Edinburgh, is awesome

I've been out of the loop. Traveling is awesome, and Edinburgh is so far my favorite city in the mini version of the world that I've seen. It's very difficult to stay in the design loop, whilst backpacking around with non-designer/creatives. But. When I ran into this A6 flyer/poster on the streets of Old Town in Edinburgh, it injected we with some new vigor.

Well... I'm back in London, looking for work, working on my portfolio/book. The economy sucks right now, and with the whole fact that 70% of advertising jobs go unadvertised (go figure) it makes it really hard to find work for a creative who isn't part of the "design culture" of a city. But I'll keep going. Hopefully I find something/anything soon.

The Remnant

Well, I tried to organise an exhibition... It was due to be called "Share & Share Alike" but due to participation issues, the name has had to be changed, I think it's quite apt.

Title: The Remnant
Time: 6pm (The Evening) 17th Oct
Place: The Corner Cafe (Durban)

I'll take pics of my work once it's all up, I was quite chuffed with my contribution in the end, It's just a pity so many of the original participants pulled out at the last moment.

The Flow of Communication

Thanks to my following the happenings at The Diagram, who have just published version 8.4. I've started experimenting with diagrams to communicate poems, prose, and found text. I'm still in the process of developing the execution, but I'm rather pleased with it so far.
Like the one above, that's still in sketch form, based on the children's rhyme "Georgie Porgie Pudding And Pie".

I hope to produce a series of limited run screen prints, for my up coming collaborative exhibition "Share & share alike", so any criticism (good or bad) would be much appreciated.
[Inspiration via The Diagram]

Mr Moustache Tote Bag

Possibly because I've been cultivating my own crop of stache, but I really liked this tote bag I found over at Monster Munch. Very much like the Mr Mr series that I also happened to really enjoy.
[via Monster Munch]

Milk gone bad

Though I think the milk carton with with that particular stye of illustration isnt quite my cup of tea, the presentation, and technique for showing artwork and illustration is beyond awesome, thats what I find most intregueing about this work by Anatomic Factory.

"The Milk Gone Bad table lamp by AnAtomic Factory with illustrations by Bombo is a follow-up to the earlier Long Life Light. When the Milk Gone Bad light is off, it resembles a simple white milk carton. When switched on, the light reveals the mold that grows unseen inside. The imaginary cartoon-like mold happens to be a lot more pleasant than the real life version and is available in 8 colourways, each with a different personality. The lamp comes flat and is constructed much the way a milk carton would be." moco loco

I'm going to be looking into doing light box like displays for my own work, but most likely will be wall mounted rectangles as apposed to table top objects.

[via mocoloco ]

DIAGRAM :: 8.2

I'm at a loss, both at how awesomely intriguing Diagram is, and as to what they are exactly. So far as i can glean, they are an online magazine dedicated to writing and poetry.

"We're interested in representations. In naming. In indicating. In schematics. In the labeling and taxonomy of things. In poems that masquerade as stories; in stories that disguise themselves as indices or obituaries." www.thediagram.com

Me being more graphically orientated, I prefer the visuals on the site more than the writing on it's own, the mixture of existing diagrams with unrelated yet somehow meaningful text is brilliant.
[via theDiagram8.2]

Paul Willoughby illustration

Some awesome illustrations by Paul Willoughby, I particularly like the above one, seems like its printed on or in the style of traditional Chinese porcelain. I dig it, check out his portfolio at the link below.
[via www.paulwilloughby.com]

LLLLOST & Post-it Birdy

Firstly, this is a most sincere request to anyone to happens to cross paths with my blog, and is in possession of a ffffound account, from which they can invite me. I love ffffound and am llllost without an account. Please ... please find it in your graphically orientated hearts to invite me.

Anyway... The above image is a mild excursion into urban/street pixel art that I found myself doing to pass the time during a power outage at work. The idea is that I will create roughly 8x8 images with Post-Its then varnish/wheat-paste them in place. So far all I've done is the above experiment on a piece of found wood. But, urban canvas here I come. Inspired by boredom and space-invaders.
[image from my flickr]

UPADTE:


After making the above half of the post, I was browsing ffffound, and came across the red pixel image above. Its a silk screened poster available at Hybrid-Home. I thought it was cool, and relevant, so added it to my post.
[via ffffound: Apartment Therapy : Hybrid-Home]

Keri Smith, Guerilla Art

I found Keri Smiths flickr Page, via the above picture, on ffffound. and after going through her stuff, I've fallen in love with her typographic doodles, however simple they might be. I particularly like her "Guerilla Art Signs". check out her website www.kerismith.com.

"For the really bad days, for the days when you want to quit, when you feel like everything you do is shit, when you feel your self-esteem plummet, when you decide that you would rather wait tables for a living, when you start to think you will never make a living making art, when you are working on something and feel like you hate it more than you've ever hated anything in your life, when someone makes an offhand remark about your work and afterwards you feel dejected, when you wish you had gone to school for accounting, when you start to believe that maybe your family was right, when you want to lie in bed for a month and eat chips.

It pays to have a sense of humor.

The artist's survival kit offers some help." Keri Smith

You Dont Matter

"We converted a plotting machine into an output device, that can draw, scratch or cut with almost any traditional drawing technique, in order to achieve aesthetics looking neither drawn by hand nor produced with only a computer. Most interesting and inspiring are all the little mistakes this machine produces, because of too much data, too much water, color, pressure etc. There are always gradients because the color gets less and less as the machine draws on. This expansion space describes the machine's actual identity. No Image looks like the other. And if you put a camera infront of the machine and take a time exposure it draws with light in the air like Picasso did with his hand." You Dont Matter
Very cool experiment, looking at the role of the designer, and in the end showing that you don't need human intervention for that "mark of the maker" effect. I especially like the work done by etching/scraping into wax (abive). I vaguely remember using this technique in primary school. [via ManyStuff]

Hiber & Procrasti Nation

As seems to be the case with most designers and their blogs. I've been totally bogged down with work, which is both good and bad, but because of it, I've had to give blogging a rest.
But I missed to far too much, so I'm back.

While I was gone, my work saw fit to send me and a couple other colleagues from Modern Museum to the Design Indaba in Cape Town.
Its was totally awesome, and unbelievably inspiring, so I have lots of content to impart to any of the readers who as of yet have not abandoned all hope of me posting again. hahaha

But as a starter, I'm not going to jump in arms flailing, but rather ease into it again, so I started with an illustration/typeplay, of a line I saw at FriendsWithYou, it makes no sense, but I love it.
So I was wondering, if anyone reads this, if you also attended the Design Indaba Conference, who was your best speaker? Mine was Marije Vogelzang. She was amazing, but I'll leave that for my next post.
[tis good to be back]

Wolf wrapping-paper, A New Year

Well it seems I'm not the only one who's bin taking it slow towards the end of the year. But I must say it really has been a great one for me. I just finished by Btech desgree in graphic design, as well as my first year of working in the industry. 2007 was bloody fantasic, come on 2008.
Im still on holiday though (visiting faminly in Johannesberg), but thats not to say that I've been idle (although I havnt been able to make any posts till now).

Inspired by Jesse at jezzeblog, with her foray into fabric printing, I started doing some experimenting myself. And trust me to go about it backwards (and insideout), for christmas I decided to make my own wrapping paper. So I did lino/block prints using sceenprinting ink and acrylic onto papers like stamps.
Here are some of the pics I took.

So as soon as I get back to Durban, on the 6th, Im going to carry on experimenting with printing, it really is fun. And I'll most definitly post the results here.

Konkord retro t-shirt prints

I'm not sure what inspired it, I was browsing ffffound, and had the sudden urge to do these rough t-shirt designs (I think I saw something with a similar font). I quite like them. Check more stuff out at my Flickr page.

On the walls of Beijing

Photographed on the streets of Beijing, I really really like it...alot! "chinoiserie meets militarism" via LCerre at 2 or 3 things I know.

I Love Durban, Crystal Campbell

I recently came across this illustration, done by Crystal Campbell, who worked as a designer at Modern Museum (where I work). But now she's off to do her Masters in the UK. Good luck to her.
She is also part of a creative collective, Rosebud&Grumpers.
She has done some brilliant work check out her portfolio here.

I love Broccoli, Plush

I'm in the process of adding a range of plush toys called I Love Broccoli hand made by my friend Chantelle Roberts, to The Empire Collective Etsy Shop. They're, super cool and the felt makes them so cuddly. They should be online in a little while, and there's a bunch of different ones.

UPDATE: done uploading, but more to come.

It Struck a cord.

I came across this image whilst browsing through flickr. And all I can say, is that it struck a cord. Photo by Violaceousdaisy

Luke Chueh Paintings

I love Luke Chueh's paintings and I'm can safely say that I'm mortified I don't live in LA so I could go to his exhibition at the 1988 Gallery ...aaararrgg! But seriously I went to his site, and besides the fact that all his paintings are so cool, they look especially so when they're displayed as small thumbnails next to each other. very very cool.

Is Print Dead?

A very cool article about the fate of printing, as we know it...
Dam dam daaam.
But I really like the origami "illustrations" on the article are really cool. Illustrated by Jennifer Daniel and Erin Sparling. Check it out at A Brief Message : An Inconvenient Truth. I recently made a origami squirel of which I'm quite proud, I'll try remember to post it some time. via The Serif

Etsy of the Week, The Black Apple

Unfortunate I've limited myself (due to justified addiction) to only post one Etsy find per week, or else every post of mine would be a new brilliant thing/person I'd found on Etsy, and not much else.

Like Emily Martin from Georgia USA, who is The Black Apple, "curiosity peddler and picture scribbler".
Her paintings and prints are some of the cutest portraits/characters ever. I think they're brilliant, you can check out her Blog, or her Etsy Shop.