i am you

“I am You” is a book by Ellen Zaho that explores curious connection between a writer and a reader when two people having quite a personal conversation are two strangers separated by time and space.
The book speaks to its reader and emphasizes a moment of disagreement between a book as an object and a human mind. The book sets the reader in a particular environment and a mood; it speaks its opinion that a reader automatically takes on without thinking about what reading as a process really involves. In her book Zaho tries to divide the act of reading into parts by analyzing, exposing internal contradiction of a standard book format and shifting it in a way that the book can be read from both directions.
From one side the text investigates ideas about what the book is and from the other side it analyses its own structure and how a reader should understand it.

urban forest

Urban Forest project was commissioned by The Times Square Alliance and developed by Design Ignites Change for Times Square in Manhattan. At first, 185 banners were required to be filled to advertise good business and quality of life, but The Times Square Alliance decided to push the project further to the level that would integrate other forms of art and design to demonstrate that Times Square is not only about consumerism and commercialism.After Design Ignites Change carried out the research and found out that sustainability is one of the prime issues that concerns designers, it became clear that the banners and their design should communicate sustainability in Times Square. This approach allowed The Times Square Alliance to show their concern about the global problem as well as designers to unfold their creativity skills to open a debate and make people aware of the issue. The Times Square Alliance wrote a brief where they asked to communicate environmental, cultural, social and economical issues through a tree symbol either metaphorically or literally. A tree seemed to be an appropriate symbol that not only communicates sustainability but also would be a nice contrast to the chaotic everyday life of the city.
However, green-looking design and the concept of the banners on their own would not enough. After the banners were taken down they were recycled into the tote bags to make sure they don’t just end up in a landfill. Although the project had its weaknesses like the vinyl material used to produce the banners, it goes without saying that it raised an international media interest and therefore the public awareness of the issue.

egg designs

Although Egg Designs is a South African design studio based in Durban, their designs do not have “typically African” look about them. With some ethnic hints their furniture is influenced by their surroundings. Like this rather peculiar “Rocker” chair that was created using shopping trolley mesh or a swing inspired by children’s swings handmade from recycled used car tyres, although this one is an extravagant leather version for the grown-ups.

caractere libre

Working inventively with typographic forms and producing his own font collection, Geoffroy Tobe put together a book called “Caractere Libre” (Typeface Laboratory). Sophisticatedly bound it includes nine experimental projects that each investigates a distinctive style of a typeface. Tobe’s creative approach and his clever application of nonstandard techniques and materials make his book very invigorating and captivating. There is also a distinctive sculptural quality to many of the fonts he designed.

mika's "lollipop" video

This weird, wildly colourful, hallucinant retelling of the Little Red Riding Hood story is in fact Mika’s “Lollipop” video that fully reflects his extravagant style.
The video was developed out if the psychedelic album artwork and website that were created by Mika’s sister and graphic designers from Airside.

orange ads

These successful Orange commercials were launched about 10 years ago directed by Dominic Griffiths and Philip Hunt.
Using humorous approach these simple (as opposed to the complexity of life) and even a little bit naïve animations clearly deliver the brand promise of easier life with Orange.

“Orange words” was designed by Ashley Potter. Animated fully by hand and combined into a strip of sequences it was shot on different speeds to give a flat animation a sense of depth.

herbal essences website

Herbal Essences website is very trendy and fresh looking with a hint of fashion illustration that appeals to young dynamic women. The design is simple and dead easy to navigate with each page being a zoomed-in section of the initial picture.
And you don’t need anything else for a shampoo website!

arcade fire website

Arcade Fire website is not just a band page full of band pictures and song listings, it is a little personal world full of beautiful patterns, drawings, collages and different insights into the life of each band member. Going round Arcade Fire’s planet Earth that is inhabited by wonderful bizarre creatures you discover little interactive activities that unfold more of band’s secrets.
The illustration for the website seems to be inspired by 19th century artwork, earthy colours of Arthur Racham, organic patterns of William Morris and folklore of different countries.

cameron moll poster

This signed limited edition letterpress poster was designed by Cameron Moll to promote the First Annual Design Review for a team of 30 designers at the LDS Church. The building on the poster is the Salt Lake Temple constructed from Bickham Script Pro, Engravers MT, and Epic typeface families characters and presents a modest exquisiteness of flowing pattern textured to an eye and formed by beautifully organically positioned letters.

schweppes website

This website was launched together with the series of TV commercials that have a small “secret” at the end to make audience go to the website to find out what happened next. Usually these commercials are shot in black and white and suggest adult themes.
The website is designed to look like a cinema showing short film festival for a mature audience. It is interesting how it’s possible to promote a product such as already internationally known soft drink without talking about the product itself as the audience becomes interested in the content of the promotion on behalf of the brand.
The website itself is very basic almost without any animation that recreates the atmosphere of good old days cinema. There are several “rooms”, such as a hall where visitors can choose and read about short films showing and a bar that contains recipes of alcoholic cocktails mixed with Schweppes. Some films on the website are free to watch and for some the registration is required as well as the completion of the questionnaire about Schweppes drinks.

sonia kashuk fragrance packaging

When designing this packaging for Sonia Kashuk fragrance there was a problem of organically placing two different products into one shape: a solid fragrance compact and a liquid fragrance bottle. For making a personalized aroma three solid fragrances are included that consumers can blend, as they like.
Widely used aluminium producing unique smooth to touch surface enhances the sophisticated futuristic shape of the packaging evidently inspired by an artist’s palette. The graceful rounded shapes of the compact were extended to provide support for the clear liquid fragrance bottle that is free from unnecessary elements that would argue with unusual asymmetrical form of the packaging. The whole design is efficient and Sonia Kashuk fragrance fits easily in a hand or a bag.

princes and princesses

Michael Ocelot is a brilliant French director whose films are almost always whimsical stories, either little-known folklore or produced by his own imagination personal mythologies that are visually very stylish and distinctive because of evident influence of the Chinese shades and siluette films.
“Princes and Princesses” is one of the most famous animated TV series produced by Ocelot that demonstrates his natural feeling for narration and beauty and elegance of his drawings. The recreation of the several various times and places in the same storyline produces continuous rhythmical and aesthetic transformations that stirs up audience’s interest all the time.

interactive model by pentagram

This interactive architectural model of Lower Manhattan was designed by international network of agencies – Pentagram that incorporates functionalism, identity and visual aesthetics into its design projects.
Wall Street Rising’s new Downtown Centre attracts tourists and citizens and acts as a public place where guests and residents of the city can come together to experience a feeling of neighborhood and unity, which is very rare in such big cities. It is not only visual attraction but it also provides useful educational and practical information about events, attractions and even history in eight short documentary films about the area.
The mouse that selects buildings, streets and places of interest navigates the architectural model and the information is then projected onto model itself.

wasted and mango tree

Music videos are often refused to notice and are not taken into account as a form of art. However, most of the music videos are much more than straightforward shoots of musicians and have actual subject matter that enlightens and explains songs or at least gives an alternative vision presented by video producer. Having visual forms that make you think and feel, music videos misrepresent, twist and reproduce reality. They embellish, reflect and affect our perception and culture casually entertaining the audience and communicating messages about everything from sexuality and relationships to more global issues.

These are Angus and Julia Stone’s music videos “Mango tree” and “Wasted”. Although the content of the songs is quite different (as Julia’s song represents her as a young woman in love trying to sort out her relationships and Angus’s song appears to develop from a different perspective and demonstrates his personal perception of what is around him) both videos are similar in a way that they both communicate love and friendship, they are sincere, warm and organic videos that reveal experiences and thoughts, opinions and visions. The gold light and out of focus effect illustrate an idea of something figurative that is outside literal manifestation and clear differentiation from the actual and apparent. The strong accent is made on life and unity with nature through illustrated flowing organic forms.
Together these videos are outstandingly touching, personal and emotional sketches that instantly pull audience into creative, interesting and unusual perception of the world created by Angus and Julia Stone.

jeremyville

Jeremyville is a very popular illustrator, product designer and animator. However, it goes without saying, that he stands out not only because of his extremely distinctive style of humorous childlike cartoony drawings that illustrate ironic, sometimes even cruel world created by Jeremyville.
I am fascinated with his ability to apply his skill to almost any media from a cool t-shirt graphic to a book. And every time he produces something new that carries his personal signature style without being boring or even repetitive.
Jeremyville became more that just illustrator, cartoonist. He promotes his world through toys and comics and sometimes it even seems that this world stands on its own and was not really created by hands of the human being.

witch's brew

Chronicle books commissioned Margo Chase to illustrate and design “Witch’s Brew” that is a series of six books containing recipes and guidelines for casting spells to improve love, creativity, prosperity, healing, sex and peace of mind.

While marble coloured book covers are rather simple, its antiquarian and forbidden feel is enhanced by monochromatic illustrations that are collages of old encyclopedia looking botanic drawings, pentagrams, secret signs and other pseudo magical artifacts photographed. The typeface used on the covers and for the pages is a very appropriate serif that adds to the whole “from the past” imitated look.

tale of tales

“Tale of tales” is a thirty-year-old film by Russian animator Yuri Norstein.
The main character and a popular element of Russian folklore is a little wolf that possesses human qualities. Through his eyes the audience witnesses two different worlds represented in the thirty minutes long film – real life and the world inhabited by whimsical stories. The little wolf doesn’t belong to the world he got trapped in, the world of war, technology, and male domination opposing to prince Charmin’s courage in fairy tales. But the wolf adapted to the difficulties of his everyday existence.
Ups and downs of human life, important social issues and life in 20th century communist Russia are all present in this fantastic semi-transparent animation that combines filmed elements, cut outs and drawings.
People forgot the meaning of the tales whose messenger is the symbol of innocence – a child.
The tale of all tales is Life.

urbis

Matthew Williamson exhibition.Matthew Williamson is an internationally known Manchester-born fashion designer, who is exhibited in URBIS at the moment. For the exposition the designer chose those examples of his work that best demonstrated his style, echoed the diversity of concepts and emphasized remarkable attention to detail.
Williamson’s visits all over the world provoked his fascination with colour and pattern. Exoticism of other countries had a massive influence on his designs. Delicacy of materials, vibrant colour combinations from India, prints from Africa, geometric shapes from Mexico and pastel colours from Miami are all evident in his recent designs. Black or white outline filled with plane or gradient artificial colour and exoticism of the patterns form typical to Williamson’s style print.

Best of Manchester Awards 2008 exhibition.
This exhibition demonstrates the work of nine nominees selected to win the Best of Manchester Awards 2008 that draws attention to the work of some of the best creative professionals working and living in Manchester. Below are the works I find particularly interesting.Jai Redman (UHC) “Spring sounds” 2007
Jai Redman is a creative director of Ultimate Holding Company. Last year they created one hundred hand-made bags that had a print of a tree and a caption “trees breathe – adverts sucks” on both sides. These bags covered almost every advertising board in city centre aiming to present citizens some quiet tranquil minutes free from constant image, information and advertising bombardment. Hasan Hejazi
These garments reflect Hejazi’s complete line as it retains his distinctive style of playing on differences between soft and hard fabrics such as silk, leather and sheepskin. Fetish was the main influence on the designs and its slight presence is evident in these pieces.
Red Deer Club is a young but fully developed independent record label. Everything about it is very stylish and ethnic and possesses hand-made quality that makes it very in tune with contemporary trend.

deodorant type

“Deodorant type” is an exhibition by young talented Korean artist Gwon Osang at Manchester Art Gallery. The name for the exhibition was inspired by artist’s interest in advertising, especially by remarkable fact of advertising failure in Asia.
As artist explains himself: “Their attempt was bound to fail in many respects. For one, Asians do not have the problem that deodorants are designed to solve. Two, they used South East Asian models to promote their products when a Caucasian model would have been far more effective in North East Asia. These failures are basically rooted in misunderstanding of the other. The title of my work “Deodorant Type” was meant in part as a reference to such misunderstandings”.
Osang’s sculptures are examples of such cultural misunderstandings. They give us an insight into how we interpret and misinterpret other people’s behavior and appearance and how important are someone’s hairstyle, clothes and position when we are making mistakes in perceiving people.
The production process of these sculptures is quite tricky, time consuming and delicate. Each model has to be photographed in a very detailed way, so it takes up around three hours and three hundred frames. Each sculpture is cut with precision out of Styrofoam and then photographed details are attached to it forming face, body, clothes and hair.
The final result is fascinating.

buried

This book is a collaboration of the photographer Stephen Gill and the book designer Melanie Mues.
It features a series of photographs that were buried near the place they were taken. These limited edition books (only about 750 copies) were each put in the ground so that each book cover has different degree of muddiness; and the smudges and stains are all unique. Then the book was presented in a clean slipcase with the embossed title on it.
Simple treatment of the book and the artwork almost overpowers the content making it a part of the design; and the design doesn’t just present the content anymore.

national media museum

“New works: pavilion commissions 2008” is an exhibition of young talented photographers at National Media Museum Bradford. Pavilion is a visual arts commissioning agency based in Leeds that works together with artist and audience to create works of art using photography and digital media. Five candidates were chosen for the exhibition: Peter Ainsworth, Tess Hurrell, Jo Longhurst, Moira Lovell and Kevin Newark. Below are three of them I find particularly interesting.
Peter Ainsworth
In his approach to work Ainsworth blurs lines between film, performance, the trivial, documentary and elements of museology. And his final photographs are the evidence of this mixture’s effects and outcomes. “A stuffed bird found on a bank of the Thames at Crayford Ness” (2007) is a series of pictures that are presented as scientific documentary and show how any object even such as decaying body of a bird can become art.
“Summer and spring. Angel road (A406)” (2008) takes the presentation and museum object interaction sides of “A stuffed bird…” even further. Ainsworth asked a group of volunteers to develop abandoned pieces of land by turning them into gardens. He arranged his models copying the paintings of Breugel positioning the subjects in obvious “perfect” rural scene as if taking a role of an artist whose dignified skill is in danger from invading modern technology. Although, he uses this technology to create his art.
Tess Hurrell
Investigating light flickers and flares in photography, “Chaology”(left) looks at the power of explosions. Hurrell created imitations of explosions she photographed before and recreated its abstract beauty in wires, powder and cotton wool. This work communicates movement when the subject itself is sculpturally static.
In “Drawing light”(right) Hurrell removed light patterns and reflections from their usual context by dispersing them against semi-transparent screen as she always was interested in how camera captures and represents things to us, particularly if they are not visible to human eye.
Jo Longhurst
Longhurst is investigating perfection and how it influences our personal perception and identities, social and political systems and the history. “Perfect” is a project that looks at technical and physical perfection in sport, especially gymnastics. However, the photographs are not just about perfection in sport it is also a collection of personal stories and achievements, national identities and history in photographs.

95 restaurant

The construction of "95 restaurant" integrates the contemporary and the native in order to challenge architectural rules of margins and transparency.
It is named after the angle of the columns that support a high wharf it is placed on. Made out of recovered materials the whole building reminds of a confusing structure of a tree house. The structure is high above the water so that boats can be tied beside the restaurant. The building fits into naturalistic surroundings beautifully making the harmonic connection between the building and riverbank landscape.

changing places

One of the most recent exhibitions of contemporary art that arises some interesting points about the ways art works are perceived is “Changing places” by Phil Sayers and Rikke Lundgreen. It is currently exhibited at Leeds Art Gallery.
Using their contemporary and different viewpoints as a cross-dresser and a woman they challenge the depiction and perception of women in society. Sayers and Lundgreen produced digital photographs, where they model as females, that give different explanation of historical art works, and the current exhibition (“Women are from Venus”) is enhanced with additional meaning that is brought in by their analysis. Their analytical questioning exposes repeating subjects in their work such as women’s obsession with aging; identity and sexuality as equally important and sometimes even meaning the same thing, and it imaginatively tests different sides of our cultural heritage.

hundertwasser

One of the most unusual architects with unmistakably distinctive style is Hundertwasser who proved that it is possible to realize any extravagant design into beautifully harmonic architectural wonder. His approach to buildings is as to the “third skin” of a man, where first is an actual skin and second is clothes. With his design Hundertwasser tries to break artificial to nature rules in academic architecture such as grids, straight lines, even floors; and create buildings that do not conform to the typical standards and formulas. His rules are “uncontrolled irregularities” that bring back together man and nature. Floor becomes uneven so that a man can regain old relationship and contact with earth. Windows don’t obey the grid as natural beauty consists of uncontrolled irregularities. Trees live in Hundertwasser’s buildings to remind us our natural habitat.

neighbourhood

“Neighbourhood” was designed by Rinzen and published by Victionary (Australia/Germany) uniting artists from around the world in “spontaneous collaborative toy remixing project”. The idea was to start from a simple cloth toy and by sending it to different artists that would add a bit of their love and personality to the toy by painting, stitching and drawing on it; and that way produce a material object representing friendliness and collective unity. The toy was photographed after each artist added something to it and the book became a record of the process of creation and personality development.
Simple, but as friendly as the idea of the book itself, the book cover has stitchings of all the countries the toy been to.

guggenheim

The Guggenheim museum was designed by famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright and was completed after his death in 1959.
The Guggenheim became a quintessence of Wright’s efforts to translate the beauty of organic forms, it’s natural grace and flow, in architecture. He changed standard approach to museum design by upturning twisting pyramid, where the lift takes visitors to the top of the building so that people can continue their way down walking on a gently flowing ramp. The winding balconies, whose twisting design reminds of a shell shape, are broken up into separate independent rooms that smoothly flow one into another.
Not only it reflected nature, Guggenheim design possessed rigid geometrical qualities, as the museum is the perfect balance of arcs, squares and triangles.
Wright constructed an exciting piece of architecture, whose design is as inspirational now as it was in 1960s, by merging the grace and flexibility of flowing natural shapes and still rigidity of geometric forms.

fire painter

“Fire, indisputably, has deep meaning and symbolism in our collective unconscious. As one of the four primeval elements alongside earth, water, and air, fire has come to symbolise a profound range of opposites, from death to birth, tranquility and rage, creation and destruction, hell and heaven, to light and darkness” – Russell Maier.

These beautiful pictures is the result of merging education in philosophy, wide-ranging practice in graphic design and excitement about expressive process of their creator – Russell Maier.
“Fire was a subject of a portrait”. First, Maier produced simple paintings to make the colour of the fire stand out against the smoothness of oil paint and then he created the photographs balancing out fuel, lighting and contrast.
As it is possible to gaze at a flame for hours being mesmerised by its continuous dangerous dance, it is possible to look at Maier’s experiments with the feeling of appreciation of the beautiful but simultaneously destructive force of the fire.

stolnik building

Stolnik is situated in central Moscow. This luxurious residental building surrounded by early twentieth century neighbours has details of Stalinist era architecture itself and therefore merges and contrasts contemporary and past Moscow.
The exterior is formed by combination of natural stone and light alluminium frame that adds a touch of casual incompleteness.
This magnificent stately building enhances central part of Moscow with quaint extravagance and contemporary immensity.

man and space

This book was designed by Undoboy and published by Rhett Austell, USA. It is a redesign of 1960s issue that tells about man in space from all the technological advances that made journeys into space possible to the history of the exploration itself.
Two-grid system was used for each page along with Garamond typeface for body text and captions and sleek Bauhaus typeface for the titles. Although the bright colourful bold
Illustrations were designed using only primary and secondary colours, simple flowing lines and flat shapes; they have pseudo-technical quality to them. The book cover is wrapped in silver material and filled with cotton wool so that it instantly reminds us of sci-fi films of the 1960s and space suits.

saul fletcher

Saul Fletcher is a contemporary artist and photographer. Some of his pictures are painted photographs and some of them, on opposite, photographed paintings.
His works evoke strong emotions, more often sadness, sometimes it’s romantic, weird, sometimes unconventional in whimsical way, or even wild and eccentric.
His early work was staged saturated enigmatic personal mythology that resulted in highly distinctive sometimes even lurid photographs, like this picture of a seated hunchback (self-portrait).

However, most of his recent painting-based photographs give an impression of unstructured impulsiveness. Mark making is aggressive and chaotic with a hint of childlike expressiveness. The meaning of those works is ambiguous and their obscurity is a big component of their magical magnetism.

99 fears

Nedko Solakov is a Bulgarian conceptual artist that recently published humorous illustrated book called “99 fears”. It is a collection of pen and ink drawings of personal but at the same time collective existent, made-up or completely random fears (that sometimes don’t even make any sense) showing how uneasy it is to live in a modern fast moving world.
Sketchy style of illustration, nice to touch, almost hand made paper and short handwritten captions make this book very cute and personal to everyone. Have this book on your shelf and at miserable moments of everyday life cheer yourself up by looking through its pages.

i want to believe

“I want to believe” was an exhibition at the Guggenheim museum NY, where Cai Guo-Qiang (Chinese-born artist) designed a site-specific installation that museum visitors were a vital part of.
The exposition portrayed art as developing in time and space progression tied up with idea of change, consumption of resources, and communication. The composition of Cai’s art forms is unpredictable in their nature, although his aggressive but simultaneously starting positive creation social idealism illustrates all development.
As a visitor walked in to the museum there were nine cars with ordered in different directions light tubes hanged above his head as a sequence of freeze frames from some blockbuster Hollywood movie. This installation referred to the terrorist issues depicting a trace of falling detonated car. A visitor experienced a paradox of extreme fear, deadly horror and abstract beauty of an explosion.
Walking up by a spiral path the visitor unfolded other “stories” created by Cai Guo-Qiang, like this one of great courage and collective unity. A pack of 99 life-sized wolves run as fast as they can toward a glass wall in the act of rage and collective audacity. However, there is a different side of the story ending in their unity reaching its apogee in their eventual fall as a reflection of the human weakness that is in blind following any collective ideology.