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Meet : Mapology Guides

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You may have seen a post on our Instagram last month regarding our love of Mapology Guides. They are very useful, thought provoking colourful illustrated maps that one would work through the steps on the maps, and it would guide you through some of life's issues with the goal to live a more fulfilled life.

These cool, graphically illustrated maps include some essential life skills to business skills where we may all sometimes need a little help on - a perfect guide through some of life's journeys. The themes of the mapology guides include "What's Bugging You?" (something we have used and it's ace),  "Let's Negotiate", "Make It Happen", "Make Better Decisions", etc, all useful dilemmas we'd face from time to time, regardless of professions and stage in life. A good aid to work and process through dilemmas in an organised practical step-by-step manner.  

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We were first introduced these amazing life maps whilst we were at Papersmiths, and the mapology guides were kindly recommended to us. Since then, we fell in love with the products and ethos behind Mapology Guides.

We follow Mapology Guides on Instagram, and found out, beyond creating brilliant useful life maps, they have embarked on a super fun project called "#100DaysPantonePostcards". Each post on the 100-Day project is photographed with an illustrated cityscape on a Pantone Colour Card, paired with an Artline pen. 

As we are a fan of Mapology Guides, lovers of colour, traveling and Pantone, we had to approach Tina Bernstein, for a quick interview to learn more about such an amazing project and some tips on making goals happen. 

I AM A : WHAT GAVE YOU THE INSPIRATION ON THE IDEA OF #100DAYSPANTONEPOSTCARDS WITH THE THEME OF CITYSCAPES?

Tina : I first participated in the #100daysproject back in 2016. I was naive and thought I can do this no probs. The theme I used then was #100differentstylesbycolourliving - the sketchbook I used was a fairly large square one and each day I chose a different artist and made an art piece in their style, whether painting, collage or mixed media. I also wrote a short sentence on each artist hoping I would inspire and maybe even introduce new artists to my followers.

Oh boy, it nearly killed me. Instead of the anticipated 30 minutes every day, some took HOURS!

I took a break in 2017. This year I wised up. The 100 pantone postcards are roughly a size A6 so very manageable. The colours would be my background and it all seemed fairly straight forward. It never is - but it was much more controllable than my project in 2016 because I was able to paint a few postcards at one time, freeing me up to not have to do it every single day.

Cityscapes are a big passion of mine. Yet, once again, one would think that’s great - BUT doing 100 cityscapes was rather challenging and I couldn’t wait to paint something else.

I AM A : OUT OF ALL THE CITY SKYLINES YOU HAVE ILLUSTRATED, WHICH SKYLINE HAS BEEN YOUR FAVOURITE?

Tina : Wow, difficult question. There are many I loved and some I’m not so happy with. There isn’t really a favourite one. 

(We loved every single one of the cityscapes that were illustrated  "#100DaysPantonePostcards".)

I AM A : OF ALL THE PANTONE COLOURS, WHICH ONE IS YOUR GO TO? IT'S HARD TO PICK ONE, YOU MAY PICK 3.

Tina : Again, as a colour aficionado, that’s a hard one. OK, three it is.

I AM A : APART FROM #100DAYSPANTONEPOSTCARDS YOU ARE ALSO THE FOUNDER OF MAPOLOGY GUIDES. AS CREATIVES, SOMETIMES WE ARE WORRIED OF NOT ABLE TO ACHIEVE THE GOALS WE HAVE SET OURSELVES. FROM DESIGNING THE GUIDES WHAT ARE YOUR TOP 3 ADVICES TO MAKE GOALS HAPPEN?

Tina : I apply this to everything I do. From a small project, to the #100daysproject to something like creating and launching Mapology Guides.

Step 1: Do you love what you want to create (whatever that may be). Without being 100% passionate about it, it might not happen. You’ll run out of juice.

Step 2: Break it down in manageable steps. That’s super important! Don’t look at the mountain ahead, look at the next step forward. Then build on that. Baby steps does it every single time.

Step 3. Get organised. It’s great to have the passion. It’s great to break it down into baby steps - now you need to get focused and prepare. Work hard. Once you think something is ready to launch, launch it. You’ll learn everything else from the feedback you will get.

I AM A : WHAT'S YOUR FAVOURITE QUOTE?

Tina : The unexamined life is not worth living

I AM A : WHICH IS YOUR FAVOURITE: RAINBOW / UNICORN / ICE-CREAM? 

Tina : Rainbows - every time.

Thank you to Tina again for all your time for the interview, and sharing with us your insights on your 100-day project, and on Mapology Guides.  Thank you for the pictures too. We love them!

Follow and check out Mapology Guides and their #100DayPantonePostcards on social media : 

All images and text courtesy of Tina from Mapology Guides. 

Japanese Kakigori A Heatwave Remedy

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Cooling desserts are a must. A dessert that is cute, fruity, colourful, refreshing, and cooling at the same time, our top picks will come from the Japanese dessert of Kakigori かき氷, or a slush puppy.

A dessert commonly found in Japan that we love it so much we even have a card on it.  As we should all meet for Kakigori, as it's a wonderful experience to see ice beautifully shaved from the ice machine and topped with all sorts of yummy toppings.

For instant chilling effect, use the hashtag #かき氷 for more Kakigori finds on Pinterest. Let's take this chill pill and chillax.

Magical Pastel Buildings

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Hop on this magic carpet and see lovely pastels colours from peach, pink, lilac, mint, turquoise, blue hues on historical Indian buildings. We have officially landed on planet pastel.

Beautiful pastel photography of buildings that captures the intricate architectural details of India, and tile patterns by London based photographer and stylist Marioly Vazquez. Please take us there now!

Rainbow All Day Long

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It's Pride Month! Calling in all the rainbows. Happy plethora of rainbow finds knolling from Things Organized Neatly:

A Celebration to Feminism and Equality

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Today marks the 171th birthday to Dame Millicent Fawcett, a trail blazer feminist who championed relentlessly for equality and was a leading figure for the woman’s suffrage movement.

Aptly, today's Google Doodles celebrates such a great leading light in feminism, with illustrations on Millicent Fawcett drawn by London based illustrator Pearl Law. 

In addition to these great illustrations to celebrate this leading lady, Google has setup a website that celebrates 100 Years to Women's Vote, with a webpage titled Road To Equality which is part of Google Arts & Culture.

In the webpage Road to Equality, you will find many enriching information from the history archives and stories of women that champion equality and feminist rights; from voting rights in the Suffragette movement up to including modern day issues such as period poverty.

This is an absolutely wonderful webpage celebrating feminism just like a curated museum online, filled with all the information, news articles and films footages. A must visit site.

The website also includes many selected artwork, graphics and meaningful banners design that were used during the different movements across time, that provides great insight to the typography, graphics and branding used to design for the different movements. 

One section which particularly captures us is Google has set up a section called which defines the movement by colours. Via the "Colour Explorer"  you can explore beyond the purple and green colours one would typically associate with the Suffragette movement, but the full rainbow spectrum of colours that were used in the graphics for various feminist movements.  

We have included below a small carousel of snippets of the interesting plethora of images, categorised by colours, to take a page from history. 

Marrs Green

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Marrs Green - a green, turquoise, teal colour from G.F Smith, is voted as the world's favourite colour, named after Annie Marrs, inspired by the landscape surrounding Scotland. G.F Smith showspace in London, currently has an exhibition on Marrs Green and a small scale rendition of "Paper City".

Marrs green goodies and stationery including T Shirt from Sunspel, Satchel from Cambridge Satchel 

Marrs green goodies and stationery including T Shirt from Sunspel, Satchel from Cambridge Satchel 

Max Lamb - "Furniture" -  35,000 gsm standard stock paper size of GF Smith Paper colourful paper furniture

Max Lamb - "Furniture" -  35,000 gsm standard stock paper size of GF Smith Paper colourful paper furniture

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Made Thought - "The Fabric of Hull"

Jacqueline Poncelet - "Island Life"

Jacqueline Poncelet - "Island Life"

P.S. Check out the video from G.F Smith on how the Marrs Green Colorplan paper is made - definitely makes our landing on Marrs extra special. 

Address of the GF Smith Showspace :

27-28 Eastcastle St, Fitzrovia, London W1W 8DH