Bloody Show Offs
Meirion Pritchard, currently Art Director for Wallpaper [wallpaper.com] (along with pals Simon Robinson and Matt Thomas) likes to encourage shy and retiring creative types to Show Off (well, they’re not all shy, definitely top notch creatives though). I’ve been a tad slack and you now have only a few days left to catch the latest Show Off exhibition at the Art Vinyl store in Broadway Market, East London [facebook.com/events]. See original new pieces by Chrissie Abbott [chrissieabbott.co.uk], Laurent Fetis [laurentfetis.com] and Anthony Burill [anthonyburrill.com] (his contribution is shown below). Thanks to Melvin Galapon [mynameismelvin.co.uk] for pointing this out.
The weather’s wine, wish you were beer
Boicozine is participating in a postcard exhibition to be held at the Geoff McFetridge designed Sunshine Cafe in Tokyo. The advantage being that postcards are such a neat size, you can pack loads more contributors in (66 at last count), so something you everyone? Visit [postcard-exhibition.blogspot.com] to spot submissions by creative types such as Toby Neilan [tobyneilan.com], Andreas Samuelsson [andreassamuelsson.com], Ingela och Vi [ingelaochvi.com], Körner Union [koernerunion.com] and Carolin Löbbert [ykeschotten.com]
in Events / Graphic Design / Illustration / Postcards
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Be Damned Again
I love a good independent publishing fair and this one is the daddy [publishandbedamned.org.uk]. What sets Publish & Be Damned apart from any other indie publishing fair is that this one is carefully curated. You can’t just turn up with a bunch of raggedy photocopies in yer hand. This is the creme-de-la-creme of zine culture. Turn up this Sunday to the Rochelle School in East London [afoundation.org.uk/rochelle], or be damned to spend the rest of eternity never knowing just how cool indie publishing can be. There’s a full list of participants (including the excellent Fever Zine [feverzine.co.uk]) on the website or look em up on [facebook]. You can see some pics from last year’s event on [flickr].
Melbourne Festival City
Melbourne, like London, has the cool sweat of festival fever right now (even though it’s winter). For people who haven’t heard what’s up down under, here’s the skinny…
The Melbourne International Design Festival is on again, and getting bigger and better every year. There’s loads of things to do and see and make. We like the idea of Patrick Blanc’s Vertical Garden thing [nationaldesigncentre.com] (see the image below) and an exhibition that tells the story of, arguably the best course of it’s kind in the country, the National School of Design at Swinburne University’s Graphic Design degree [nationaldesigncentre.com]. Over at the festival’s ’satellite’ series of shows entitled State of Design [stateofdesign.com.au] there is another truck load of interesting events. the ones we really like are mostly in Design for Everyone [stateofdesign.com.au].
If your feeling a little jaded by this design overload, how about spending some time alone in the dark? The programme for The Melbourne International Film Festival [melbournefilmfestival.com.au] is looking as strong as ever, we especially like the idea of Ozploitation [melbournefilmfestival.com.au].
Nevermind the Grad Shows (#3)
After missing Brighton’s show I made sure I got along to the St Martin’s Communication Design show on The Mall (next to the ICA, just down the street from Buckingham Palace), only to miss the Graphic Design show (so what’s the big difference between Communication & Graphic Design? I thought they went hand-in-hand). I’m going to give up on trying to blog about all the top Degree Shows. I may report on a couple if I get to see them. If you’ve been to a show and would like to report abot it for Boicozine please email [zine(at)boico.net] There’s loads of eloquent types much more on the ball than I, reporting on the various goings on. You can read more here…
[creativereview.co.uk/crblog]
[johnsonbanks.co.uk/thoughtfortheweek]
[wemadethis.typepad.com]
Plus Tony Easley has been kind enough to post a few pictures from the Brighton show up on his Flickr page. See them here [flickr].
Missing Out: Grad Shows #2
Okay, so I missed all the design shows at Free Range [free-range.org.uk] including University of Brighton’s ‘Into the Woods’ exhibition [gdi08.co.uk]. I turned up on Tuesday and everything was coming down. Have Free Range shows always only run for four days at a time? Jeez did I feel stoopid… and disappointed. I was really looking forward to Brighton this year. Luckily Brighton Grads are such an enterprising lot that is easy enough to catch up with them and what they’ve been creating online. Here’s a brief selection of recently released creative bods you should know…
Illustration still rules at Brighton. Tony Easley’s [nascentideas.com] robust linework makes him a Boicozine fave as is his blog, Nascent Ideas [nascentideas.wordpress.com]. Meanwhile Simon Barna [simonbarna.com] creates posterwork with the ease of a seasoned professional, as does Kerry Beall [kerrybeall.com], with some bold typographic treatments like the one shown above. Evening Tweed [eveningtweed.com] have been producing consistently inspiring work for a couple of years now. The collaborative quartet consist of Jez Burrows, Sarah King (poster below), Owen Gildersleeve and Tom Rowe. In his spare time Jez helps out with the excellent It’s Nice That [itsnicethat.com] too. Amy Preston’s inky experiments combined with her elegant and quirky typography make her a stand out [amypreston.co.uk] as does Verity Keniger’s [veritykeniger.co.uk] mixture of the hand drawn with her precise print work. Jake Blanchard’s [jakeblanchard.co.uk] more traditional type of illustration features some of the most elegant linework you’ll see. Other Brighton bods worth keeping your eyes peeled (ouch!) for include James O’Raw, Hampus Teodor Larsson and Alexander Jones. To tell you the truth, it seems a shame to single people out. Make sure you swing by the official GDi08 website for this year’s cornucopia of cleverness.
Showing Out: Grad Shows #1
It’s Graduate Show season in London. A series of events that demands more and more attention each year. I’m going to attempt to pop into as many shows as possible this year and report back on this here on boicozine. The first batter up is the RCA (Royal College of Art)’s SHOW 2008 (you know it’s called ‘SHOW‘ cause they’ve stuck massive letters out the front of the RCA Galleries spelling it out [show2008.rca.ac.uk]. I was kindly invited along to the RCA PARTY launch event by the fine folk at Dazed & Confused [dazeddigital.com] where visitors battled it out with the grads to see who could guzzle up the most Vodka & Russians and Vitamin Water. RCA is unique in that it offers predominantly post-graduate courses and they break their annual show up into several events.
Show One launches the events and features painters, designer-makers, photographers and print-makers. Worth having a gawk at (from a graphic point of view at least) are Alastair Levy’s ‘Proposals for everyday living’, Richard Healy’s wall of geometric work [richard-healy.co.uk], George Charman’s flat-effect 3D assemblages (the internet doesn’t do them justice) [george-charman.co.uk], Edward Austin’s ceramics and Kathryn Hinton’s inter-locking cutlery [kathrynhinton.com].
Ever since working at The Future Laboratory [thefuturelaboratory.com], particularly with the awesome Ms Caroline Till, I’ve been hooked on colour palettes and there were some lush examples of palettes well used in the show this year in painted pieces such as those by Ross Ruislip Taylor and Ellen Stanford [ellenstanford.com]. I have to admit I stood and started at Ellen’s large scale painters for an inordinately long time hoping I’d be able to remember every little shade of colour she had employed and how they worked together. Once you start seeing palettes everywhere, it’s addictive, I tell you. Again the intrenet does not do them justice but I’ve included a coupe of her pieces in this here post. It’s worth mentioning the work of Clare Maunsell too just cause she injected a joyful burst of humour into the proceedings with tombstones that tell you when you’re running out of stuff and loads of crazy bits and pieces.
BTW If you’re feeding a colour palette addiction too you probably already know about Adobe’s Kuler website thingy. If not you should go there now. Honest, it’s dead fun. You can choose palettes from your Flickr photos now too [kuler.adobe.com].
Self On Sea
Collectivism. If there’s one thing emerging image makers excel at these days (apart from being massively creative, of course) it’s this. Mr Tom Havell [tomhavell.com] contacted Boicozine to let us know about an ace new ‘collective’ that has been set up in Brighton. The Art is Proof Press [artisproof.com] is on a mission to give creatives the means of production and outlet for self-initialised work. Their inaugrial exhibition is being held at the Castor & Pollux gallery [castorandpollux.co.uk] from the 6th until June 15th down on the Brighton seafront, with the running them of ’self’. Contributors entering the Art is Proof group pool include Jez Burrow’s and Sarah King who are part of their own collective going by the name of Evening Tweed [eveningtweed.com], William Exley [williamexley.co.uk] (whose work can be seen above) and master of all things ‘web’, Mark Pavey [themarkpavey.co.uk].
The Chaumont Massive
The Chaumont Poster and Graphic Design Festival is back and starts today… and, this year, it’s huge! If you are fortunate enough to make the pilgrimage to this little French village for the 19th International Poster and Graphic Design Festival of Chaumont [ville-chaumont.fr/festival-affiches] you’ll be able to take your pick from a smorgasbord of events such as Fanette Mellier’s ‘Circus (dans l’espace public)’, in which she uses her unique brand of typography (see above) to tell a story that weaves it’s way through the street of Chaumont [fanettemellier.com] and Pierre du Sciullo’s challenge to plaster a space in one’s Chaumont’s main squares with 4 posters per hour, in 10 hour periods during the course of the festival [quiresiste.com]. Of course, there’s loads of other events and designers involved as well as the Annual Poster competition Chaumont first became known for and a temporary events venue they’re calling ‘Le Super’ (see image below) which promises to carry the vague 1950s theme that carries through the festival this year. There are many events that seek to link the worlds of design and publishing this year too. Oh, and just in case you were wondering, this year’s poster is designed by Frédéric Teschner [fredericteschner.com]. The annual book produced for the event has just been released by Pyramyd publishing [artdesign.fr]. There’s a Facebook group too [facebook], natch.
Day Zine Believer
The 2008 London Zine Symposium [londonzinesymposium.org.uk] takes place this Sunday at The Rag Factory in East London [ragfactory.org.uk]. Not only can you get yer grubby mitts on the latest and greatest zines around but there’s loads of ace events… and cake… I’m guessing… there’s usually cake… isn’t there? Anyway, cake aside there’s a whole programme of events on the day such as a walking tour of the Radical history of East London and screen printing workshops. Fever Zine [myspace.com/feverzine] will be launching their third issue designed by Boicozine contributor, Simon Whybray [simonwhybray.com], at the event. And now here’s one of the many hi-tech staplers available from stationery wonderkind Askul [askul.co.jp]…
