This post should herald a return to norm, I trust, going forward. A few weeks on the run, work, travel, moving house, it tends to stifle the daily posting ritual.
Christine Schmidt’s Yellow Owl Workshop was my first port of call today when looking for a gift. She has a Californian outfit, selling handcrafted goodies. Stationary, stamps, letter sets, prints and paintings to get you started.
I am captivated, of course, by the designs and products themselves, but almost more so in the packaging for the stamp sets. What is there not to love about the hand-printed muslin bag which clasps each set together so ergonomically efficiently, yet at the same time with quirky aesthetics? Or, as above, the wooden slide box.
Check in on their blog too!
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Helmut Smits’ conceptual and visual work is often so very straightforward, that you could place him in a league of his own, apart from the conceptual and visual artists who are trying their very best to be overcomplicated and thought provoking.
He first caught my eye with his Google Maps dead pixel, a 82 x 82 cm black piece of grass which would appear as a dead pixel from 1 km, then subsequently had me hooked with his ideas section on his website. It’s never too serious, and most pieces are created, not to cause outcry, but to satisfy an obvious curious notion, dreamt up by the man himself. This is refreshing, like a cup of colour.
His visual work is a delight, so please take a look.
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What with geek being the new chic and all that nonsense, isn’t it time we all learnt the joys of data flow, and the inextricable link great graphic design has with the learning, and in turn appreciation, of such training material?
A good start would be a digital leaf through books such as Data Flow 2 -
Visualizing Information in Graphic Design. Gestalten have it available, if you would like to be informed.
Apart from a truly fantastic array of books for sale, Gestalten, or at least their website, has a great ‘Shop of the Month’ feature. It’s a monthly selection that is sure to catch your eye, with hidden gems from the magazine, zine and book world celebrated with a bio and oft times an interview. It’s been on the go for for the last five years, so there is plenty to get browsing through.
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Of course not every tattoo story is full of wonder, yet I dare say, thanks to the permanence of the act itself, the vast majority are well worth a listen.
With a show starting 16th May, in Temple Bar, Dublin, Aidan Kelly is presenting images of those who have a tale or two attached to some ink.
There are stories of the Merchant Navy, the Army and time behind bars. Half cans of cider, spiders and secret bids. It’s altogether a tribute to the tale of the Ink, no matter how mundane. Letting the reason for the creation be recounted and celebrated, and in turn some poignant images collected and exhibited.
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Much like an airport brought to a halt through the spread of ash and strikes, the blog has taken a hit in recent days, with the usual flurry of activity drying up. Apologies.
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What did we all do with our time before the internet came along and absorbed every drab second of our existence, thereby cultivating our Tuesday evenings and Sunday afternoons into joyous and productive periods, set apart and fully utilised?
Life without the pitter patter of keys or the clunk of the track-pad is, from my own experience this week, filled with the mother of all time wasting devices, TV.
Nothing too spectacular then. It seems life without the internet just propels us toward another box, this time with less options and less specific, but all the more infuriating, adverts, presented back-to-back, not just 30 seconds before a YouTube clip.
The transition to life before television was not too dissimilar to that of life before the internet. That box of tricks, the wireless, was the be all and end all. What is our fascination, as humans, with a box which provides all our entertainment, be it a computer, a television, a radio, or even a window? There isn’t anything like the day dream out a window to keep one’s mind from boredom.
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Take a good hard look at the faces above. Who are you drawn to? Which of these lads would you like to know all about?
I can assure you that we all have different answers, and that we made our choices due to very specific and no doubt rather peculiar reasons.
Of course we will never know the real truth about these Army Boxing team members, but one can always create a story or two.
Were you drawn to Walter Penwrith? That’s him in the turtle neck, back left.
Walter was passionate about the sport of boxing, but forever as a trainer and never a boxer. In truth he couldn’t take the physicality of it.
A sickly child, he grew up dreaming of rough and tumble, wishing he could play in the fields surrounding the family’s country home. It wasn’t until he joined the Army, as an older and somewhat stronger fellow, that he was allowed to venture into the realms of assault courses and sporting clubs.
After attending a few introductory boxing sessions a hefty knockout in training put an end to any aspirations of titles, or in fact the completion of a competitive round. Despite his obvious passion for the sport, the brutality was far and away beyond what his weak physical structure could withstand.
Nevertheless he stuck to his role as chief towel holder and general mascot, serving in the Army Boxing team his entire career.
I’d be delighted to hear some other stories. Front row, second from the right. Looks like a joker to me.
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“An Eagle for an Emperor, a Gyrfalcon for a King; a Peregrine for a Prince, and a Saker for a Knight; a Merlin for a lady, a Goshawk for a Yeoman, a Sparrowhawk for a Priest, and a Kestrel for a Knave” Boke of St Albans 1486.
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It’s a thud. I have thought about it and have concluded ‘thud’ will aptly describe the sensation, forever foreign, despite its regular occurrence, as water collides with the back of my parched throat each morning. It’s a wholly different sensation to any lunchtime sip, perhaps sparkling, as carbonated bubbles slowly rise through my head and I allow extolment through a knee jerk watering of my eyes.
The first cup of each day, for myself, is a cup of water. For others it is coffee. Dogmilque is one of those ‘others’ and, fortunately for us, he has documented a great deal of these ‘first cups’ for the last five years. This has created a most intriguing set of images, each with a brief description, showing that first cup of coffee each morning. Enjoy.
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It’s a strange feeling, seeing your entire life packed neatly into old banana boxes. I guess I am moving. I guess the blog will be quiet for a few days. Check back.
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I know nothing about Eric Wrobbel, and am rather unsure as to how I managed to find my way to his ‘art’ site today.
All that is by the by, as when I got there I was hooked. It’s like stepping backward, a leap perhaps. It’s a portfolio of advertising work he has carried out in the past, and while the mind wonders just what the clients were thinking in most instances, it serves as a great testimony for the advancement of design and advertising.
The warmth of the images, such as that seen in the ‘Vannelli’ piece above, and the paragraphs of type, often in bright neon. It’s set firmly in a decade. There is so much which has changed, so much evolution of design. It gets me thinking as to where we will be in the next decade, and what will we think of the work being produced now. Of course there will be celebrated pieces, but the bottom line is that you just don’t see adverts like this anymore. I wonder why.
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New Candy Collective ’The Society6 Issue’ out now, download it here.
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The obsession with awkwardness has reached new precedents, and with it, the level of awkwardness has seen new highs. It’s refreshing then to leaf through some of Jesse Burke’s Clover set and see some far from awkward shots. He also has a blog.
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What are you reading? I just took a break from this and rifled through this. Quite the difference in content, never mind the target audience. Both equally entertaining.
Beatrix Potter’s life was a story in itself, so very talented and so very privileged. Read about it all in detail here. Incidentally you can read Johnny Town-Mouse, my favourite of her many books (Image above) here.
Apologies for the scarcity of posts presently, normality shall return in a day or three.
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