The lovely Annette of ATA Designs tweeted about a rather interesting Hermes Tie Design competition hosted by Designboom the other week. I've admired Hermes' timelessly charming aesthetic for years and thought this would be the perfect opportunity to show them my work and wave the ‘Commission Me!' flag.

Only 7 hours to go before the deadline and a suitcase to pack before my impromptu trip up to Orkney, I thought "what the hell, I'll give it a shot!"

I doodled and scanned and tweaked and saved into the wee small hours, then finally, had 3 pretty nifty designs all set to go! Phew! I gave myself a pat on the back; I was clearly a time management pro.

Good times.

All I needed to do now, was upload my designs, fling my suitcase in my car and head to the airport. Simples.

Alas, not so. The files were too big, saving for web was not working and I couldn't for the life of me get those darn files to compress! Tick tick tick. My earlier cockiness ebbed away as I realised the chances of getting the files uploaded were slim to none. I scanned Mac forums on the best ways of compressing and why on earth ‘Save for Web' was off limits to me - but geekland only confused me further, with those endless conversation threads of possible cures and urban myth mac-ology.

Bad times.

And so, I abandoned the task and wallowed in defeat.

No submission, no commission, no fanciful opportunity to fly to Paris and work with the sublime design team at Hermes. I shed a small tear.

So here are the fateful designs, once destined for Parisian necklines, now fated to appear just here. But perhaps just here, is just enough? If you, or any of your acquaintances should be employed by the wonder team at Hermes, please do drop me a line...