day trip // werribee mansion Posted by Helena

My housemate's parents came down to visit and we did a little day trip to the other side of town to take them to Werribee Mansion. I've since realised that this is where The Genie From Down Under was filmed - only my favourite ABC show ever (Rhys Muldoon was cute)! It's really quite beautiful and we were getting a definitely Downton Abbey kinda vibe from the upstairs/downstairs exhibits. We wandered through the gardens where I fell in love with the greenhouses and then popped to lunch at The Park Hotel, purveyor of craft beers.

harry potter // studio tour Posted by Helena

oh boy, this was only one of the best days ever! i'm catching up on some rather old blog posts since this happened... erm... last july. whoopsies! anyway, unless you really really love harry potter and/or movie sets, don't worry about clicking through because there's a lot of photos under the cut!

we spent about 5 hours there all up and thoroughly enjoyed poking around the set. there's two huge buildings, chock full of HP movie goodness. the first room is just massive and we spent the most time in that one. it had the griffindor common room, the boys' dormitory, dumbledore's office, the burrow, snape's potions dungeon, and that's barely scratching the surface!

design // sony music office in london Posted by Helena

This is by far, one of the coolest design projects I've seen. It was commissioned for the Sony office in London (right near where my old housemate works) and it combines two things I really love: music and typography.

The Sony Music Timeline by Alex Fowkes celebrates 125 years of musical history covering almost 150 square meters of wall space in Sony’s Derry Street headquarters. Using just CNC cut vinyl as the sole medium, 54 columns measuring over 2 meters tall cover feature nearly 1000 of Sony Music's signed artists from 1887 to the present day.

 I can't even really say much more about it without doing some serious gushing, but watch the videos and look at the photos. I wish I could see it in real life! Maybe I'll be able to wrangle a peek when I visit  London next...

design museum // terence conran Posted by Helena

Terence Conran is now 80 years old and he's achieved so much in his lifetime! He's an English designer, restauranteur, retailer and writer and makes you feel like you haven't done much with your life yet. The Design Museum London has dedicated an entire floor to Conran's work and it's as diverse as it is incredible. It's running until 12th April and if you can get there I recommend popping in to have a squizz! We were actually there for the Designs of the Year 2012 exhibition, which I recommend even more highly!

ladies day out // borough market & design museum Posted by Helena

Saturday was a lovely girls' day out to Borough Market for lunch and then to the Designs of the Year exhibition at the Design Museum. It took up the top floor in the museum and covered architecture, digital, fashion, furniture, graphics, product and transport and was just fascinating. It totally inspired me to be more creative. I'm starting my photography course at the end of next month, so that will be great motivation!

Unfortunately you couldn't take photos inside the exhibition (so if you're in London you'll just have to check it out yourself!), but you could take photos in the Muji and Terence Conran exhibitions downstairs, so photos of them to come...