strange and random happenstance

I am a brochure hoarder. Anywhere I go I grab one. The problem is what to do with them later? What's their purpose? They just take up space and yet you don't want to part with them. Unless they have a  place in a photo album or have a secondary function they are a waste of space and right now I'm all about downsizing. Therefore a brochure redesign is like a dream project for me. Because I can take it to the next level, making it functional and collectible. Though this assignment for school had two requirements, I had to use all the existing text in a current brochure while also using an interesting and unique fold. So I worked backwards. Whose brochure would I love to redesign and the answer quickly came to me, obviously The Jane Austen Centre in Bath. The next question was, what kind of fold? Well, for anyone like me who spends way too much time watching Jane Austen adaptations they covet getting a letter like Austen's characters, getting to crack the seal and unfold the paper. Therefore the fold became obvious, I would use a typical Regency letter fold.

What's unique about this fold is that it's based on one of Jane's own letters, which I scanned in and used as a background, drastically toned down to not interfere with the legibility of any information I needed to convey. While any brochure is functional to an extent I love that this made it a keepsake, like getting a letter from Austen herself. As for that red seal? No, it's not wax, but a faux wax seal sticker which can be purchased in bulk and used to add an air of authenticity. Ironically the seal in the picture is from another fandom I'm a part of. Yes, it's a seal for Hogwarts. Originally I wanted to take the wax seal further and create one in the centre's colors, but then I found out that during Jane Austen's time you could use only red or black wax, so it stayed red. Yes, I'm a stickler for certain things, also, the more you know, right?

The information in the brochure could basically be broken down into five categories: Jane Austen, Touring the Jane Austen Centre, the Gift Shop, the Tea Room, and Jane Austen's Bath. Using the centre's own logo as a starting point, I created four more icons to go with the subsections, a teacup, a reticule, a teapot, and an umbrella. These categories then easily divided the content into the sections that could correspond to the various panels the folds created. When you first open the brochure you get this nice little text area with all the information you could need with the headings set in a font based on Austen's own handwriting. In the smaller sections at the top I placed the valuable information of location, hours, and admission. But for me it was all about the interior of the brochure where I placed the map, where form and function combined in happy symmetry.

The entire interior was turned over to a map I drew in Photoshop with my Wacom. Yes. I drew a map of Bath with all the locations important to Jane Austen's life clearly marked. Why would I draw a map other than being totally OCD and always having a need to take a project to the next level? Because, to me, I find maps the most useful thing a brochure can give you. Therefore I figured I HAD to have a map. And while I haven't been to Bath I feel like I know it now. I drew out all the streets, and looked up all the names, I was not just an armchair traveler but an armchair detective, following Jane's life through the city she loathed. I hope one day to go to Bath, and before you ask, yes, I'm taking my own map. Though I also kind of want to see what would happen if I was left without a map. After this project could I find my way without any help? I have a feeling I could...

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Armchair Detective, Bath, Bicentenary Ball, Brochure, England, Hogwarts, Jane Austen, Jane Austen Centre, Letters, Maps, OCD, Redesign, School, Tea, Unique Fold, Wacom, Wax Seal

The Slow Regard of Silent Things by Patrick Rothfuss
Published by: DAW Hardcover
Publication Date: October 28th, 2014
Format: Hardcover, 176 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy

Auri spends her time in the Underthing finding balance. She knows all the hidden tunnels and caverns beneath the University. It is a safe place and if Kvothe ever needs a safe space he can come to her, she has prepared for his arrival. She is broken, but she knows by moving the world, ever so slightly, that harmony can come and a feeling of contentment will reign, if just for a short while. Her days have struggles, food that must be found, soap that must be made, places that must be visited, and places that must be avoided. But at the end she knows where she needs to be and he'll come.

Yes, this isn't book three of The Kingkiller Chronicle. I think by now this has been well established and should be regarded as fact that this book isn't Doors of Stone or whatever the final book ends up being called. And you know what? That's OK. Yes, we all long for the final book, but here we get a look into this marvelous world from a different perspective, plus you might just learn to make some soap. To me it doesn't matter that this isn't book three, because this is better. I have always felt a connection to Auri and this book reaches out, and through her story makes a connection with all the other broken people in the world, of which I number.

Auri has always fascinated me. She is a gentle enigma in the greater story arc. Whether she is very important or just another character doesn't matter to me, she is just Auri, or as I see her, the Luna Lovegood of Temerant. You might think that's a crazy assessment, but seriously, think about it and you'll see the comparison isn't far off: the compassion, the innate understanding, being viewed as slightly off, yeah, she's Luna. If you're looking for big revelations for the rest of the series hidden in Auri's story you are going to be disappointed. We get this glimpse of her day to day life in the Underthing, and that's about all. Now you're probably wondering why you should read this if all we do is follow Auri around in her bizarre and hard to comprehend rituals. It's because this story taps into something deeper, a feeling inside us all of falling apart and what we do to keep going. Auri keeps going.

I am OCD, I have been as long as I can remember. I cope. I get along. I get through the day. Awhile back this wasn't the case. Awhile back there was obsessive counting and washing of hands and things had to be done just so and if something was not right I couldn't handle it. This isn't the kind of life I'd wish on anyone where you washed your hands till they bled. But there's something about living with it, with working your way through or finding a way to cope that gives you a greater understanding of other people. You see their pain, you are more empathetic. Reading about Auri I understood it all. I looked at her and saw what I once was and what I could be again. Pat nailed this flaw in us and how we cope to a genius degree. The way Auri keeps her world in balance by feeling what goes where. I just feel this understanding emanating from the book and I contentedly sigh.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Auri, Doors of Stone, Kvothe, OCD, Patrick Rothfuss, The Kingkiller Chronicles, The Name of the Wind, The Slow Regard of Silent Things, The Underthing, The Wise Man's Fear

We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
Published by: Library of America
Publication Date: 1962
Format: Hardcover, 832 Pages
Rating: ★★★
To Buy
"Merricat, said Connie, would you like a cup of tea?
Oh no, said Merricat, you'll poison me.
Merricat, said Connie, would you like to go to sleep?
Down in the boneyard ten feet deep!"

Mary Katherine Blackwood, called Merricat, and her sister Constance, have lived their life for the past six years shut away from the world caring for their Uncle Julian. Their only other companion is Merricat's cat Jonas. Merricat is the only one ever to leave the house, on Tuesdays and Fridays, which are bad days. As she walks to the store she can feel the eyes watching her. A good tip into town is one with minimal contact with the outside world, a bad trip is one that ends in taunting. The three remaining Blackwoods have been beyond the bounds of society behind the fence that Constance and Merricat's father erected before that fateful and fatal dinner. Constance was arrested six years ago because she was the only one who didn't use the sugar laced with the cyanide. Constance was the only one to survive that dinner without any aftereffects... Julian survived, but he was never able to walk again and his mind wanders, though that night never leaves him. Julian is dedicating what remains of his life to recount that final day. The day when he lost four of his family members, one of them his wife.

The aftermath of Constance's acquittal, despite everyone believing in her guilt, was that she shut out the world. Connie never ventures past her garden anymore. She spends her time cooking and looking after her two charges, keeping the world locked out. Merricat is just as paranoid of others as Constance, but she has buried treasure and symbolic items scattered throughout their land in a type of rustic magic to ward off everyone. One day she finds that her wards have failed and at that moment there is a knock on the door. Their cousin Charles has arrived. His branch of the Blackwoods severed all connections at the time of the trial, not even willing to take Merricat in, that night she was sent to bed without dinner and though it saved her life, it meant she was banished to an orphanage for a time. Charles does not have the best of intentions. He is avaricious, only seeing the money in everything and in his alliance with Connie, Julian and Merricat are just obstacles to move out of his way, nothing more. But Merricat won't go down without a fight. She has a feeling that it will be her left in the house with Constance, not Charles. Charles should remember, bad things have been known to happen to members of the Blackwood family.

This book is the most terrifying and accurate story of paranoia I think I have ever read. There's a part of me that is very antisocial and would rather be left to my books. I have easily gone a week without leaving the house and I can see some things in Merricat that I can relate to in her OCD behaviours. Yet, I find that this book has kind of cured me of all those feelings, at least on a cognitive level. All paranoia and agoraphobia has to face the test of implementation. It's all well and good to think you're ok, but you never know though until you try. Constance does try, but such a man as Charles as her "saviour" could never work, I was hoping he might go the way of the previous Blackwood, though more painfully, and Constance has Merricat. Merricat is 18 in this book, yet her behaviour is more like that of a 12 year old, her emotional development and well being stunted when the poisoning happened. Constance wonders if she was right to shut Merricat away from the world, but it seems to me a mutual decision. Merricat, despite being more willing to leave the house, is really suffering more, and very much a sociopath. She has far more rituals and dark thoughts than Constance ever had. There is the rigid schedule to maintain, there are the coins buried in the river bank, the doll under the rock, the blue marbles, and the book that was nailed to the tree. Even when Merricat isn't checking on them her thoughts dwell on the powers these items give her, the layer of protection she has. Like a person who has to turn the light on and off so many times before leaving, Merricat's life is built around these rituals that have evolved around her to protect the two sisters, who, despite everything, deeply love each other.

Yet, while their isolation from the world seems odd and haunting, it is not without cause. The villagers, more than the crime, made them what they are, or at least exacerbated the situation enough to cause them to turn inward. Coming to the house, taunting, cat calling, daring each other to go to the house where everyone died. Asking Connie to come out so they can see what a mass murderer looks like. "Merricat, said Connie, would you like a cup of tea?" Childish glee in their hatred of the hoity-toity and reclusive sisters is evident in the villagers. At the end of the book, when the villagers have to reluctantly help the sisters, they take the opportunity to unleash their "everyday evil." Because the poisoning only hurt the immediate family, while the bile that is brewing in the town has far greater scope. The mob mentality of people who appear normal is a far scarier thing than two agoraphobic girls peering through slits in the windows at a life they will never have nor want.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 2 comments  

Labels: Agoraphobia, Blackwoods, Merricat, Mob Mentality, OCD, Paranoia, Poison, Shirley Jackson, We Have Always Lived in the Castle