there yet?
I’m a fan
I was wandering around The Conran Shop in Marylebone looking for a birthday present last weekend when I spotted the new Dyson desktop fan. Costing around £200, it has won universal praise for its minimal design and ingenious engineering. It works by sucking in air at the bottom (ooh er, missus) and then squeezing it out again at high speed via a whisper thin gap in the ring.
Like an idiot I stared at this for ages trying to figure out where the fan was… then bought a pen for my friend’s birthday, wishing I could have been more generous and that they lived in a rather warmer place than Maida Vale. I’ve just seen online today that documents indicate that in the early 1980s, a Tokyo company called Shibaura Electric developed a nearly identical idea; however, it was never marketed. See LINK
Signs of the times
With the demise of Woolworths in January, High Streets across the UK including my home town lost an iconic brand. The Penzance store served generations of customers from the same location and, walking up into town, I had often glanced over at the marvellous illuminated back-lit neon sign glowing out across Market Jew Street at night. Most Woolworth’s branches replaced the neon with white plastic during a tweak of the fascias in the early 90s, but I guess because PZ is at the end of the line somehow this one escaped.
Soon after the decision to close all branches, I mentioned to Emily that the sign should be saved for posterity. Some months later she approached the workmen transforming the store into ‘Poundland’, and did a deal on the spot, buying the sign for me as a surprise gift. Naturally, I was more than thrilled but became somewhat embarrassed when called out to the ’site’ to collect them on a particularly busy Saturday in August. As his mate unscrewed them one by one from the building, the foreman helped me load each letter into the back of the car. I got some fairly strange looks and more than a few admiring comments; a few people quipped ‘You’ll get a bomb for those on Ebay, mate’. Well, I’m pleased to report they won’t be sold but will grace the studio. Now all I need is to get them wired up and the neon will glow crimson once more.
-
- ‘Woo’ only three more to go..
-
- Ruby inspects the sign in the back of Emily’s car
-
- In the studio awaiting wires!
