'Sup! It's been a while hasn't it? Nevermind... Since my last post, I've definitely had a hectic 2months with getting settled in our new flat, as well as family visits and events. But the one thing that's probably kept me most occupied for the last few weeks is this years edition of #the100dayproject. 

Now I've attempted the project in both 2016 and 2017 and I also tried a #Create365 in 2015. If you've been following me for a bit you know that each of these challenge I didn't finish so why try again? 

The one thing I enjoy the most about these projects and what I learn from them is what I enjoy creating and new ways to use that creative output. Like last year I've given myself quite a simple focus to work towards with the 'goal', essentially, just to think more about how to work or create things in an editorial way that is also humorous, depicts my actual life and shares some tidbits about being a creative/designer. 

This year I also decided to play with one thing I would often stay away from, something I never felt was my strong suit- illustrating people. Or to be more advantageous (I guess?), the person I've been illustrating is myself! *insert shock, horror, disbelief* But actually so far it's gone really well. Although I still have difficulty with drawing things like hands it's been fun to think up concepts to illustrate out. 

One thing that's also driven me to illustrating myself is that being surrounded by magazines and editorial pieces at work, seeing how an illustration takes an article to life has inspired me. It's made me want to work towards doing things like that more whether it's from a typographic or illustrative point of view. And although I do have one lettering piece published in a magazine, I definitely have a lot to learn and experiment with still so I look forward to exploring these more throughout the challenge. 

At this point I'm only about 1/4 of the way through my project, so I'm a few weeks behind but I'm not letting that bother me either. In past years I've gotten caught up in being behind everyone else and feeling like I need to *perfectly* upload once a day. But the reality is it isn't always possible especially when you're working full time and having to do household things like making tea and doing loads of washing when you get home. So the truth is, I'm going to take it at my own pace and if it means I finish a few weeks later then that's fine by me.



I've dropped a few of my favourites so far form the project in this post so hopefully you've enjoyed seeing them. But if you fancy seeing the entire set, you are definitely better checking my instagram @LaurenGemmaHay or my 100 days tag which is #OhHay100Days.

Another post coming from me today but tbh I've had a bit of a backlog of posts that have been needing to go out and I just haven't with the overwhelm, stress and organisation that moving into a new flat brings. Although one thing that certainly helps calm you down is a fantastic meal, right?

Back at the end of January I was invited along to the Dead Dolls House in Islington to check out their menu including a few new treats they have added lately. With it being the same week as Darren's birthday, amongst the excitement of seeing the Jan/Feb issue of IOD being printed, adding in a meal for 2 was definitely the way to top it off.

The Dead Dolls House menu comprises off a mix of cocktails (including some healthy ones!) as well as a mix of veggie and vegan options. There was so many incredible options to choose from but it's fair to say that I left absolutely stuffed and happy with a lil food baby.


So what did I end up ordering? Well, to start with I went for charcoal grilled bread with hummus which omg was soooo amazing! The bread was really thick lovely slices and the hummus topped them perfectly.


For the mains I went for the vegan hot dog and a side of chips. Don't get me wrong I loved the sound of the bowls or even the badboy sweet fried tofu but if I go somewhere and they have a vegan hot dog, ya sure as hell know I'm going for the hot dog. And trust me it didn't disappoint! It went down like a treat.


To finish off our meal I had the citrus tart. It was honestly the best option to finish my meal as it left me feeling refreshed and it tasted lavish!

And finally, last but not least was the cocktails! Throughout our meal we decided to have a couple different ones because well, when in Islington! No but seriously, I cannot resit a good cocktail and trust me these were fantastic.


For my first one of the night I tried one of the healthy cocktails called smoked on the water. Initially I couldn't really think of what the cocktail tasted like but later in the evening I realised it tasted like the fruit and barley diluted juice you get. (It was so good)


My second drink I decided to go for the adios motherf#%!er, which for me tasted like a more alcoholic induced twist on the classic blue lagoon. Even though it was a classic twist of flavours it definitely tasted great and went down well with my main and dessert.

Also since Darren was with me, I obviously tried some of his cocktails he ordered. For his first one he went for the deep blue, a fruity cocktail packed with pomegranate, lemon, strawberry, blackberry and blueberries. Although it was packed with sooo much fruitiness the rum, pinot noir and angostura set it off and gave it a good kick. And with his second drink he went for the singapore sling, another classic!


Overall we had a really lovely meal at Dead Dolls House and we were great with such wonderful service too. It's definitely a place I'd love to head back too with some plant foodie friends so that I could try some of the other options on the menu. The vibe is also really nice with the decor and extra elements the bring in, it feels special. And with a energising Friday and Saturday night scene, as well as brunch there's definitely so much to check out down at the restaurant!


*Disclaimer: I was invited by Jams PR on behalf of the restaurant to come and sample their menu. In doing so I was a complimentary meal for two including x1 cocktail each (so yep I couldn't help myself and bought the second one). This does not in any way affect my opinions. All views and thoughts are my own.

Goood evening and welcome back to my corner of the internet. The blog schedules been a bit scattered lately hasn't it? Apologise! I'm finishing up this blog post in the comfort of a new flat that we moved into this weekend. So it's fair to say things have been a bit hectic the last few weeks in order to get everything sorted. One thing that's kept me calm and collected has been escaping into a fab book, and for this post I want to speak about Malia Zaidi's book, The Study of Silence. 

Lady Evelyn Carlisle has returned home to England, where she is completing her degree at St.

Hugh's, a women's college in Oxford. Her days are spent poring over ancient texts and rushing to

tutorials. All is well until a fateful morning, when her peaceful student life is turned on its head.

Stumbling upon the gruesome killing of someone she thought she knew, Evelyn is plunged into a

murder investigation once more, much to the chagrin of her friends and family, as well as the

intriguing Detective Lucas Stanton. The dreaming spires of Oxford begin to appear decidedly

less romantic as she gathers clues, and learns far more than she ever wished to know about the

darkness lurking beyond the polished veneer. Can she solve the crime before the killer strikes

once more, this time to Evelyn's own detriment?

Jumping into Malia's books you definitely get some cosy vibes which for this time of year on a cold night has been the perfect pick me up.  With the book being a period crime novel, it definitely ticked all the boxes for me when I received the email about this tour and having read it, it's certainly not disappointed! 

As I mentioned above, The Study of Silence is a period novel set within 1920's Oxford. The novel follows Lady Evelyn Carlisle while she returns to Oxford in order to complete her studies. Along the way you get to meet a variety of characters which keeps you on your toes as to who the killer is. Compared to recent books I've read, the pacing did feel slower to them but with enough clues to sway you between who was the murderer it did leave for a satisfying ending with a character who ended up making a lot of sense. 

One aspect of this book that I very much respected, especially as it being the third in the series, was the character development. I've not read the first two instalments to this series but I was still given enough background and information that led to this being an enjoyable read. Throughout this chapter of the series, you get to meet a variety of new characters as well as some that I imagine you learn more about in the initial two books. Focusing on  Lady Evelyn Carlisle solely, I found it interesting the complexity her character has which is not unlike any women growing up in modern society. Constantly battling between her own ambitions and what she should "traditionally" be doing, it gives a lot of thinking points but also shows how much has changed between almost 100 years ago and now. 

Overall I really enjoyed this book. It was refreshing and gave me a break between some harder going crime and thrillers, it's definitely more a pick for cosying up in a blanket with a cuppa in hand. I would also state that even though it is the 3rd in a series, definitely check it out on it's own. As someone who's not heard of this series before the characters and story line made sense and I didn't feel like I was missing any major background to the characters or story. So definitely make sure to check it out if you want a lighter crime novel to read or you fancy jumping into a new series altogether. 

More information

Today I planned on sharing a blog post talking about the work I did on a magazine at work but I actually changed my mind this morning to something else, so that post will come over the weekend.

The 6th of February actually marks 1 year since my first day of officially working as a designer on an internship basis but it also marks the first day of my junior designer life at SevenC3 after passing my probation period. It feels ironic that the two have married up so precisely but it does feel like a nice 360°.

With this all in mind, I wanted to discuss in this post a brief outline of what the last 365 days have entailed, some things I've learned or realised and some stuff that I hope will help other people who are trying to get their start as a designer. 

So where was I 1 year ago? 

Last year, I was starting my first day interning at Glasgow based studio, Freytag Anderson. I was given the opportunity to intern at FA through the GDFS festival which I actually spoke about in this post. I spent the week learning how a studio works and even seeing that on the business side of things, with client and internal meetings, doing some concept research and putting together design packs for competitions. The most impactful part of this internship was actually on my last day when myself and Greig sat down to speak about my portfolio and ways to utilise it in order to enhance my chances with jobs. Leaving this internship made me more hungry for 'real world' expierence and cemented my thoughts on my next one. 

One of the projects I helped on while at Venn. Check out the full project here.

From leaving Glasgow, I then went home for a few weeks to then travel almost 700miles in order to intern for 4 weeks at Venn Creative in Penryn, Cornwall. With this internship I simply found/heard about it by tracking tweets on Twitter that included "graphic design intern" with a variety of variations on that phrase. I spoke a lot about this time on the blog already, so if you fancy reading that check those posts out the Venn Creative tag. I also shared this post on Medium detailing the vast majority of things I learned during my time there too. The main thing that boosted my expierence was the vast amount of projects I got to work on, from both beginning to completion. 

After the extremely eye opening 4 weeks in Cornwall I came back to life that was dreaded normality. I got back to working in retail and applications after application, interviews after interview I wasn't really getting anywhere. Apart from joining in 2017's 100 day project, I wasn't doing much design work. From the period of April to July I got more restless and deterred. I wanted a job or even an internship in the industry but didn't seem to be getting anywhere. I was losing faith in my skills and knowledge and each knock back pushed me further away.


In July however I did go into Aberdeen based design studio, Foyer Graphics for a few days after a family friend put in a word for me. With the few days I got to see, again, another side of the design world. With a lot of their clients being non-profit there's a different way that you need to approach the work. The team that worked there were knowledgeable and on top of it. And also working in an industry where women are considered minorities in top creative/design roles it was inspiring to be in a design studio that didn't just have a single female in the office but all 3 designers were female.

Between Foyer Graphics and the next company I was at, I had a major knock back. I had applied for a role at another local-ish design studio and thought I had pretty much landed it. But thus, it wasn't meant to be. And although it did upset me at the time it was just for the best.

Moving on from the knock down, I'd had seen a post from a creative I knew in the Aberdeen scene and had spoken to a few times. His work was looking for a marketing design intern to join the business group that was made up of restaurants, food delivery service and a gym, amongst other things. Seeing as I had no other work or interviews lined up I figured I'd messaged him about it and he pretty much invited me to come along straight away since we already knew each other.


After that first month of being at the ACC group, I was asked if I wanted to stay on and to actually get paid! It was only on a part time basis, usually 2 or 3 days a week but it meant I could cut back my hours at the Coop to do something I had actually studied. My role at the company varied massively, I would often be creating different types of assets to use on social media from Facebook posts to Instagram stories. I also designed posters, leaflets, newspaper ads, as well as more marketing work including contacting influencers and compiling lists of possible deals we could run in certain areas of the business. My time here obviously ended once I had been offered the position at SevenC3 but I'm thankful for the opportunity I had there. Being in a more 'in-house' role showed me how you can start to develop a style for a brand and constantly develop it further. 

Overall it feels like I didn't do much experience in hindsight but counting it out in total it does work out to be 3/4months of interning and part time work before getting into a full time design role (although this doesn't include the variety of the freelance and self-initiated projects I've done throughout the years). I'm not sure if this is on par with what most people experience or not but I know that I seen a lot of even junior roles looking for one years experience which is mad tbh.

I hope this helps give you some insight to what my journey was and feel free to ask below any questions about interning or building up experience. I do want to write a full blog post on some tips I realised through my time so let me know what you would like to see within that.