The BIG 2015 Round Up Post!!!

It's that time of year again where I spend a million hours writing a round up of the previous year, swearing at blogger as it moves my photos around at will (blogger, let's be friends, k?) and generally being astounded at how much we've fit in to 365 days. For us 2015 was a BIGGIE so I'll (try to) keep the words short....let's go!

We started off the year by casually buying a house. Ok, so there was nothing casual about it. It was more like "OH MY GOD WHAT THE HELL ARE WE DOING WE'RE CHILDREN WE CAN'T DO THIS BUT ALL OUR WILDEST DREAMS ARE COMING TRUE" kinda thing. It had been a bit of a bonkers stressful festive season 2014 whilst viewing houses, having meetings with our broker etc but at the beginning of 2015 we had found our house and were just waiting for the paperwork to go through and to get the keys. We should probably mention too that we were leaving our beloved Brighton (where only millionaires can afford houses these days) and were hopping along the coast to Worthing which is up and coming and basically just wonderful. We were also swapping a teeny tiny one bed flat for a pretty spacious 3 bed house with a garden. For two people who work from home it was a no brainer.

In February I turned 30! I didn't feel any maturer. Lots of celebrating was done, with a night out with the Brighton crew plus Jam took me to London where we stayed by Camden Lock, went to the zoo (I posed with both real and non-real animals) and had a fancy meal in a vegan restaurant in Primrose Hill.

George's fan club on Instagram had decided that 28th of Feb was Day of George! Loads of people posted up photos of themselves wearing their George's using the hashtag - we hope they do the same this year as it was a lot of fun!

Mollie Makes featured us on their "Introducing..." page....we hadn't realised it was going to be such a huge pic!!!

We started #helloDODOdoodles on Instagram just for fun....this is one of my faves! You guys seemed to like these so we promise we'll be revisiting the idea soon...

Not long after moving in to the house I finally did what I'd been planning to do since we first even began thinking about hello DODO 6 years ago....I quit my day job! For the first few months I was utterly terrified, we'd just bought a house and were paying all sorts of tradesmen and on the day to day I often wasn't sure exactly what I was supposed to be doing. Luckily all sorts of fun projects started coming our way and DODO went from strength to strength! I still occasionally have a bit of a freak out but I'm gradually getting used to being a full time DODO!

Talk about getting busy....first up was being part of Pick Me Up Graphic Arts Festival at Somerset House with BEST! I've said it over and over but Pick Me Up is one of the reasons we ever started hello DODO so being involved was a total dream come true. 

We made LOTS of new work for PMU but our Pigeon & Tonic screen print has got to be one of our faves!

Another May, another Great Escape Festival with Toby from I Like Cats & Kieran from Little Mountains! This was our fifth Great Escape! 

After our initial meetings to come up with ideas two years previously (whoops) we finally created a Supermarket Sarah wall with designosaur! We created some really fun collab pieces too, included the ombre dinosaurs, Billy the Bat and designosaur made our Totem Pole in to a necklace! They also made super cool dino lights. You can shop the wall here.

Another exciting project! We were invited to be a part of a special Lucky Dip Club X Folksy box along with a whole bunch of other awesome makers. The theme was Summer and we created this cute limited edition Octopus screen print.

In June we took part in the first ever Ashdown Road Artists Open House - the house of our friends Paulie and Anna (of Anna's Drawing Room fame) which was part of Worthing Art Trail. It was a wonderful mix of diverse work in the house and we got to meet awesome creative couple Ellie and John Bond and Jam taught loads of kids how to make badges. We look forward to being a part of the house again this year!

The 2015 Brighton Etsy Craft Party was even bigger and more wonderful than ever! There were LOADS of awesome workshops going on (we gave a gocco printing one - see above!) and once again we dipped in to our never ending DODO wedding stash of amazing balloons...

We went to the first ever Wildlife Festival at Shoreham Airport with the designosaur funsters! It was amazing!

We won the Mollie Makes Collaboration Award with designosaur for George!!! Here we are collecting our award from the lovely MM editor Lara! It was a wonderful day of photo walks, talks, meeting other nominees and then the scary bit...pitching to a whole massive table of super judges! It was an amazing wonderful shock to win!

More good stuff! We were featured TWICE on the Anorak Magazine "Good Stuff" pages - we seriously love Anorak so this was awesome!!

We were approached by We Built This City to have some of our work in their newly launching Carnaby Street store - which if you haven't visited yet is AMAZING. We went to the launch party and had loads of fun!

We designed the cover for the last ever Inside Magazine! It was summer and almost Pride so we created this fun rainbow windmill. They discontinued the mag to concentrate on their utterly amazing new one - Inside Artists - check it out!

Whenever possible we enjoyed our new home Worthing, mostly be hanging out on the super peaceful beach. We love it when the tide goes out!

Me and our friend Amy had our photo taken with the legend that is Disco Pete! If you're from Brighton you surely know who he is...

We had a BBQ. Toby from I Like Cats put cherry bakewells on it. No-one knows why.

Us, Toby, Kieran, Karli and Jacques all went to Glasgow to visit Keith and Sally (of Hand Over Your Fairy Cakes fame) It was a fun-filled visit of drinking Irn Bru, ceilidh dancing, exploring Glasgow, baby dinosaur skeletons, more tea than I've ever drunk before, CATS, games, trampolining and lots of vegan food (Glasgow, you did surprise me). Photo yoinked from Sally.

We were featured in Italian Vogue Bambini!

To make our house look great we first had to make it look really terrible. The whole place needed a rewire, then we stripped all the revolting wallpaper from downstairs and had it replastered. We let the plasterer use the beige (slightly doggy smelling) carpets as a dust sheet so it forced us to rip them up and get the original boards lovingly reclaimed (they are now our pride and joy!) Don't worry it doesn't look like this now! At the mo we're painting - more progress pics soon!

We launched loads of new cards in 2015 - this one was ours (and yours it would seem) favourite!

We took part in the Etsy Blogger Sleepover at Lick Studios. Basically we set up little studio spaces at Lick and Etsy brought a bunch of well-known bloggers to come and see us working and to do some workshops. We gocco printed this fun version of our Brighton Up Your Day design. Check out this super cute vid Lick made at the event.

We weren't going to have a holiday (we had bought a house and I'd quit my job!) but with the festive season looming we couldn't cope with the idea of not taking a break so we whizzed off to Amsterdam for a fun-filled week of craft beer, galleries, LOTS of walking, zoo animals, and Miffy stalking. You can read two blogposts we wrote about Amsterdam here and here.

Along with fellow Pick Me Up exhibitor and awesome illustrator Carlos Garde-Martin, we hand picked a bunch of our fave eclectic fun-loving graphic artists and HIP! HIP! Collective was born! Currently our other three wonderful members are YUK FUN, Likks and Maria Cruz. We decided to go BIG with our first event...

...by launching at the London Illustration Fair at the OXO Tower Bargehouse! It was a really crazy fun whirlwind experience and we can't wait to do more with these cool kids in the near future! Follow us on instagram and twitter to keep up to date!

Just as the festive season kicked in we launched our colourful organic dinosaur babywear! They were really popular at markets, we're yet to see any adorable pics of babies wearing them though (PPLLEEAASSEEE) We have new designs coming your way soon so watch this space...

In November and December we were frequently told (by everyone) that we were utterly insane for how many events we were doing (a million) but we survived! We returned to Renegade for our 4th year and I think it might've been the most fun yet! We had an awesome posse of Brighton Etsy folks plus friends Keith, Sally (HOYFC) and Sold to hang out with! We also loved being part of BUST Craftacular, Fairy Tale Fair and of course Crafty Fox Market. 

We also helped organise with the Brighton Etsy Team the biggest craziest prettiest craft fair Brighton has ever seen!

We were really excited to also be asked to exhibit in the Studio Loo Christmas Open House! If you haven't visited architect & eco designer Claire Potter's Studio Loo on Portland Road yet you must! It's a wonderful space which was converted from an old public toilet. Make sure you visit during May's AOH and see for yourself!

A wonderful project to finish off the year - we did the design work for Herringbone Art's 'A Winter's Trail' - a magical kids show at Brighton's Theatre Royal. We got to go and see the show which took you on a wonderful adventure through parts of the theatre you wouldn't usually explore and were told a completely magical story. Plus, we learnt the Fairy Detective Agency (FDA) secret handshake, which we still practice every now and then! Check out this blogpost about how we created the graphics. We hope to work with Herringbone Arts and Theatre Royal again in the near future! 

So! That was our 2015! Kinda epic eh?! This isn't even everything! We've worked with some wonderful clients this year and gained some fantastic stockists. We can't wait to see what 2016 has in store for us!!! :o)

p.s. it took hours BUT you were very well behaved blogger! thank you!! Maybe I'll blog more...

A Winter's Trail

You all know us best for our pun-tastic handprinted designs and silly greetings cards, but did you know that we do LOTS of design and branding work through hello DODO also? (we totally forgive you if you didn't realise this, new website coming in the new year!)
Sometimes a project comes a long that is so exciting and inspiring but also pushes us to think differently....and that project for us just recently has been for the wonderful Herringbone Arts and their Theatre Royal Brighton show 'A Winter's Trail'. 
A Winter's Trail is a magical enchanting adventure, a promenade experience for young children and adults to share together. As soon as we saw photos of the puppets and sets being lovingly made by hand for the show we were totally spellbound! We knew that this was something incredibly special, tactile and inspirational and that any graphics we designed would need to try to convey this.
A Winter's Trail is about adventure and making small discoveries, hearing stories unfold and collecting treasures along the way.

We drew jagged wintery branches by hand, cut them out with scissors and created a mysterious and magical layered woodland scene to house one of the gorgeous puppet photographs. We also drew the title by hand as this papery, tactile style just seemed to suit the show so perfectly. Herringbone Arts loved this style so much that they asked us to create them a new logo too!

A Winter's Trail runs at Theatre Royal Brighton from 4th - 24th December - check out the Herringbone Arts website for more details and tickets!

Christmas Dates & Quick Renegade Round Up!

Hello! So Christmas CRAZINESS is upon us and if you've already seen the above image on social media you'll know that we've truly lost our marbles this year!!! But it's all going to be fiiiiiiinnee, right???!! There's some new events for us there that we're VERY excited about including BUST, Dot To Dot, London Illustration Fair (with our new collective HIP! HIP!) and the lovely Studio Loo Open House!
Last weekend we had THE MOST FUN at our 4th Renegade Craft Fair in a row...and 3rd time sharing a booth with designosaur! (amazingly they're not sick of us yet) This yeah I failed miserably to take good photos of any of my fave stalls :o( (the winner would have been AndSmile!) In fact my hands must have been jittery cos all our photos are kinda out of focus... But here's a few nonetheless..

If you visited us or follow us on social media you may have spotted BABYWEAR!! Coming to our Etsy shop very soon!!

Let's all take a moment to enjoy this photo of Toby from I like Cats (#sorrynotsorry Toby, it's too good! Wub u)

Where is Jacques?! From L-R: Woah There Pickle, I Like CATS, Karli from designosaur, Jam hello DODO, Juream Box, Oh Someday)

For a MUCH better round up of Renegade please check out THIS post by designosaur!

Tomorrow you will find us at The Fairy Tale Fair at Brighton Open Market! It's going to be awesome and they'll be a GIANT Snow Queen! Hopefully see you there! :o)

Amsterdam Part Two - Bars, Vegan/Veggie Food & Museum Guide

Hello again! We hope you found yesterday's Amsterdam Indie Shopping Guide useful! In this post we're going to cover our favourite bars, restaurants and galleries which we found during our week's stay. We're not claiming to be Amsterdam experts or anything, these are just some places we found and LOVED and we definitely intend to go back and explore more, so if you've got any of your own tips please let us know in the comments!! :o)

So let's go...
BARS

Roest - Jacob Bontiusplaats 1
First mention has to go to Roest as it was our fave hangout by far! We were very very lucky as we stayed a little out of town in the East and Roest  was just a couple of minutes walk away from us. However, we still would never had found it unless our wonderful AirBnB host hadn't mentioned it as it's hidden away. The bar itself is a converted industrial building complete with double decker bus (see above) and an urban 'beach' on the canal side (see below - no people present as we were scoping it out before they opened!)

Inside the actual bar the decor is effortlessly hipster cool without seeming like it's trying too hard (like a lot of East London seems to be doing these days). The people were mostly Dutch (aged roughly 18-35) though tourists were very welcome and the staff all spoke English. They made bloody good mojitos and they have table football, which I beat Jam on (WOOP). 

Ok I'll stop banging on about how awesome Roest is... We were lucky to be staying so close to it but still it's only a short tram ride or cycle from Central and I'd say worth the effort. There's also Brouwerij 'T IJ which is a brewery in a windmill (awesome) but the night we tried to go it didn't seem to be open (boo) but is another good reason to explore East Amsterdam.

Brewerij de Prael - Oudezijds Voorburgwal 30
We'd heard that Brewerij de Prael in the Red Light District was a really relaxed brewery with awesome beer. At first we came across their shop which has a few chairs in the middle so you can sit down for a drink and we were disappointed, NOT the relaxed setting we had expected! Then I spotted their logo down the next alleyway and realised they had a whole massive bar down there and we felt a tad sheepish. Jam decided to be cocky (geddit?) and ordered a 'Quadrupel Willy' first time round, not realising it was 11.5%....here's him realising:

I went for the 'Bitterblond' which was very nice indeed! We hung out here rather a lot...

Dwaze Zaken - Prins Hendrikkade 50
Not too far from Brewerij de Prael is Daze Zeken, an awesome café/bar in a pretty cool building, fairly small but with big high ceilings and massive windows so it's feels spacious (see above). We watched this Portuguese band play and had no idea what they were singing about, but it was GREAT.

Noorderlicht - NDSM-plein 102
Noorderlicht Café is over on Amsterdam Noord which you can jump on a free ferry to from behind Central Station. Just make sure you get the RIGHT ferry as there's three and we ended up traipsing miles by mistake (turns out Amsterdam Noord is mostly a big industrial estate, not pretty). Where Noorderlicht is situated is very cool though as the creatives have taken over. There's another neighbouring bar called Plekk which we didn't go to but also looked very cool.

Noorderlicht interior

We were REALLY lucky that during our week in Amsterdam 'IJ-Hallen' was on which is a monthly flea market ...or rather I should call it "Europe's Largest Flea Market". And it is HUGE. In fact we went round one warehouse and were about to pass out from exhaustion when we realised there was another WHOLE warehouse of stalls. It's also over on Amsterdam Noord which was great as we collapsed in the Noorderlicht beer garden afterwards. Entrance is 5 Euros but for sheer size it's definitely worth it. We picked up a whole bunch of records and a Dutch speaking Buzz Lightyear (as you do).

Hannekes Boom - Dijksgracht 4

ANOTHER awesome quirky colourful bar by a canal! Amsterdam you really spoilt us in a week! This one is close to the centre, near the big NEMO Science Museum (which you can't miss). It felt like a daytime kind of hangout but that may just be because we went in the daytime and sat on the colourful picnic benches in the sunshine. The whole bar is made from salvaged materials and they've done an awesome job of making it look cool.

FOOD

So that's 5 bars and I only have 2 food places on my 'Must Recommend' list...oh dear!! Jam was my absolute hero before we went to Amsterdam and did some vegan restaurant research and he found two absolute gems...

De Vegetarische Traiteur - Rozengracht 217H

I feel hungry just THINKING about this place. This awesome veggie/vegan café and deli serves absolutely scrummy food and is the perfect lunch location for veggie/vegan folk (though Jam enjoyed it very much too!) They sell pittas, burgers, salads etc and use lots of yummy vegan meats which you can also buy from the deli counter. Genius! The burgers and spicy chicken pittas are amazing (don't worry, I had them on different days). Also highly recommend their fresh carrot juice. 

Golden Temple - Utrechtsestraat 126

This was another awesome find from Jam (I married the right man!) Golden Temple is a small, informal veggie and vegan restaurant with a bohemian vibe. The main influence is obviously Indian but they also offer Mexican and pizza dishes on the menu too. We obviously went for Indian, both ordering the thali to avoid any food envy and it was DELISH. There wasn't much conversation going on just lots of 'Mmmmmm'. We then shared a massive vegan ice cream sundae which I'm still having dreams about. Be warned, the space is small and you may be sat very close to another table but the whole place is so chilled out and friendly it doesn't seem to bother anyone. 

Apart  from those two we cooked at home and for lunch stuck to two of our quick/cheap eat chain restaurant faves from our Europe travels (and most times we go in to London) Wok to Walk (noodle bar) and Maoz (falafel bar with endless salad) which are dotted all over the city centre.

Fun things we picked up in Amsterdam!

ART

Stedelijk Museum - Museumplein 10

Most people when it comes to art in Amsterdam tell you to go to the Van Gogh Museum but..and it might be sacrilege to say..we're not really hugely in to Van Gogh... which is lucky as the queue to get in there was HUGE. Instead we went to the Stedelijk which was really quiet and has an AWESOME collection of both graphic design, product design (lots of lovely Memphis!) and modern art. Also I got to be reunited with one of my fave ever Matisse's 'The Parakeet and the Mermaid' (see below) and we pretty much had it to ourselves. 

You have to pay to get in (15 Euros) but it's massive inside and well worth it. There was a really interesting exhibition on the ZERO art movement downstairs too which we almost managed to miss. If we'd stayed longer in Amsterdam I'd have liked to have visited the Rijksmuseum too, especially when I found out there was a Dick Bruna show on. 

Walls - Prinsengracht 737

We were attracted in to Walls by the Matisse quote outside and it was a fantastic little modern art gallery. There was a show of completely black painting by Wouter Nijland....which sounds like it wouldn't be our thing but Wouter uses 10 different shades of black and his processes were really interesting....and the results very beautiful, see for yourself here.

Katten Kabinet (Cat Museum) - Herengracht 497

I was a bit overexcited when I heard Amsterdam had a cat museum. It's not very big, just a few rooms on one floor of an old canal house and the garden. Inside were paintings, drawings, sculptures and pottery featuring....you guessed it, cats. Our fave part was the old advertising posters in the garden (pictured) and of course we met a couple of real cats too. It's 5 Euros entry but well worth it I'd say.

OTHER MUST DO THINGS

We did actually visit the most famous of all museum's in Amsterdam, Anne Frank's House this time around (having bottled it the last two visits) and I'm REALLY glad we did. I was worried it would be really touristy and it WAS insanely busy but luckily it was pouring with rain so we only queued for half an hour (on other days the queue was CRAY and the the book online thing didn't seem to be working). Despite it being very busy everyone was very quiet inside and the layout of the museum helps to keep the people flowing in small groups.

Artis Royal Zoo - Plantage Kerklaan 38-40

Amsterdam zoo is amazing!!!!!!!! They have everything!!!! DO NOT MISS THE HUGE CROCODILE. There's nothing else to say except GO GO GO!!!!!

Bloemenmarkt - Singel 630 to 600

We didn't intend to visit Bloemenmarkt, Amsterdam's floating flower market but stumbled across it and it was so much more than just tulip bulbs! Definitely worth a peek, just look at those cacti!!!

Well....that's all folks! Hope these two blog posts about our fave Amsterdam finds have been useful and interesting! We can't wait to go back so if you have any of your own tips please leave them in the comments!! :o)

Amsterdam Part One - Indie Shopping Guide

Hello! As you've most probably seen already if you follow us on social media we've just got from a little shotgun trip to Amsterdam for a week! Amsterdam is one of our FAVOURITE cities in Europe (and we've been to a good fair few), there's just no where else like it. We packed an OBSCENE amount in to a week, walked a billion miles and found some amazing shops, bars and foodie places. We decided to do our own little guide to Amsterdam in the hopes it'll be useful to some other visitors or if not we can just refer to it ourselves in the future when we go back ;o)

We're going to split the posts in to Part One - Indie Shopping Guide and Part Two - Bars, Vegan/Veggie Food Places and Museums/Galleries. The pictures for this shopping guide MAY not be the most inspiring (i.e. they're pretty much all the exteriors of shops!) but hopefully it'll give you some ideas of places to maybe check out. So on to it!

Ultra de la Rue - Oudekerksplein 30
We were soooo pleased to stumble across Ultra de la Rue early on in our trip. This super cool gallery shop in the heart of the Red Light District is full of awesome contemporary art prints, screen printed t-shirts and in general gorgeous things. As if that wasn't enough, Ultra de la Rue have designed their own 'Red Light District ABC' map and app with a guide to "Alternative, Bottom up and Counterculture locations" featuring over 80 places including awesome bars, shops, concept stores, galleries, restaurants and more. In fact, it's probably a FAR better Amsterdam guide than this for the Red Light District area so check it our here ;o)

WonderWood - Rusland 3
If you appreciate beautiful wooden furniture and objects made with mind-blowing craftsmanship, we HIGHLY recommend popping in to WonderWood! Like us you'll probably wish you could afford everything.

Droog - Staalstraat 7B
In a similar drool-worthy design way, Droog is an amazing concept store full of contemporary products and furniture. You'll be sure to see something unique in here! They have a Hôtel Droog as well that we didn't go in to but it looks like you can grab a bite to eat there and visit their 'Fairy Tale Garden'.

Kitsch Kitchen - Rozengracht 8-12
Being lovers of all things colourful, plastic and well...kitsch, Kitsch Kitchen was one of our fave Amsterdam finds. With a large space across two floors, this was a treasure trove of wonderfully obnoxiously bright homewares, accessories, toys, stationery and more. I think we were a wee bit overwhelmed as we only left with two small plastic donkeys (as you do) but we also had major hand luggage restrictions (bummer). It's a visual feast for the eyes and definitely worth a visit!
Getting bored of shop pictures? Here's a pretty Amsterdam interlude:

By Popular Demand - Raadhuisstraat 2

Really nice quirky gift shop, great for buying silly gifts for silly people.

Shop de Ville - Staalstraat 11

Along a similar vibe, quirky gifts and homewares (REALLY wanted that big smiley lamp in the window!) We left with a little boat toothbrush holder (as you do). Super friendly staff.

Printed in Space - Grimburgwal 2

Teeny tiny 3D print shop with beautiful colourful vases (wanted them ALL), jewellery and other fun objects. You can watch the 3D print machine at work too (AKA witchcraft). There's also a hologram section where you can do what we did and sway back and forth in front of the pictures going "LOOK! It's moving!! OOOHH!!"

Episode - Waterlooplein 1, Berenstraat 1, Nieuwe Spiegelstraat 61, Spuistraat 96

Just realised I haven't mentioned any clothes shops yet.. Episode is a European chain of what seemed to us very well curated vintage. It's quite similar to Beyond Retro in that everything is neatly hung and categorised so it's easy to shop and not your jumble sale kinda vintage shop at all. Prices were probably similar to Beyond Retro too so not super duper cheap but everything was in great condition. I could have spent a fortune but luckily everything I wanted wasn't quite my size. Apparently the clothes are donated to a charity who then sell them on to Episode, which is pretty cool.

Hear Hear - Heisteeg 8

Hear Hear describes itself as 'A Tiny Two Story Shop' and a very charming one it is too. Discover some lovely Dutch brands of jewellery, accessories, ceramics and prints. 

BonBon Boutique - Rosmarijnsteeg 8

BonBon Boutique is a gorgeous shop which is home to the jewellery of Bonne van der Ree. The shop also features lots of other awesome indie brands, most of whom were actually small British brands that we know well. Although it's nice to discover some Dutch brands it was also great to see some British ones reppin' in Amsterdam. 

Velvet - Rozengracht 40

Velvet is a chain of 10 record stores across the Netherlands. We ducked in to the store to avoid a downpour but ended up staying for ages browsing the record collection. There was a great selection of both new and old, with a secondhand section and a large CD section also. Great relaxed vibe inside.

Art Unlimited - Strooijonkerstraat 7 

Looking for a postcard by a particular artist? There's a good chance Art Unlimited will have it! During our whole Amsterdam trip we were on a Miffy mission, being Dick Bruna and Miffy fans and having missed the Miffy statue Art Parade we spent the week collecting postcards instead. We raided the Miffy section here and what a section it was!! But yeah, Miffy aside, they have a HUGE postcard section which has been painstakingly alphabetised by artist. They also sell posters of art prints too.

De Kinderboekwinkel 2 - Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal 344

We couldn't NOT go in a shop that looked like this could we?! Plus we needed to raid it for more Miffy postcards. Great kids book shop which had mostly Dutch books (but very pretty to look at) and some English too.

On our travels we found LOADS of awesome toy shops also (too many to list), proper old fashioned toy shops filled with amazing magical things (including Miffy).

That's it for now! We hope that was marginally useful to someone. Join us for the next installment which contains all the important stuff (beer and food...oh and art).