What’s Up #32: CatalogTree
CatalogTree [catalogtree.net] are graphic designers forging a specialisation in information graphics, and in doing so, blurring the line between traditional graphic design and illustration. It’s Graphic Illustration… er, no it’s Information Design… whatever, it sure is cool to look at… and teaches you about stuff at the same time! Go CatalogTree! For a closer look, there’s some pretty sizeable graphics over at Good magazine [goodmagazine.com] and more stuff over at Seed magazine [revminds.seedmagazine.com] (that’s the American, worthy, four-letter magazine title market sewn up then).
in Graphic Design / Ideas / Illustration / What's Up
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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].
Time Keeps On Slipping Into The Future
Have you ever tried to pinpoint the exact time when you decided you wanted to be a designer, illustrator, blog host or whatever? You you ask me I’ll always cite i-D’s Heroes & Sheroes issue from 1989 [i-dmagazine.com/63] as the main reason I wanted to become a Graphic Designer. Under Terry Jones [wikipedia.org] direction, Stephen Male created a joyous riot of colour, imagery and ideas. Much of the graphic techniques employed came about from messing around in the tactile world of graphic reproduction, pre-computers. A mere two or three years later and everything had changed with the rise of the Apple Mac (I touched on this briefly in the Colophon2007 compendium, ‘We Love Magazines’ [gestalten.com]). It was during this period in time that I was studying Graphic Design at university and one of the first books I remember buying and making my own mini bible was Terry Jones‘ book ‘Instant Design: A Manual of Graphic Techniques’ [flickr], the back cover of which you can see above.
Inside Mr Jones outlined the many visual effects you could achieve with relatively little equipment and a whole lotta pace. These included using handmarks, stencils, typewriters, photocopiers, collage (or ‘montage‘ as he preferred to call it), polaroids and video. I remember finding photocopiers particularly intriguing (in a design sense, I wasn’t some wierdo photocopier fancier. Promise.) and experimented loads with cutting and pasting blown up typefaces all over the place (sometimes tracing and redrawing them with technical pens to get cleaner lines). Results were relatively instantaneous, but most importantly it was really fun.
Unfortunately my book got damaged by a pesky housemate towards the end of my studies when rain came in through an open window and we have remained apart even since, apart from a brief flirtation (with said book, not the housemate) a year or so ago at the Dover Street Market [doverstreetmarket.com] where expense dictated browsing to be the order of the day… until now. I found a copy in Brighton this weekend and we are now reunited. I want to share Mr Jones’ thought on time with you, dear friends. This text is taken from the back page of said book and goes some way to explain why he thought it’s good to consider design as being ‘instant’ in the first place…
“Time is our most precious commodity. I believe you can only live for the moment, learn from the past and work for the future. Time influences the human state of mind; friend or enemy, we make time or we lose it. Our lives are measured by it and history makes us feel guilty when we waste it…. Clocks are monuments to the world’s greatest commodity… Human preoccupation with time stops when we die and one of the greatest epitaphs, ‘I made the time’, is inscribed on the tombstone of the British painter Stanley Spencer… as Manley Buchanan said… ‘Time is running and passing and running so you better all get it right this time cos’ there might not be a next time’.
Side Notes: Steven Heller is a fan of i-D [aiga.org/defining-style-making-i-d]
A very brief interview for Eye Magazine [eyemagazine.com]
in Colophon2007 / Graphic Design / Ideas / Modern Relics / Publications
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Cyber Dada Data
→ → → → → Digitise the World. Take technology apart. Reuse everything! Right of access to all data. Don’t be rude: talk to your fax machine. Go beyond current standards and values and make your own. Lets digitise the world and save human society on laser disk. Forget the meat of your bodies. Have sex with a computer. Interface! Your body is a burden. Wetware can enhance it. Cyborg implants bring you closer to the true experience. Neuro-circuits. Fully synthesised environments where all physical and emotional feelings can be chemically simulated. This is the future. Don’t let a physical existence fool you. Become superhuman! Modern man’s aesthetic is grounded in pre 20th century decorativeness and over indulgent art theorising. The end of the world is coming, but it is the beginning of a perfect techno world. Stop reviving old cultures. The new aesthetic is computer generated CYBER DADA. ← ← ← ← ←
— an excerpt from Troy Innocent [iconica.org], Dale Nason’s ‘Cyber Dada Manifesto’, 1994.
Retail is Detail
Scott Dadich’s [st-artdesign.com] ‘maximal’ (more about this later) redesign of Wired magazine is turning me into a geek… okay, even more of a geek. I don’t think this is such a bad thing, although I’m not getting out as much anymore… anyhoo, the latest issue of Wired (April 2008) [wired.com/16-04] features a lead article on Wired Business Trends 2008 and under the title ‘Rise of the Instapreneur’ (kind of a clunky name for em, if you ask me) they mention a few sites where you can design stuff and get it manufactured via the internet. Being a recent fan of POD (Print on Demand) printing [wikipedia] I checked a few of them out. Zazzle, in particular, caught my eye and as I had a few random designs lying around, it took me no time at all to set up shop. I’m calling my label ‘Retail Fashions’ [zazzle.com/retailfashions] (it’s a bit tounge-in-cheek). If anything, it’s another interesting experiment, although like most online manufactures (or should that be ‘webofacturers’… or something) it’s still a tad pricey when it comes to shipping and the interface could do with a bit of a tidy up. Have a look at see what you think, the mug shown above is my personal fave.
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.
What’s Up #25: Assistant
Further proof (as if you needed any) that they do things different in Japan… Assistant [withassistant.net] are an ‘interdisciplinary’ design agency whose areas of interest encompass Architecture, Graphic Design, Design for Online, Design for GPS & Mobiles, Art and Writing. Phew, huh. Their most interesting work at the moment involves a number of temporary installations such as a recent collaboration with PMKFA [pmkfa.com] at the Diesel Denim Gallery in Aoyama [diesel.co.jp]. A recent commission for a Japanese dance studio is shown below.
in Architecture / Graphic Design / Ideas / What's Up
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Ideas for London, Part 1
I’ve been a bit grumpy today, it being a rainy Monday in olde London town so what better time to get a few things of my chest in regards to this crusty old city. This has also been inspired by a recent trip to the currently Tate Modern exhibition on ‘Global Cities’ [tate.org.uk]. There also seems to be a general consensus that London needs a lot of work at the moment on a number of levels. London has always had a problem with planning. It is a city that prefers to react to events rather than sit down and sketch out any plans on what it might become. So here are a few humble suggestions for paving the way to a better capital…
Extract National Politics from Local Councils
This may sound a like a bit of a lunatic notion to many Londoners but there are many places around the world where local government and the national political parties are two distinctly different things. Take Australia for instance, where Mayors are elected based on their own personal record and that of their immediate, hand-selected team of councillors from a particular area. Allegiances to major political parties are expressed but rarely discussed at any length. The focus being on the organisation, supply and promotion of local services for the local population. With local councils in London and U.K. having to take sides on a regular basis, the result tends to be a lot on infighting, unnecessary expenditure and, ultimately, a mess. The smaller the section of the community the more visible the local government needs to be. Many councils in London can seem invisible to their citizens on a day-to-day basis.
Create a cohesive ‘umbrella’ identity for the whole of London
England has visual identity systems that are renown throughout the modern world. Just look at loving care and attention to detail lavished on maintaining the identity for London Underground over the years. So why is the current state of London’s various visual identities in such a mess? This is a topic that I’ve discussed on boicozine before. There many factors contributing to the visual pollution we see today, although much of the blame has to be laid at the feet of lazy councillors and businesses who prefer to use marketing and branding led agencies who speak the language of business much more fluently than most of the more traditional yet often more appropriate, Graphic Design agencies based in London. They are simply not up for a challenge and happy to be pandered to by the wrong sort of companies. This could be overcome by creating a centralised Graphic Design lab for the various London councils. This would also reduce the over-reliance on outsourcing work to a variety of agencies and flakey consultants.
On a more intimate note, here a few less ambitious ideas that could help make things just a bit better…
Create a National Centre for Design at the Barbican
The Barbican is a unique place for a city to call it’s own, and although a lot of good work has been done recently to elevate it’s status, it could still be made to work harder at helping reinstate the confidence in modern design and architecture that this city is sadly lacking. There is currently an opportunity to create a National Centre for Design that could occupy an annex of the Barbican called Milton Court (Update: Sadly now demolished). A Design Lab and Workshop could be set up as an Education centre and an annex of the Design Museum could be created in the, now empty, fire station.
[Google Maps]
Create a new centre for London in the Truman Brewery
The area around Brick Lane and Spitalfields in London’s East is becoming busier and busier every day. Many businesses are starting to move over here from traditionally hip areas such as Soho in the West End. Much of the activity centres around the Truman Brewery [trumanbrewery.com] in between the two. Here lies an opportunity to create a second heart for the city. A mixed use development including reasonably priced and experimental housing (to prevent the site becoming a city boy ghetto like much of the Old Street area has become) and a central shopping area could be developed around the various event venues that live there now. A cohesive visual identity encompassing the massive brewey site would tie the various activities on site together.
[Google Maps]
Add a bit of Tokyo to the West End
London’s West End needs a bit of a boost. The area around Piccadilly and Leicester Square has to be one of the busiest city centres in the world and yet it look tired and unloved. A slice of Tokyo retail action could reinvigorate this part of town and starve off the blatant Americanisation of the lower end of Regent Street. Any visitors to Tokyo will know how amazing the retail experience is. London’s high streets do not compare. A Tokyo style shopping centre (abet on a much smaller scale) could be developed on the former Regent Palace Hotel site [regentpalacehotel.co.uk] and incorporate ‘proper’ Japanese versions of popular London stores such as Uniqlo and Muji alongside unqiuely Japanese ‘retail experiences’.
[Google Maps]
So there you have my London brain dump. Some of it may chime in with your own thoughts on the matter. Some of it may irk you. Either way, why not add your thoughts to the issue and leave a comment. In a city this big there is always room for change.
Play with Psycho
While away stolen moments with this mesmerising screen toy [harmlog.org/pseudopsycho].
Kinky Gaijin
Namaiki [namaiki.com] are naughty (well, that’s a rough translation, anyway). It’s also kind of tricky describing what it is they actually do… As a team headed by David Duval-Smith and Michael Frank, they often work as artists building installations out of found objects (the images above are from a recent ‘ongoing’ installation at the Hara Museum for Modern Art [haramuseum.or.jp]).
This makes up just a tiny proportion of their overall creative output which has included set design and interior decoration on Tokyo’s public transport system (utilising their signature collection of patterns), customised Snoopy sculptures for the recent Peanuts 55th Anniversary exhibition [flickr.com/pingmag] as well as graphics (including motion graphics) for clients such as Super Deluxe [super-deluxe.com] amongst loads of other crazy projects. Namaiki’s current preoccupation with nature, choas and the environment has led to the curious Kinky Muff Land Project [via vvork].
Maybe starting out as strangers in a strange land (or ‘Gaijin’ [see pingmag]) has helped them develop this fluid way of meshing design and art together. It possibly helps that many designers working in Japan are referred to as simply ‘Creators’. What I really want to know though is where’s the official Namaiki compendium? C’mon, you cheeky scamps, surely the time is right to put some of your works down on paper.
