REBEKAH FORD

Illustration Exhibition at LCC this week

2009-04-20T13:02:12Z

I have 3 pieces of work in an exhibition this week. you can see my images at http://www.flickr.com/photos/beckster/

Ada Lovelace Day

2009-03-24T14:38:42Z

As it's Ada Lovelace Day and I find myself writing a user manual for yet another bespoke CMS, I thought I'd add my two pence worth. I've pledged to write about women in technology that I admire. I know so many excellent tech-driven females including Julia Whitney, Michelle Ricci, Paula le Dieu, Helen Pickford, Louise Ventris, Sophie Hammer, Celia Romaniuk, Mo Lishomwa, Sarah Turner, Clare Griffiths, Sarah Dobinson, Maria Stark, Francesca Granato, Bronwyn Van Der Merwe, Hilary Perkins and my cousin Ellie Ford. The trouble with writing lists are that you miss out others and get in trouble so I apologise in advance and will add people as I remember.

I've never felt uncomfortable working in very male tech environments and have always felt respected in my work and treated as an equal. I realise how fortunate I am to be born in a time and place where that is possible. I never expected to take this route in my life and am not sure it will be my only and ultimate vocation (drawing always will be!) but I suppose if it wasn't for the likes of Ada Lovelace, and a go-getting mother instilling me with feminist attributes of equality and fairness, then I wouldn't have learnt all the amazing things that I have so far or felt that I had the right to do so.

I think I would like to recognise today, all those women in the world who will never reach their potential, who are oppressed either by economic or political situations and I wonder what we're missing in the world as a result.

GitHub

2009-01-27T18:19:52Z

Thanks to following Duncan Ponting's blog, I've finally joined GitHub and hope to add some Wordpress and Drupal themes there over the next couple of months.

Alan Aldridge

2009-01-25T17:43:05Z

I managed to get to the last day of the Alan Aldridge exhibition at the Design Museum and was so glad I did. It was like a journey through my childhood brain, so much visual reference that I had been stored and shelved in my memory. My dad bought me a copy of the Butterfly Ball as a kid and I spent so much time staring at each page, relentlessly studying all the minute details. The swapped animal heads, the masks and the little background events all so lovingly and skillfully depicted. I'm still in total awe at the prolific amount of work and the detail in each piece in the exhibition. It was an assault on the senses and impossible to absorb everything.

I was a bit disappointed at the lack of postcards and reference in the Design Museum shop but I do have a mint condition copy of the Butterfly Ball still on the shelf at home so I will be studying it again.

Drupal 6 Development

2009-01-05T17:26:16Z

I've just finished development of a Drupal 6 site. I really enjoyed using it though the documentation is not as well structured and semantic as the system itself. It was a tall order to sift through but well worth the effort. I'm hoping that some of the module developers will catch up with this version as soon as possible. The forum is very responsive and the replies to issues I've had have been swift.
Next task will be to develop some modules of my own.

INQ1 Trail

2008-12-15T17:53:54Z

I'm waiting to receive my INQ trail phone and see how good it is really. As I missed the launch I have made sure I get a go at the actual thing.

Driedonpaper

2008-11-14T12:03:35Z

Much to my annoyance I couldn't make it to the driedonpaper event last night so despite being sent a rather expensive but alluring invite in the form of an inkpad and stamp, i am still in the dark as to what it's all about. If anyone wants to enlighten me then please comment

i-design '08

2008-09-18T09:14:02Z

On the whole I was inspired and really enjoyed the conference. There were some very interesting talks, in particular AIG's London wayfinding project, Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino's work with the Arduino Project. The middle section of the conference was dedicated to marketing which I found very depressing. This is not an area of work that inspires me as much as innovation and the possibilties of social exchange for social exchange sake rather than for somewhat cynical monetary purposes. The emerging physical outpour of interactive behaviour into the real world, the offline world is fascinating to me.

OpenX

2008-09-02T16:39:50Z

I've been playing around with OpenX Ad Server for the past few days and quite like it. It's admin IA is not the most intuitive but that might be due to the fact that I'm not a marketeer but it works well and it's FREE! So if anyone out there wants it on their site, i'm going to add it to the list of CMS that I support once I've finished playing with it a bit further.

i-design '08

2008-08-19T01:40:30Z

i-design at the Purcell Rooms, Southbank Centre, london on September 17th, has a good line-up and includes access to a portfolio clinic and a whoile day of digital events.