Life Before Hero&Cape

View of Newcastle's Quayside from The Baltic Art Gallery

The Baltic Art Gallery, which this year became the first institution other than The TATE to host the Turner Prize

My work shown at an exhibition in the main foyer of Northumbria University's Design Building

My work shown at an exhibition in the main foyer of Northumbria University's Design Building

My Final Major Project model shown at the New Designers exhibition in Islington in 2009

My Final Major Project model shown at the New Designers exhibition in Islington in 2009

A view of the Pininfarina pool. No idea what it was for but the Turin summer meant the urge to dive in was always there!

The Pininfarina museum containing just a handful of the cars that have been created there. We walked past this everyday to the canteen, not a bad place to work!

So I was looking through the pictures folder on my Mac and found quite a few images from my 4 years at uni in Newcastle. I am actually a Transportation Design grad, which basically meant 4 years of car design and a little bit of product design.

It was something I wanted to do all my life and was great fun and meant I got to study in one of the greatest cities in the UK! During my time at uni, I learnt everything I know now about art & design, I learnt how to clean my own clothes! Met my best friends there and also almost cut my fingers off in the workshop! It also took me to the beautiful city of Turin in Northern Italy when I did a 3 month placement at Pininfarina where they design all the Ferrari's and many other cars.

In the end though, as much as I love the job and the process the industry just wasn't for me. I still love cars and design but having experienced what I have in the industry it just wasn't the place for me. Which is why I now work on Hero&Cape which is fantastic as it allows me to be as creative as I can with few restrictions and I get to call the shots! (I'm also a bit of a control freak!)

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the pictures!

Hero&Cape on CultureLabel.com

As of this week Hero&Cape clothing is now available on the creative online department store www.culturelabel.com!

CultureLabel.com features a hand-curated selection of the most stylish products and affordable art from hundreds of galleries, artists and independent stores from all over the world!

The founding partners of CultureLabel.com include iconic UK arts brands including Tate, V&A, Saatchi Gallery, Whitecapel Gallery and many more!

At the moment we have a few products on the Culture Label site but we'll be adding many more in the coming weeks! Check out the website for many more cool products and art pieces!

Don't forget we are still offering *Free Delivery* on all our products at www.heroandcape.com!

X-mas Postage Dates

We know Christmas is a busy shopping period for everyone, so to make sure your presents arrive for the 25th then please make a note of these dates!

The dates above are guidelines set by the Royal Mail.

Royal Mail 1st Class Recorded will be used up to and including the 20th December.

PLease also note that this is a very busy period for us and each T-shirt is individually printed to order. So to avoid disappointment on the big day please place your orders as early as possible!

Any orders received AFTER these dates will be processed and sent out between 27th and 30th December.

if you have any questions about our Xmas posting dates then please feel free to email us at info@heroandcape.com

Hero&Cape's Talented Friends >> Tobias Hall

Self-initiated portrait of Roger Federer.

For issue 6 of Popshot Magazine - The Love issue.

Painted on a wall in Zizzi Croydon, London.

Tobias at work on a mural featuring Nina Simone, Brooklyn bridge, Tower bridge and a skyline inspired by the film Blade Runner.

Tobias working on a mural for Zizzi in David Bowie's home town, Beckenham. The restaurant was once the pub from which Bowie launched his career.

The completed David Bowie mural.

Created for a Zizzi restaurant in South Woodford, where Winston Churchill was MP from

1945 - 1964.

So, this weeks talent spotlight is on the spectacularly gifted illustrator Tobias Hall!

Tobias' journey into illustration really began when he took an art and design foundation course which allowed to really explore the way in which he wanted to work, before going on to study illustration at Coventry University. Initially inspired by the work of artist David Foldvari, Tobias began introducing different elements of his own which has eventually led to his current unique style.


Upon graduation and displaying his work at the New Designers exhibition, he was asked by the design team at Zizzi Restaurants to paint a mural for the Earls Court branch. He is now part of their design team, working as an illustrator, designer, photographer and even occasionally as art director! The rest of the time Tobias works freelance as an illustrator. 


Take a few minutes and head on over to his website www.tobias-hall.co.uk and check out the masses of his work on the site, which include his work for Zizzi's and Popshot Magazine plus many editorial pieces!


You can also follow him on Twitter @tobiashall


A big Thank You to Tobias Hall for all information and imagery! Cheers buddy!

FREE DELIVERY for 2011!

Hey Guys!

We have such a treat for you for the remaining weeks of 2011! Its Hero&Cape's first Christmas so we're celebrating by giving all our supporters and followers free delivery on all our products and orders for the rest of the year!

We just want to say thank you for your support with this offer, and we've put together a short animation to show you guys how our artist and illustrator works. We hope you enjoy the video and don't forget to head on over to www.heroandcape.com and grab yourself a treat or do that Christmas shopping you've been putting off!!

The 1000 Followers Twitter Giveaway!

Well we're finally there! 1000 Twitter followers! To celebrate, we're having a giveaway exclusive to our Twitter followers. Simply follow (if you're not already one of our fabulous followers!) and retweet our giveaway tweets! The giveaway tweets will be hash-tagged with #1000giveaway.

The prize is a Hero&Cape T-shirt of your choosing from www.heroandcape.com and a one of our retro music player necklaces! Choose from the Cassette Tape Necklace, Ghetto Blaster Necklace, Turntable Necklace, or the Reel to Reel Necklace!

So what are you waiting for! Just click here to go to our Twitter page and get retweeting to enter the giveaway!!

The eventual winner will be randomly chosen at midnight on Friday 18th November from our list of followers via Twitrand.com.

Happy Birthday Coca Cola

Well Coca Cola is 125 years old this year, so I thought I'd dust off my small and humble Coca Cola collection for you guys!

As anyone who knows me will tell you, I'm a total Diet Coke junkie. I'm constantly jonesing for a can, is there a cola equivalent of a nicotine patch?!

I'm not really sure how this collection started but I'm always on the lookout for special editions of things! The can is a 2005 edition designed by Kenzo Takada who is the founder of fashion and cosmetics brand Kenzo. I have no idea where I bought this from but the fact that its branded Coca Cola Light leads my investigative nouse to conclude that its from my travels around Europe or Hong Kong.

The two World Cup bottles were introduced prior to the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany, I think these were fairly common as they were sold in supermarkets throughout the UK.

The Night Fusion bottle was actually a new sub brand that Coca Cola introduced in France targeted specifically at clubbers (thats probably the reason theres zero nutrition info and small print, who has the time and the lighting to read a bottle in a club!). I acquired this bottle when I was in Paris with Sarah from Temporary:Secretary circa 2005.

there are so many special edition bottles I'd love to get my hands on but some of them are so exclusive! Natalye Rykiel designed a diet Coke bottle in 1999 and Roberto Cavalli designed one for the Italian market in 2008. More recent collaborations include Zac Posen, Manolo Blahnik and a design by photographer Ellen von Unwerth which will be sold at selected fashion events!

Does anybody know of any other special edition bottles/cans? Or do you have any that you've collected yourselves? I'd love to see your collections too!

Spoooooky!

Max dressed as "Pumpkin Boy'

Max dressed as "Pumpkin Boy'

Oscar dressed as "The Beast"

Happy Halloween! It's that spooky time of year again! We have a treat for you this year! Sarah of Temporary:Secretary is staying for a short vacation and she brought the infamous Oscar (who is the brother of our cat, Max) along as well! The boys have been scrapping and chasing each other around the house all week so we thought it would be nice of them to bond through dressing up! The wife beaters they're wearing are in fact baby onesies with the bottoms cut off, and the capes are made from some groovy fabric from a small local department store!

While we were in the ghoulish mood we did some pumpkin carving!! Sarah had never done this before (!) and so I had to show her the ropes and give her some help with her cute cat face! Didn't she do well for a first timer! I'm off to wash the pumpkin off my hands so I'll let the pictures do the talking!

Also, we'd love to do a special pumpkin post next week, so if any of you guys have pictures of your halloween pumpkins then send them over to info@heroandcape.com and we'll feature them in a special pumpkin post next week!!

Hero&Cape's Talented Friends >> Lily Pebbles

This is something new for the Hero&Cape blog. We would like to introduce and feature various talented people here every month, and we begin with the beautiful Lily Pebbles of whatihearttoday.com, whom I had the pleasure of meeting at the Look Show in London last month.











Lily is a born and bred London girl who handles the press for glossybox.co.uk. In her spare time she blogs on What I Heart Today, which features some fantastic outfit posts, helpful cosmetics advice and reviews, and a fantastic insight into some "behind the scenes" action at events Lily attends!

Anybody interested in a blog that has both style and substance should check out www.whatihearttoday.com. It has both beautiful pictures and informative information that is presented in a nice friendly written style!

Above are a sample of the images that are on offer on Lily's blog but head over to www.whatihearttoday.com to read all about it! Additionally you can follow Lily on Twitter: @lilypebbles

Our First Press Feature!

This week we found one of our products in a print publication! Our CMD-Z Undo necklace was featured in the November (issue 181) issue of Bizarre magazine! As part of the feature, we are offering a 10% discount on all HERO&CAPE purchases to all Bizarre readers!

This is super exciting stuff for us here at HERO&CAPE but here's more to come from us so keep your eyes peeled and keep checking our blog, Twitter and Facebook!!

NOTE: Bizarre magazine contains some adult themed content and is recommended for over 18's only.

Summer Nights

This picture taken was on the hottest evening of the week from the 3rd floor of the Metro Centre car park! I had a new fisheye lens I really wanted to try out!

So its October already, and yet we've all been experiencing some crazy weather this week. It feels like a final swansong for Summer before Autumn gatecrashes the party with its sidekicks Wind and Rain!

But fear not! Because along with Autumn, you will also get a first look at some new Hero&Cape goodies (which we are working very hard on right now!). We will keep you updated everything regarding these new products on our Twitter and Facebook pages, or why not check our site at www.heroandcape.com!

Inside My Sketchbooks

I know its been a long time since the last post! It's been a busy first month for Hero&Cape! Thank You to all our customers who have kept us busy!


So, seeing as this is a bit of comeback post I thought I'd make it as special as possible! I wanted to share with you some pages from my sketchbooks that I filled during the research phase of the whole Hero&Cape project. With these sketchbooks, the idea was just to draw everything and anything and see where it would take me! It's nice just to be alone with a sketchbook and a trusty fineliner!


Looking back at them now, I still see some illustrations that have potential to make it onto a Hero&Cape product. Having grown up in the 90's, I think it would be amazing to have a collection inspired by the pop culture of that decade! What do you think?


I'd like to feature a lot more artwork on this blog (from myself and others) so keep your eyes peeled for new posts! 


Thanks to @TempSec for taking on camera duties for these pictures! Hope you enjoyed the 50mm experience!

Shop Now Open!

We would also love for you to have a look at our latest Lookbook. These lookbooks are there to show you our range but also to give style inspiration. We have shown different styles and different types of fitting.


We hope you like our White Tee Capsule Range!


Thank You!

Foxtastic!

Look what we found in the corner of the studio at the photoshoot! A fantastic Mr Fox painted on parcel paper! Love at first sight! (We couldn't keep him as he belonged to the guy who owns the studio - but man, were we tempted to steal him!)