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]…
Pawson at the Horse Hospital
Mark Pawson [mpawson.demon.co.uk] is having an exhibition at The Horse Hospital [thehorsehospital.com] in London (near Russel Square tube station). It’s only on until the 26th of this month so get along to take a rare peek into the obsessive compulsive world of this collector of modern ephemera and U.K. King of Gocco [flickr.com/inkdesigner]. There’s been a film night and you can hear Mr Pawson talk about his work today at 3pm.
Religion Fashion Graphics
It’s been a while since we’ve heard from Sweden Graphics [swedengraphics.com] so it’s good to see they have set up shop for the Vallery gallery in Barcelona [vallery.es/sweden]. Not only are they exhibiting there but you can also but pieces from their limited edition clothing line and posters created for the show through the gallery.
Store of Tomorrow, Today
Seems everyone’s getting more and more interested in the future rather than feeding off the past. Wacky funsters Wolff Olins [wolffolins.com], have recently completed their first ‘Store of Tomorrow’ event in London with the next event opening in New York at the end of the month [brandnext.com]. The concept is a little… confusing… a number of quirky, forward thinking brands offer various wares in exchange for written pledges to perform some sort of action. No money is exchanged. I guess it’s a type of swap shop idea [screenonline.org.uk]. It’s interesting that more and more creative agencies (especially those involved in the age old business of advertising) are playing about with retail concepts such as KesselKramer’s KK Outlet [kkoutlet.com], installed in Hoxton Square to launch the U.K. arm of their agency.
Cover Stars
The crazy chicks who bought you last year’s The Design Grotto [thedesigngrotto.com] have issued an invitation to be part of a massive book cover project at the London flash-mobber’s venue of choice, Liverpool Street Station [facebook.com]. Hit the lower concourse at 1pm to give your fizgig on the cover of… well, I’m not exactly what it is… but it’s the cover, man! Be there or be slightly less famous than you already are.
Update: I suspected as much. It’s all part of Random House’s ‘Coversourcing’ experiment. You can see the results from yesterday’s shoot online here [flickr] and make sure you swing over to the Coversourcing website [coversourcing.co.uk] and vote for your fave covers. So far there’s some pretty dire stuff in the Top 20 so make your vote count and help ensure the shit doesn’t float to the top. My current faves by Amit Patel, Loïc Boyer and Wes West are pictured below.
The 500 Pound Piñata
To help promote YCN’s current Student Awards scheme, creative super duo Jiggery Pokery [jiggerypokery.biz] created 250 custom built piñatas. This mammoth task took several days and required a dedicated team of piñatas builders [flickr]. There was one problem though. They were really hard to break open. So YCN then held a competition to see who could come up with the most inventive way to do just that. Genius! The winner/s have just been announced. It’s Kate Moross and Tom Merrell. You can view the winning entry below and see pictures from the event on the YCN website [ycnonline.com].
This one by Jason Turner & Steven Wilcox is pretty cool too…
Graniph’s Global Graphic Squad
We posted about Graniph [graniph.com], fine purveyors of quality Tshirt graphics, over a year ago now. Since then their empire has continued to expand with new stores opening up outside Japan on a regular basis and the launch of their first magazine (with a second in production as we speak). Hopefully they’ll make their way over to London town real soon (or at least open up their much anticipated International Online Store [graniph.com/en]). In the meantime Graniph want to you know about their annual Tshirt design competition [graniph.com/award]. So you too can join the ranks of the Graniph creative pool. Some of their recent recruits include Rui Tenreiro [theculturefront.com] (whose hound dogs are shown above), Kenn Goodall [bykenn.com], Hennie Haworth [henniehaworth.co.uk] and Happypets [happypets.ch].
Review 2007: Andrew Losowsky
When Mr Losowsky [losowsky.com] tells you something is worth reading then you better be paying attention. This man know his magazines. Editorial Director for Le Cool [lecool.com] (and international jetsetter), Andrew also played a major role in setting up Colophon2007 [welovemags.com] early last year, curating the exhibits alongside Jeremy Leslie [magculture.com] as well as acting as editor on the book to accompany the event entitled We Love Magazines [die-gestalten.de]. So without further a-do here’s is Andrew’s stuff of the year 2007…
Publications
Cut me this year and I bled ink (Pantone 032). Among the paper delights I fell in love with are Omagiu (Romania) [omagiu.com], Etiqueta Negra (Peru) [etiquetanegra.com.pe], Carl*s Cars (Norway) [carls-cars.com], the printing of IGN (Hong Kong), the protest edition of Flaunt (USA) [flaunt.com], Good (also USA) [goodmagazine.com], Dumbo Feather, Pass it on (Australia) [dumbofeather.com], B East (Various Eastern European places via Stockport) [beastnation.com/beast], Kasino A4 (Finland) [wearekasino.com], the online edition of T magazine from the New York Times [nytimes.com/t], S Publication (Denmark) [spublication.com], Coupe (Canada) [coupe-mag.com], the GQ 50th Anniversary Edition [gqat50.com]. But my favourite? Lemon (USA) [lemonland.net]. I’ve only seen the Kubrick edition, but it’s so bloody fantastic, from idea to execution, that I can’t wait for more. And neither can any of the people who work in my office. Everyone loved it, even those who don’t speak English. Lemon is this year’s winner. May their crown be swiftly stolen by something even better. /
Music
This year I seemed to fluctuate between three classic crooners: Bill Withers, Paul Simon and Lou Reed. My favourite new discovery was Tok Tok Tok [toktoktok.eu]. Thanks to the barman in Begin the Beguine in Madrid for that one. Mellow. /
Film
For a cinema buff, I’ve seen surprisingly little this year. Those that were memorable and worth your time (if you can track them down): El Orfanato [IMDb], El Labarinto del Fauno (Pan’s Labyrinth to you) [IMDb] and the marvellous Czech Dream [IMDb], a documentary about creating a non-existant supermarket in the Czech Republic. A triumph of substance about style. /
Art & Design
The Riverstones bowl from the MoMA Store made me gasp [momastore.org]. I own it now. Lovely. The huge wall of scribbles at MoMA made me laugh, a lot (can’t remember who did it, sorry Mr Artist). Also the newish terminal at Zurich Airport [zurich-airport.com] — not new this year, but a new discovery for me, a slick wooden object of beauty with a hilarious spoof Tiroler Hut upstairs [tirolerhut.co.uk]. If you look out of the window, you can see the outdoor kids rooftop playground on the other side. Bouncy! /
Events & Exhibitions
Leaving aside the obvious Colophon2007 plug (it was such fun!), the fog box in the Antony Gormley exhibition made me feel like I was in a weird filmic dream [southbankcentre.co.uk/gormley]. Loved it. The Alan Fletcher retrospective, if that was indeed this year, made me smile, which is as it should be [designmuseum.org]. The new De La Guarda show FuerzaBruta send my jaw spiralling to the floor [fuerzabruta.net]. And the Revealing Histories displays at Manchester Museum was a brilliant, brilliant way of re-examining a museum and what’s in its collection [revealinghistories.org.uk]. Controversial, eye-catching and rather clever. Well done, everyone. More please. /
Purchases
My Monster iPod Shuffle headphones. Changed my commute and occasional jogging forever. I then lost them (boo) but my girlfriend gave me another pair for Christmas (hurray!). No more annoying wires and accidentally changing tracks mid-podcast. My weekly Radiolab [wnyc.org/radiolab] moments are safe again. /
Places to Visit
I’ve been a very bad carbon boy this year. Top places: Melbourne (would love to live there), Angelos Pizza in New York on a Monday (try the garlic bread, tip your singing waiter). Bestest of all: Lake Atitlán. Google it and gasp [wikipedia]. /
Worst Place to Visit
Miami fucking Airport. I’d explain why, but then I’d have to kill you, me and everyone you know. We shall never speak of this again.
in Cinema / Events / Music / Places / Publications / Review 2007 / Things
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Santa Will Be Watching
All ya’ll get down to The Design Grotto [thedesigngrotto.com] this weekend. Simon Whybray (ie Me) will be giving out these über mega super fun badges. There are only 25 of each so you better track him down quickly, and he’s only giving them out this weekend argh!
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