This week Brad and I went to a talk at the Wellcome Collection titled “Christ to Coke - How Image Becomes Icon” given by Martin Kemp, the Emeritus Research Professor in the History of Art at Oxford University.

The talk focused on Martin Kemp’s book of the same name - Christ to Coke - and he discussed some of the icons which made it to the book. My sketchnote of the event is below… 

If you are interested in hearing the lecture, Martin Kemp is speaking at the National Portrait Gallery about Iconography on the 22nd March. Tickets cost £5 / £4.

For my most recent birthday, Brad purchased tickets to a Christmas Cheese Tasting at Neal’s Yard Dairy. We have been before — to their very popular Beer & Cheese tasting — and absolutely loved it. First we found out I was expecting (and that rules out a fair few cheeses) and then the Christmas Cheese tasting was unfortunately cancelled. Thankfully we were able to book into the Mountain Cheese tasting held on February 9th.

This is the little blurb from their website: The cheeses from the mountain regions of Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, France and Italy are amongst the oldest, most traditional and romantic in the World. Steeped in history, their origins can be traced back many hundreds of years and beyond. Those generations of experience can result in some of the most exciting and engrossing cheese to be found anywhere. Join us for a high altitude tour of european mountain cheeses that which will expand your taste buds and your imagination.

Brad got to taste all the cheeses on the list but so I didn’t miss out, the team at Neal’s Yard kindly prepared a special pregnancy safe cheese plate just for me. I made lots of notes, which you can see below… 

Last Friday, I had the pleasure of attending the Design of Understanding conference. Organised by Max Gadney and held at St Bride, it was as interesting and diverse as the previous year’s conference, which made a nice change from the usual UX conference scene. 

My favourite speakers were Luis Rey’s talk on illustrating dinosaurs and his work with paleontologists to accurately represent them, Gill Ereaut’s look at how a company uses language in order to reflect back their silent assumptions and Lee Coventry’s take on how stock photography companies like Getty expand their collection and work with companies like Flickr to do so. 

Sketchnotes for Timo Arnall and Alan Patrick

Sketchnotes for Luis Rey, Gill Ereaut and James Bridle

Sketchnotes for James Bridle (cont.), Lee Coventry and Tom Armitage

Sketchnote for John Walters, Alice Taylor and Dan Hill

Thanks to my lovely employers — RMA Consulting — for giving me the day off and paying for my ticket. As always, views expressed on this blog are my own.