I recently took part in a competition through 'TinyPrints', a Californian based card company who set the brief of designing a range of Valentines Day cards for 2011. Here are a few of my entries!

Here is the promo for the pilot of the business weekend I recently attended 'Bootcamp For Entrepreneurs'. It was a really good experience, the people running it were brilliant and I think it will be a great success!!!

http://youtu.be/-zaiLUcqGA8

Making the most out of the recent weather, here are some photos of a concept for a piece of lighting. It was made using icicles and snow and created some unusual light and shadow contrast in the room.

Recently I've been working on some designs for an American condom company called 'ONE'. It was a really open brief and the general idea is to create an unusual and fun response to a condom wrapper. I decided to focus on some word play and try to create some powerful imagery which would brighten up someones day. Here are my final 3 images for the 2nd round of the competition:

Vote for this at:

http://onecondoms.com/design/designs/design/2592

Vote for this at:

http://onecondoms.com/design/designs/design/2518

Vote for this at:

http://onecondoms.com/design/designs/design/2570

PLEASE VOTE FOR ME!!! I need as many votes as possible to get to the next stage. THANKS!!!

I was recently given a 'Make your own sweets' pack from Japan. I'd never tried this before so thought i'd give it a go! Not really a project but a bit of fun! Check out the fruits of my labour!!!

They looked pretty bad but tasted even worse!

Over the next few months I am aiming to carry out some small 1-2 day conceptual projects based around everyday objects and generally anything I can get my hands on. These projects will hopefully allow me to experiment with ideas in their rawest state and may lead to some concepts worth developing. This will be a nice change and should fit in well with a few other longer term projects I currently have on the go.

Several of these mini projects are going to be based around light and my first idea was to get myself to 'Poundland' and pick up some stuff and bought a few packs of 'glow-sticks' to play around with. Here are some photos of my creations...

Over the past few years I have become very interested in photography and felt I could capture some pretty cool images of light with a slow shutter speed.

I used an old jam jar to encapsulate some of the glow-sticks to create a temporary, colourful light source on my desk.

I liked the idea of creating a light source installation so created several of these (similar to above) and hung them around town. It was a pretty windy night which helped me get some pretty cool photos.

From the 26-28th November I was packed off to Boot Camp at the Calvert Trust in Kielder. The weekend was run by 'Enterprise Made Simple', funded by Newcastle City Council and was a great opportunity to network and get some help with the business side of setting up a company. Highlights of the weekend included the climbing wall, midnight walk and the 'King Swing'. All in all, it was just fun to meet people in similar stages of setting up their business plans and talk to them about their experiences.

So I've finally given in and now have an account on twitter. I'm a 'newby' to this so take me under your wing and add me!

My username is: Richard_J_Bell

Last week I was awarded a place to show my 'Bubble Tank Project' on the New Design Awards Britain' stand at the 'Interiors' Exhibition which is to be held at the Birmingham NEC Arena from 23rd-26th January 2011. This is a great opportunity for me to show my work at a major exhibition, meet some cool people and should be a lot of fun!!!

"Want to discover the hottest young design talent in furnishing, lighting, soft furnishings and accessories? Then New Design Britain at interiors is the place to be.
Featuring this year’s hottest young design talent in furnishing, lighting, soft furnishing and accessories, interiors 2011 will be hosting this year’s New Design Britain finalists."

http://www.interiorsbirmingham.com/page.cfm/link=83

"20 seconds each for 20 slides on any subject imaginable. Join Design Event and our speakers for a night of creativity, inspiration and ingenuity. Pecha Kucha was devised in Tokyo in 2003 by Klein Dytham Architecture as an event for young designers to meet, network, and show their work in public. Events now run in over 230 cities across the world all with the commitment to share design practice in creative environments."

http://www.design-event.co.uk/pechakuchavol5.php

On 27th October 'Pecha Kucha' returned to the North East for the fifth time. It was held at the Gateshead Town Hall and was a great opportunity to meet some cool people. Some great people talked at the event, my favourite being 'Dominic Wilcox', an artist/designer/inventor who talked about his 'Speed Creating' project. He made 30 projects in 30 days, with a £10 daily budget, with the intention of having to make instinctive decisions quicker. Some of my favourite things he made include his 'Balloon Animal Chandelier', 'Pencil shelf'', 'Popup Train Tray' and 'Bread Of Light'. Check his stuff out at:

http://www.dominicwilcox.com

This years 'Design Mart', ran from 22nd - 24th Oct at 'The Baltic Centre For Contemporary Art'. This year 22 artists based in the North East took part under the theme of 'Making It'. The show featured a range of new pieces, many of which were for sale and explained the concepts behind the products, the materials used and the production processes.

There were loads of cool things to see but some of my favourites were AFID Designs 'R-Chair', Bettina Nissens 'Make a wish' ring, Ellen Thomas' 'Milk Series' and Deadgoods 'Strip-lights'. Definitely worth a look!!!

From the 28th Oct - 28th November my 'Bubble Tank' is being exhibited in the 'Stables Gallery' at the 'Orleans Gallery', Twickenham. The show is entitled 'Echoes Of Other Worlds' and exhibits a wide range of specialisms including sculpture, video and paintings. The show is about the diversity of the world we live in and includes work by artists, designers, musicians and scientists. The show is running until the end of this month and has a wide range of amazing work available to buy. Check it out!

Echoes of Other Worlds

28th Oct - 28th Nov 2010
The Stables Gallery,

Orleans House Gallery,

Riverside,

Twickenham,

TW1 3DJ.

This year the theme of 'Design Event - North East' was 'Conversation'. The festival took part in October and the first thing I visited was an installation by Daniel Eatock based on the brief of 'Non Verbal Communication'. The idea was to create an interactive touch screen in a shop window whereby the public could interact with a mime artist, on the inside of the glass, and draw pictures using 'Windowlene'. I went down to check this out and thought it was great to see a wide range of people getting involved ranging from 'charvers' drawing cocks on the window, to foreign visitors to the city getting their photo taken by the mime artist. Passers by loved it and I think it probably brightened up everybody's day that saw it.

I got involved by having a game of 'noughts and crosses' and making a chair for the mime artist to have a rest. The event was recorded and was screened as part of the festival at Westgate Road from the 21st-31st October!

Check out my 'Organised Chaos' workstation in this months issue of 'onoffice' magazine in the article 'Class of 2010'.

"Hooray! This year's crop of graduates at New Designers and the RCA got well and truly stuck into workplace design - perhaps reflecting a more pragmatic approach now jobs are thin on the ground. So, that means fewer bunnytail lamps, more desks and functional task lights. But don't worry, the kids are still turning it out in style: tubular steel, plywood, bold colour and leather accents were the recurring themes. Here, onoffice picks a few of the most delightful nuggets.."

My article:

"Ugh, these graduates sure are messy. 'Organised Chaos' is another attempt to reign in the mountain of clutter that builds up on a desk. The wired backboard keeps important papers at hand, but also has the capacity to hold things like pens, staplers or, we're told, a glue gun. Eek. The minimal drawer underneath the desk is designed to store an A3 sketchbook and stationery. Excellent."

Illustration by Laura Bell

Photo by Matthew Brindle

Last month I travelled to Austria to take part in the Quartier21 Artist in Residence programme at the MuseumsQuartier Wien. During my time there I worked on a small range of products all based around form, functionality and user interaction. These will be revealed in the next couple of months.

I was also given the opportunity to show my 'Bubble Tank' as part of the 'Fish and Chips, Twice Please?!' exhibition at the freiraum quartier21 INTERNATIONAL. The exhibition is a contemporary fashion exhibition presenting the UK as a design hub for international design talent. Showing there were designers such as Louise Gray, Charlie Le Mindu and Scott Ramsay Kyle.

It was great to experience to stay in Vienna, showcase my work and provided to be a very inspirational city.

From the 7th-1oth July I exhibited my work at 'New Designers' at the Business Design Centre in London. The show was amazing and some really cool stuff was on display. My work was shown through 'Sheffield Hallams' stand and I showcased my 'Bubble Tank' and Organised Chaos' workstation which both generated a bit of interest! Watch this space...

I've recently been working on remaking my 'bubble tank' this time blowing it into a plaster mould. This allows me to make several exact replicas of a design. These will be on show at 'New Designers' Exhibition on 8th - 11th July!!!

"The creative spark is the moment when a thought suddenly becomes the possibility of reality. When what was only a thought has a genuine chance of existence. When clarity prevails and it all seems obvious."

Creative Spark was my final graduation show at Sheffield Hallam Uni. This gave me the opportunity to exhibit all my projects from my final year. The show included furniture, product and graphic design as well as fine art and photography. The show went really well and had a lot of positive feedback!

For my final project at Sheffield Hallam I decided to conduct a study into creative workspaces, in particular for young designers and how they work best. My final piece, 'Organised Chaos' is based around reducing clutter whilst providing a space which stimulates the creative process. It has a wiring system at the back which provides a space to keep items which are integral to the design process but keeps them off the work surface which often becomes cluttered. There is also a shallow desk which aims to provide storage for the essentials ie, paper and stationery, without leaving enough space for mess to accumulate.

Heres a few more prototypes for pieces in relation to the 'Lack Attack' project. There is a chair (with backrest), stencilled piece and vinyl cut design. More to follow...

My latest project has been based around using a £5 Ikea Lack table to create a range of furniture morphing into new pieces with more character. Here are a couple of the pieces that I made. All pieces are still flat pack and have one resin corner-piece with a different stage of the germination process, a metaphor on how the design has grown into something new, fun and different!!!