Ostrowski on the line
Alex Ostrowski [www.alexostrowski.com] recently got in touch with boicozine to share some quality linkage and here tis… Chris Clarke’s [chris-clarke.co.uk] Type Cube a neat idea that’s been doing the rounds on design blogs recently. Chris investigates modular typography and has created a movable typographic toy which you can mess about with to create letterforms and whole typefaces of your own. Hattie Newman [hattienewman.blogspot.com] crafts beautiful little three dimensional models which she turns into animations, or simply 3D illustrations. She has some gorgeous work, in particular her set designs. Alex himself is super busy, not least with this year’s YCN Book [ycnonline.com/blog/24] in collaboration with HudsonBec [hudsonbec.com]. The image above is from the recent YCN Live launch event. See more from the event here [Flickr].
No Twist, No Stick
The Notwist have a new album and newly refurbished website to go with it [notwist.com]. Designed and built by giraffentoast [giraffentoast.com] in collaboration with Yokoland [yokoland.com]. It’s nice to see a band promoting themselves with a quirky, well designed promosite instead of a useless crap load of marketing gumph (take note Primal Scream [primalscream.net]).
100 Things: #005
Dots on Demand Poster
Did you get down to the ICA in time to get a free ‘Dots on Demand’ Poster [ica.org.uk]? Created by Alex Rich [field-trip.org], Jürg Lehni [scratchdisk.com] and you! (If you have any pics of your posters to share, I’ve just this minute set up a Flickr Group for them here: [Flickr].)
What’s Up #36: Axel Peemöller
Axel Peemöller is an Australian ‘Master of Design’. It’s official. The qualification was only introduced in Australia a mere 7 years ago and he’s got one. Cool. Currently living in Hamburg Germany (I wonder if the MDe means anything to a European audience), qualifications aside, the quality of his work speaks for itself and is exemplified by his slick foliosite [de-war.de]. Though, it’s the Eureka car park in Melbourne that has been garnering him the most interest [de-war.de/eurekacarpark].
Rant: An Imperfect City, Part 1
Fix up London. You’ve been a shabby shabbler for too long now. We all found it endearing throughout the 90s and at the turn of the millennium but it’s time to shape up or ship out. The Britpop boom (which wasn’t really that long ago) celebrated that distinct ‘wonkiness’ that made Britain unique but it also gave the country the perfect excuse to sullenly defend it’s many and varied failings. Failings? Yes, London, you may be have a population busting at the seams but they’re all saying it [monocle.com]… you’re a bit shit these days. If anything, the pre-Olypmic grab for gold is only highlighting the intelligence meltdown which is inhabiting this once great capital. This once brilliant and brainy city is experiencing a cultural deficit disorder that is going to run and run. So how to improve a big, stroppy, spoilt child of a city that prefers to react rather than plan. There’s a gabillion and one ideas out there at the moment, here’s our two pence worth…
As Lawrence of Demin once sang, ‘Council Houses, Inner City, Urban Squaller, ooo I won’t pay the rent on this concrete slum, imprisonment’… actually I only included that bit of lyrical majesty cause the track is called ‘Council Houses’ (and cause Demin [wikipedia] are ace). Council Housing needs to work harder. It seems blindingly obvious that it you improve inhabitants environments then you move them closer to he point of optimum happiness. When people are happy they don’t need to rob, maim or kill each other. When people have a space where they feel safe and comfortable they can focus on other issues and make a larger contribution to the community. It’s common logic. The other issue is while us non-council tentants squabble over the tiniest, mankiest, dodgily managed (can we somehow force all buy-to-let property owners take some sort of course in property management and how to be a decent landlord… please!) crappy, baggy, over-inflated, sub-standard, badly decorated properties… many council tenants perch aloft spacious, ‘mid-century modernist’, potentially iconic buildings without the slightest appreciation of the amount of space afforded to this select group of inhabitants, squinting at the world through their ridiculous net curtains and tudor style lead-lighting. Sure the many incompetent city councils seem to do their best to make these places feel uninhabitable but great things can happen with a bit of respect and imagination. Already there is a bright ring of community housing projects drawing more and more attention from æstheticians and sensible types simply looking for cheaper, better housing. Estates such as The Brunswick Centre in Bloomsbury [nothingtoseehere.net], Rowley Way in St. John’s Wood [greatbuildings.com] and, the place Boicozine currently calls home, the Golden Lane Estate [goldenlane.co.uk] in the City of London are all example of mid-century ideals of community living that have endured and even prospered. It’s time council and decision-makers changed their half-century old attitudes to the ’spectre’ of council housing. They are an integral, interwoven part of the city’s fabric whether we like it or not and just waiting to be enhanced for use by the community at large.
Further Reading / Viewing:
[flickr.com/groups/londonsocialhousing]
[bbc.co.uk/cheaphomesfor sale]
[emptyhomes.com]
[philobiblon.co.uk/TheRealHistoryofCouncilEstates]
[bdonline.co.uk/RobinHoodGradens]
[c20society.org.uk]
The thing about seriously criticising London’s many flaws, something becoming more and more popular in the run up to the inevitable Olympics debacle, it that it’s such a juicy topic to attempt to tackle. In coming posts I’ll be bashing on about subjects such as London’s architecturphobia, the weird sense of ‘disconnect’ (if you can think of a more perfect buzzword for our modern times let me know) that has pervaded the city since Tony Blair made rather his dubious mark on modern Britain and more domestic issues such as how shitty cinemas has become in London and what a waste of space the Houses of Parliament are (think ‘barricaded play pen for poshos’). If you’ve got a topic on the state of London town or if you’d like to defend the city for what it is leave a comment or post something yourself and let us know.
Even Further Reading:
[monocle.com/Failing State 01—United Kingdom]
[cityofsound.com/london_hasnt_ch]
[channel4.com/london_sucks]
Things heard said in the Flickr ‘Graphic Design’ group: #001
“So typography is basically the study of the design of letterforms. Basically its arranging and choosing font styles, choosing the colour of a font, it’s placement, emphasis, etc… its all so easy really, nothing big. It’s common sense. At school, they didn’t mention anything about typography in my Graphic Design course. All they talked about was art etc… so when it came to design, we just did whatever looked nice.”
[flickr.com/groups/graphicdesign]
A beginner’s Guide to Stereolab
…inside you are the sun, the moon and also stars…
Forget everything you’ve heard or will hear over the next few months about Stereolab [stereolab.co.uk] as they release their first album in like, forever. If you’re of the opinion that there is something weirdly monotone about the vast canon of music they have released over the years, then here a brief list of a few surprising entries. For the uninitiated, Stereolab have to be one of the most prolific, label-hopping bands in the history of music. Their discography is extensive and baffling. Consider this a ‘way in’…
The Light That Will Cease To Fail — from the Super 45 EP, later released on Switched-on Volume 01 / (He Held The World In His Iron Grip) — a special treat at the end of the slightly arduous, Elektro from the Low Fi EP / The Seeming and the Meaning & K-Stars — from debut LP, Peng! / U.H.F. - M.F.P. — from The Groop Played Space Age Bachelor Pad Music EP / Lo Boob Oscilator — from the Lo Boob Oscilator Single, later released on Refried Ectoplasm (Switched On , Volume 2) / Les Yper-Sound — from Emperor Tomato Ketchup / Brakhage — from Dots and Loops / Outer Bongolia — from The First of the Microbe Hunters EP / Escape Pod (From The World Of Medical Observations) — from the Cobra And Phases Group Play Voltage In The Milky Night Bonus Disc / Munich Madness — from Aluminium Tunes (Switched On Volume 3) / Nothing to do with me (with lyrics taken from Chris Morris’s Jam) — from Sound-Dust
That’s enough to be going on with, huh. For die hard Stereolab fans, why not check out ‘Turn On’, an album of largely instrumental tracks produced as a side project with Sean O’Hagan. Oh, you have? Pardon moi.
Lost Classics: Zeroville
In one of the more ‘irregular’ series of posts on Boicozine, we present another awesome film that has, through no fault of it’s own, been relegated to the dusty archive of forgotten cine classiques. Zeroville, or to use it’s correct Russian title, Город Зеро (Zero City) [iMDB] is a droll yet hypnotic film whose steady tone only highlights the escalating absurdity of the story and the bizarre mini tableaux (there is actually a number of scenes featuring a few literal tableaux) that populate it. Sadly, near impossible to find and rarely on the telly, you’ll have to make do with a handful of YouTube clips for now, like the one below, or you could check out more accessible films made by director, Karen Shakhnazarov [russia-ic.com]. If you get a chance to see this one either on telly or at the cinema, pop along (even if just for the scene in the restaurant when our main character is served a cake that bears a remarkable resemblance to his own head). There’s nowt like it.
What’s Up #35: Jarrik Muller
Typography is my aeroplane. I think it may be Jarrik Muller’s too [getbusyfoklazy.web-log.nl], in which case he ain’t never coming down cause this stuff is delirious fun. The image below is from a submission for Rojo [rojo-magazine.com] magazine. His foliosite is divided in two to separate out personal projects and study projects. Not so lazy then, really.
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.
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