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Awareness Test

Maybe some of you will have been shown this before, it's the kind of thing, that once you've seen you want to show other people...just to make sure you're normal.

I just thought it was pretty clever.


Awareness Test-Amazing - The most amazing bloopers are here

Colourful Music

I came across this interior design which obviously grabbed my attention first off due to colour.

These are pictures of a music institute in Japan that has recently been redesigned, and shows that they truly believe in a creative space to make creative minds.









It was designed by Terada Design, A Japnese architect firm who I'd LOVE to tell you more about but their website is in Japanese.

"Big Type Says More"

At the moment I'm really interested in the hands on kind of feel of design. I'm always asking how can I get away from a poster, 2D is not good enough any more, I want tactile, I want hands on...i want texture!
So I've been keeping myself busy making various different styles of books (with my esteemed Graphical partner K. Ijola) and the odd sock monkey here and there, sequins have played a huge part in my summer and I have developed an unhealthy obsession with wax.
But this piece of design has grounded me a little more. I came across this in the same magazine I found the people from my last entry (Ben&Julia), and before I could even begin to understand what was going on in the pictures I was excited that they were using such simple materials as wood and cardboard-very organic.
This particular project focuses on type and the two founders of "Strange Attractors" talk about setting up their exhibition in the article:
"All the work was done standing up, in a verticle position and live in front of visitors to the museum.

Our objective was to merge contemporary technology with traditional craftsmanship while representing the diverse multicultural and architectural city of Rotterdam".

I like their enthusiasm, and obviously making the entire piece in front of the public's very eyes is hands on enough for me!



http://www.strangeattractors.com/site/index.html

Character Building...

I was reading a magazine and came across these two artists, Ben and Julia, a French-Swiss duo who spend their time coming up with different characters which they then inject into graphic design, art and animation.
Reading about how they work was fascinating and really inspiring...as a bit of a head in the clouds kind of girl the concept of creating characters to represent other things is grin-inducing anyway, but when they talk about playing with puppets and listening to music to try and manipulate their dreams I was so enthrawled I instantly wanted nothign more than to be adopted into their surreal, dream like partnership of joy.

these are a couple of their drawings that I am fond of but I suggest you check out their website because that is where all the best stuff is!




http://www.benandjulia.com/home.html

our kid

Compared to some places Sheffield is not the cultural capital of England; hats off to Liverpool, The Human League and Joe Scarborough apparently don't compete with The Beatles and L.S. Lowry, but watch this space as Sheffield sees more and more talented young artist emerging from the dust of the recently demolished (yet desperately missed) cooling towers.



Obviously most people know the Arctic Monkeys, but until recently I was unaware that their video to 'When the Sun Goes Down' was produced by Warp Films, an offshoot of Warp Records (originally started in Sheffield) who have been involved in films for such people as Aphex Twin and Maximo Park.

These are the things that make me proud to say I'm from Sheffield, we can breed talent, and usually their roots are firmly grounded in their home city and they're not afraid to show it, as can be seen in the Arctic Monkey's video I mentioned above.

So one of my favourite artists that anyone from Sheffield will have no doubtedly witnessed, knowingly or unknowingly is a graffiti artist known as 'Kidd Acne'.
Since being a youngster I have seen his work crop up around Sheffield and even before I knew anything about art or design I could tell there was something different about this street art. His graffiti has a very distinct style and his work is instantly recognisable, which gives you a warm feeling when you catch a glimpse of a piece of his work as you glide on past it on a bus, reminding you that you are at home.
his work became so popular in Sheffield that local businesses searched him out to put his art work in their shops and clubs.
Stumbling into Plug night club in Sheffield in the early hours of one Friday morning I was overjoyed to see his work plastering the walls between the rooms.
I like the personal touch, and I think this pride in local artists is a great thing for a city to have.
His popularity has clearly started to boom though, taking a break one evening I was watching channel 4's 'Secret Millionaire' and was amazed to see the secret millionaire himself wearing a T-shirt designed by Kid Acne, I wasn't even aware he made t-shirts at this point but the style was unmissable!

Here is some of his work and I'll leave his web address at the bottom if you want to check it out.




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http://www.kidacne.com/blog/?page_id=4

Fish House

I went to Miami last December, and one one of my few trips away from the beach I came across this amazing building. A cylinder painted blue with fish protruding from it...I just had to investigate. Everything about it was curious, from the furtniture outside to the wrought iron spiral staircase inside to the fish themed door knockers. I took pictures of the mail box and name of the building and when I got home I researched it. It turned out to be a photographers apartment and studio.
I loved the building though so I thought I'd post the pictures here:

I dream in stop motion

A friend of mine showed me this music video knowing that I love anything to do with surrealism and dreaming. I love the way it is filmed. It is so simple and yet so effective...one of those things that makes you kick yourself and wonder why you never thought of doing something similar.

WindHover - student work book

The University I attended in America, North Carolina State University, is very big on community and bringing the school of design together as one. So along with regular design council meetings and socials, towards the end of the year interviews are held to create a team to produce a book with a compilation of work submitted by deisgn students over the year.

I loved this idea, it gives everyone in the school of design something positive to take away, somethign to remind you that all the hard work you do isn't in vain and someone somewhere is probably flickign through the book and thinking 'wow, this person's work is pretty good!' and who knows, it could lead to a job, a collaboration or even just some inspiration.

I really liked this way of bringing people together and sharing work so I thought I' post an example of the kind of outcome achieved:

The first time I watched this film I didn't really pay any attention to the storyline. I was busy watching for all the stylized effects and wondering what the next one would be.
I absolutely love the way this film was produced and think that there was a risk of the stylistic editing choices making it cheesy but it works extremely well and actually has the opposite effect.

Upon watching the film a second time (and a third and a fourth....) I really appreciated how the effects built up emphasis and drama within the film and made it the powerful movie that it is.

I recommend it to EVERYONE.

Sin City - DIY, all you need is a green screen!

I have always liked Sin City but never really realised why I did until recently when I watched the extras on the DVD.
Robert Rodriguez gives an excellent commentary on his design and production which gives an amazing insight into his amazing skills as a director. The way he demonstrates how he overcomes difficulties when trying to mimic the stylistic qualities used in the graphic novels makes it all sound so simple! Rodriguez is clearly a very passionate director and designer and these two short films show you how much can be achieved with the little resources available to us as students. Obviously a feature length film based on an acclaimed graphic novel with an all star cast may be a little out of our reach, but the programmes, green screen and scripts are all available to be twisted and moulded by our very creative minds.

I found these films very interesting and think that anyone interested in film making or Sim City would enjoy watching

If you could wake up anywhere....

So I've been thinking about what I can possibly pull out of the bag for Fridays meeting where we will present our ideas for the Independent project.
After standing at work and daydreaming about the enless (yet thoroughly boring) possibilities I came up with what I think could b the begging of an idea. I wont write about it here because it is not thought through properly yet but it reminded me of this video which I found about a year ago and wanted to share with peopel but didn't have the right forum to do so, and here we are.
I hope you find it interesting,

Fifty People, One Question: London from Fifty People, One Question on Vimeo.

Fish Chair

I was reading a copy of ShortList magazine, when I came across an article about a Dutch Firm (Ontwerpers) who have taken inspiration from nature to create a new product.



As you can see from this picture, this seems like an amazing idea, why has no one thought of this brilliant solution to a comfy read at night before?!
Well these designers have taken to looking at nature, in this case, specifically the 'angler fish' which most people will be most familiar with from Finding Nemo.





This fish uses a light attached to a growth protruding from their head to lure unsuspecting fish in the dark...although the light from the chair is for something quite different it is still interesting how we can take inspiration from nature to influence our design, after all, it has worked for them for millions of years, why not learn from that to improve our world!

Creatve Review Feat. Leeds Graduates

I recently picked up a copy of Creative Review as it was the 'graduate special' and I was intrigued to see what type of work caught the eyes of the Creative Review team from the millions of pieces of work they would have seen from graduate shows all across the country.

So I was extremely happy when I came across the first pair of graduates who happened to be from Leeds University!
I personally didn't know the pair, Joe Keirs and James Callahan, but after reading the article I became a lot more enthusiastic about returning to the course this year. They showed that with determination and a passion for what you want to do you can get what you want, illustrated by the fact that they were able to persuade tutors that they should be allowed to collaborate on projetcs where, as we all know, our final year is concentrated on our own individual work.

I also enjoyed reading about how they did a lot of their own work in their spare time as I have often done illustrations or made books but not thought they were of any importance simply because they were not givent o me in a brief format...now my perspective has changed and I am realising that work done out of the university guidelines can often be of great help to expand your work for briefs.

The favourite thing i came across was this, just because I liked the personal touch;



You can see more of their work at: http://jamesandjoe.co.uk/


Other than our ouwn home grown talent there were some other really interesting designers in this issue.

One graduate that I thought stood out was Eilin Bergum who does a lot of hand made things which I believe is the reason her work stood out to be picked for this issue of creative review if you have time to look at her blog it is quite interesting to read about some of her projects: http://eilinbergum.com/

Lastly, two graduates from 'Communication Design' In Kingston caught my eye with a simple but genius project. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves but I thought it was a clever way to show something that designers might not always think about.

The Dirty Future

I found this poster which I thought was really clever by Roland Tiangco:






















I don't know how it is achieved but i like the tactile nature of it and the element of suspense to create interest.