Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Julie Kirk:)

Well its that time again, time to see what our Guest designer has got in store for us. So this time it was Retro type, and well I just have to say, I absolutely love what Julie has come up with. She was our first winner here on The Creative Type, and then we all agreed that since her stuff was just so awesome, we would need to have her as one of our guest designers. And well here ya go! Oh and be sure to visit her blog, you will be in awe and highly inspired by what she creates.

"Hello all. I’m Julie and I’m fairly quiet; generally friendly; usually doing or thinking three things at once; obsessed with paper; always scribbling in a notebook … but mostly, right now, I’m really very happy to be here.

Apart from arty-crafty-ness one of my life long passions has been writing and reading and somewhere along the line that grew into a love of type; fonts; hand-drawn letters; alpha-stickers; Dymo machines etc etc …I’m sure you understand!

The ‘retro’ prompt made me think of recreating something
from either the 1950s or the 1980s as the styles of these two decades frequently influence my work...but I decided to try something different.

On a recent browse around www.dafont.com [oh, come on, you do it too! I know I can’t be the only one who spends time cruising for new ‘types’ on there] I’d discovered some fabulous late 19th Century inspired fonts such as ‘Barnum & Bailey’, ‘Romantiques’ and ‘Cast Iron’ which are so evocative of old fairground rides and travelling shows that I fell entirely in love. So I went really retro. About 121 years retro in fact.


I painted my initial [in the style of the ‘JF Ringmaster’ type] on to the cover of a hardback novel published in 1888 which cost me the grand
sum of 30p [45c] from a second-hand book shop. I bought it a few months ago with the intention of eventually turning it into a journal … and now that I have my monogrammed front cover in place I think I’ll get on with it! And while I’m doing that, I’m going to sit back, get comfortable and wait to see how you all interpret ‘retro’. Over to you!"



*Julie hand painted her intial on an antique book*







I just loved how beautiful she hand painted that J, it came out stunning. Thank you Julie!!!


I forgot to mention yesterday that not only are you playing for the great kit from Sweet Twee, but from now on, each winner will receive a guest designer spot starting with our 13th prompt.

So you will win a prize and you will be a guest Typist. Sounds like fun, heh??

7 comments:

Unknown said...

Oh Julie rules:) So with you on the cruising dafont:) Adore this book:)

Unknown said...

I love finding a new purpose for an undervalued and forgotten object! Great job!

Kent said...

Wow Julie - I can't believe you painted that! You have a cute blog too - love your banner!

Shaina Longstreet said...

wow! awesome project. love that "J"

thanks for being our GD!! its a pleasure to have you.

Anonymous said...

Awesome!! That J is so cute!

Sandy said...

Yeah!! great job julie - so glad to see ya here! (-:

Claire said...

Gorgeous book, I love it, I'm off to find a book to alter.
x