Stuff from Above: Thanks Côme!
Côme de Bouchony [comedebouchony.com] has helped launch the Boicozine cultural exchange programme by very kindly swapping a bunch of ace Ephemera from Paris with your humble author/blog enthusiast… actually there isn’t really any sort of official exchange thingy… I made that bit up. Sounds like kid of a neat idea though, huh.
From the top, clockwise: Côme’s business card × Social Club is a new… er… club for Paris [parissocialclub.com]. As reported in a recent issue of Grafik ’still no website’ Magazine [grafikmagazine.co.uk] Laurent Fetis [laurentfetis.com] has been changed with producing their flyer which is lush A3 size 12 page colour colour affair featuring contributions from Will Sweeney [alakazamlabel.com] and Gaspirator [myspace.com/gaspirator] × Magazine magazine is a magazine about magazines. It’s totally rad, near impossible to find outside of Paris and guest Art Directed by a different creative group each issue. For this edition the creative reigns were passed to Florence & Johann [florencejohann.com] × Côme may have to decipher this one for me. It looks like an ace two colour flyer announcing new publications by a publishing house but I’m not sure. The front image is a bit saucy isn’t it. × Programme produced for Tram [tram-idf.fr] which looks like some sort of Art Festival covering a number of areas and venues. Designed by a couple calling themselves Camping Design [campingdesign.com] × This is Sportswear is a ‘Icon Book Remix’ produced by Nike Sportwear for Clark magazine [clarkmagazine.com]. It’s one of a number of lush publications Nike have been producing in a push to reconnect with the creative community. Designed by ill-studio [ill-studio.com] × Lastly this is an ace little programme from this year’s Chaumont Poster and Graphic Design festival. Printed in metallic gold and reflex blue and designed by Frederic Teschner Studio [fredericteschner.com]
in Ephemera / Graphic Design / Things / Travelogue
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Stuff from above #4
Stuff from above for this month includes clockwise from top left (going in a sort of spiral motion): Dear Lulu book [lulu.com] by James Goggin [practise.co.uk] and students from Hochschule Darmstadt as an experiment to test the print limited of the Lulu.com POD publishing system. × The little patterned square is called ‘Arthur’s Weave’ and is a new Bunkum Replete print to be produced for Bon Bon Kakku [bonbonkakku.com] in the coming months × 25×4 [25by4.channel4.com] is a book produced to commemorate the 25th anniversary of radical british television broadcaster, Channel 4 [channel4.com]. Designed with appropriate vim and verve by Spin [spin.co.uk] × Great British Editorial [indexbook.com] is a weighty tome featuring a random assortment of… well, what it says on the tin, which hangs together surprisingly well, even with the omission of any sort of explanatory copy. × The Fever Zine sandwich is an ace little compendium of illustrations produced by Alex and Simon at Fever Zine [simonwhybray.com/feverzine] for this year’s V&A Village Fete [scarletprojects.com] × The little square here are Bunkum Replete prints currently available, again through Bon Bon Kakku × Athletes is a minibook / exhibition catalogue featuring illustration by Siggi Eggertsson [vanillusaft.com] as shown at the Vallery gallery in Barcelona [vallery.es] × Kasino A4 [wearekasino.com]. Why has it taken me so long to write about this awesome magazine? A curse on meself for not mentioning it earlier. It is ace. This is the family issue, which naturally features input from the editorial teams various family members (including some ace fashion shoots). Will give you the warm fuzzies. × I know many of you tend to turn your nose up at collectable designer vinyl figures but have a look at these [strangeco.com]. They’re so darn cute. They’re designed by Friends Like You [friendswithyou.com] and go by the name of ‘Wish Come True’. They… er… jingle too.
100 Things: #004
Hakkusan Pottery Cat
For the Hakusan pottery company visit [www1.ocn.ne.jp/~hakusan].
100 Things: #003
Go-Ped Know-Ped
I love my Go-Ped [goped.co.uk]. There, I’ve said it. Sure I look like a some wierdo 30-nothing super geek wizzing about olde London town on my sooped-up LA-stylee ride-on scooter. In a compact city where cyclists take their life into their hands every time they hit the road, becoming part pedestrian seems much more appealing. Proper Californian Go-Peds come with wooden decks and an ‘aircraft grade’ chassis so they take a lot more punishment than your tin-foil, fold-up variety. Only gripe is the occasional grumpy-arsed shop keeper who kicks you out the store if you bring it in with you… oh and that tacky silver logo. The old logo is so much better, just needs a bit of a redraw.
100 Things: #002
Eames House of Cards
Much imitated but never bettered, the Eames House of Cards is our second ‘thing’. It’s a thing of things really, depicting what Charles Eames famously described as ‘good stuff’. If you ever stumble across the 1970 revision entitled ‘A Computer House of Cards’ grab it, they’re like gold dust (just make sure you post a few pics of ‘em somewhere so all of us can have a geez).
100 Things: #001
Self Service’s 100 Things
As an ode to Self Service [selfservicemagazine.com] magazine’s ‘100 Things’ series of features (sadly discontinued) we’re going to attempt our own list of 100 things (in 100 posts). That should keep us busy, huh. The first of our ‘things’ has to be the aforementioned ‘100 Things’ series and to kick it off here’s a few spreads to feast yer eyeballs on (click on an image to see if larger). Design & direction by Petronio Associates (formely Work in Progress) [petronioassociates.com]. More ‘things’ to come… 1 down, 99 to go.
Mags and Stuff
I stuck this latest ’stuff’ picture on Flickr a couple of days ago so it was ready to link to this post. It’s got 24 hits already… okay, so that’s not a lot but the same image of some rather attractive perspex rods in a window in Brighton went up at the same time and only three people have looked at them. That’s… some large percentage less than the other picture. Anyhoo, from this I have concluded that pictures of stuff are dead popular. This one’s going to run and run…
This weeks stuff includes a whole bunch of free magazines. To any dedicated magalophile a carefully crafted and well designed free magazine is like a little piece of christmas has been clipped off the end of the year and fallen down the calendar. You’ll find quality free publications in most cities these days. London has a few that you’ll find around the traps. These are Boicozine’s current faves…
Loud & Quiet [loudandquiet.com] has grown from A5 to A4 with some rather fetching new uncoated stock (that’s non-shiny paper to the uninitiated). Downside is, it feels more lightweight now. Upside is that is looks well classy. ¶ Art & Music is pretty decent [artandmusicmagazine.com], if very calm looking magazine, with some cracking articles and a refreshing editorial tone. ¶ Fun looks proper ‘expensive art paper’ with it’s special colours and fold-out poster format but then it features commentary on stuff like dogging! Blimey, didn’t see that one coming! It’s all in good, er… fun though, and gets away with being cheeky and cheery enough to make you care. Nice one Fun [greatenjoyment.com]. ¶ Ello, it’s Monocle again [monocle.com]. Could help meself. It’s their best cities issue with their first Design Directory supplement and a spiffy cover designed by Ken Leung and James Melaugh [dontyouthink.co.uk]. Nice work if you can get it, I say. ¶ Red sunglasses. Not posh, just red. If they’re red, you don’t need posh, do you. It’s enough that they’re red. I’ll be wearing these a lot I think (even though I can’t see a bloody thing through them). ¶ Black Skull Candy. Skulls are a bit popular aren’t they? Do you think it’s because we’ve all got one? This one contains Extra Salty Salmiakpulver and seems to be wearing chips style sunglasses. Probably from Cybercandy [cybercandy.co.uk]. ¶ Dazed & Confused [dazeddigital.com] has a new Art Director and this time it’s someone who actually likes typography (which is lucky cause being a magazine, it’s chock full of the stuff), Rémi Paringaux. No longer do I feel alienated by their uncaring and unthoughtful misuse of dodgy typefaces. I’ve bought the last two issues now, the first for a long long time. Now the UK edition can give their Japanese sibling a run for it’s money.
That’s it fer now. More pictures of stuff soon, I promise. They’re dead popular, yknow.
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].
Stuff of the Week
The ‘Good Week for Stuff’ post seemed so popular I thought I’d do it again — I feel an irregular format of blog posts coming on… The first edition of Agency YCN’s new newsletter popped through the letterbox today [agencyycn.com]. It’s a fun and informative affair with high quality design work courtesy of Mr David Lane [davidlaneuk.net]. The pull out ‘artcards’ are a neat idea too. We like David’s suggested redesign for Grafik magazine too (see the PDF on his website) ¶ When Boicozine needs a sugar fix we (well, me) often find ourselves reaching for the Chelsea Yogurt Scotch [meiji.co.jp/chelsea]. The coffee and tea versions are a little rich but, bizarrely their butter scotch version is quite good. ¶ Avid readers will know about our (well, just me really… again) fascination with macarons, particularly proper french ones. Legendary purveyor of lush macarons, Ladurée [laduree.fr] produce limited edition boxes to put them in that look as confectous, and totally collectable, as the macarons themselves. ¶ If yer in London town, have a nose around the art shops cause there’s a special offer on packs of Sharpies [sharpie.com] on the moment. It’s the first set of textas… sorry, felt-tips… I’ve had in ages. If you’re in Cowling & Wilcox, check out their Alien Art Concept range of Spray Paints. Current fave is light yellow [mtncolors.com]. ¶ A new issue of colossal (512 pages, count ‘em) art mag Uovo [uovo.tv] is out, again art directed (as usual) with utmost finesse by Boletsferñando [boletsfernando.org] ¶ Finally managed to get me mitts on a copy of Case da Abitare [atcasa.corriere.it/casedaabitare], recently redesigned by Winkreative [see magculture]. The actual design of the magazine has definitely improved (even if it borrows a little too heavily from magazine design of the late 60s and early 70s, with it’s fashionably rigid grid system), the editorial just seems a little lack lustre now. Hopefully it’ll even out once the dust has settled.
A Good Week for Stuff
It’s been a good week for stuff. I was going to do a ‘reading list’ [boicozine/reading-lists] but going through the little stacks of magazines piled up around the place I found I was still catching up with mags I was talking about way back like I.D. (not i-D), Dwell, Wired, Good… loads of American mags, which is a bit spooky. Our postbox, on the other hand, was looking a lot more interesting…
I love a magazine that messes with the format of magazines. A magazine that throws you curve balls in terms of pace and flow. Pin-up [pinupmagazine.org] is my fave architecture magazine at the moment for this reason. Issue 4 contains some pretty lush visuals too, including this rather fetching sunrise, as photographed by Ann Woo [annwoo.com] / My prediction over the next twelve months or so, is that we’ll start to see the more established and well regarded blogs venturing into tactile formats such as printed publications. Charlotte Cheetham’s Manystuff have jumped ahead of the pack with Manystuff #0 [manystuff.org], which runs with the copyline, ‘More Real Than Fiction’. Designed by the ever inventive Pierre Vanni [pierrevanni.com]. It features glossy full colour pages (definitely not POD, folks) and contributions from Mr Alex Bec [alexbec.com], Mark Kremers[tex-server.org] and Damien Poulain [damienpoulain.com] / Fever Zine [myspace.com/feverzine] is publishing in it’s purest and most joyful form. It is pure zine in all it’s black photocopied and pink covered glory. The low-fi format belies the high calibre talent behind the publication, edited by Alex Zamora and designed by boicozine contributor, Simon Whybray [simonwhybray.com] / A special thank you to the fine folks at The Future Laboratory [thefuturelaboratory.com] for my MystaBot [tomybots.de]. Now if only I could get it to do the dishes too / This week I was lucky enough to be part of a select few to make use of the Nike ID Studio [nikeid.nike.com] at the invitation of Mr Alex Bec who has completed work on Nike’s Art of Football [nike1-1.com] project on behalf of YCN [ycnonline.com] and ShowStudio [showstudio.com] (phew). I didn’t really cover a lot of the event on this here blog because of the scale and scope of the thing. It was massive. You can check out most of the fab Art of Football action on YCN’s Flickr page [flickr] / Jim Henson lives on in the rhelm of plastic collectables with these ‘City Critters’ [flickr]. The one I got looks surprisingly calm compared to the rest of them. I think it’s because it’s the only one without those crazy, googly, muppet eyes. / The Chap’s Mega Breakfast arrived in the post from Lo Recordings [lorecordings.com] with an ace cover image by Graham Harvey for Non Format [non-format.com] /
The blank CD is often sadly neglected by manufacturers as some where to splash a bit of design nouce about, unlike the blank cassette was in the past. 5 inch [5inch.com] recognised this fact a few years ago and have been producing dead brill CD designs to placate designers everywhere. Notebook is the boico house fave ’cause you can scribble all over them and they still look good.
