All posts tagged: Design

Artful skeletons and peculiar closets: Recently Rejected

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‘Unfinished concepts, process sketches, unpublished creative, terminated artwork, and rarely seen personal projects.’ That’s pretty much all you find on what NY-based founder Mario Hugo tenderly calls Recently Rejected, ‘a curated graveyard of both good and bad ideas’. And I’m totally on his side. There’s so many things that show up on his page that do not deserve to vanish, be destroyed or forgotten. Things that bawl for a chance to see the light of day. Let’s have a look what’s roving about, it’s quite a treasure trove! Check out these links to see more featured artworks & get in touch via social media: Website Twitter Instagram

Navigating the world through graphic abstraction: David Lemm

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His eye-catching artworks have been on top of my list for a while. Experimenting with form, composition and texture to weave complex narratives, David Lemm’s graphic works explores human assumptions of truth based on abstract, symbolic representations of reality. And after collaborating with the likes of Leith Late, the Hidden Door Festival or the Bothy Project, a little bird has told me that the Edinburgh-based creative has been selected as  House of Illustration’s latest resident artist! Due time to reach out and chuck a few questions over, don’t you think? Hello David, thanks for your time! What about a short intro? Hi, no problem thanks for asking. Well, I’m an multidisciplinary artist and designer based in Edinburgh. I work on a broad range of projects, including exhibitions, residencies, illustration commissions, animation, art direction and workshops. How would you describe your style & which narratives and themes does your work explore? I like to combine analogue and digital processes with a playful and experimental approach to composition, narrative, form and texture. Recently I’ve been exploring ideas relating to knowledge communication, specifically maps/diagrams, and our assumptions …

Spot On | Colourful illustrations by Alex Tait

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You know there’s these giveaways and you think ‘Yeah, alright. Wouldn’t mind winning that thing. And if not, whatever.’ When I quite randomly bumped into one of these twitter raffles & saw the art print he was giving away for just a retweet & a follow, it was more of a ‘I want that. I really want that. But how high’s the chance of actually winning that?’ Pretty slim, exactly. Despite the numbers, it did happen in the end. This one now has a special place in my flat! But first things first, this is the guy we’re talking about here: Alex Tait is a Berkhamstead-based artist, who fits just perfectly into the exciting pool of design talent at art agency Jelly London. His cheery & colourful vector illustrations play around with a mixed bag of motifs: sea creatures, jungle dwellers, spiritual beings and all sorts of other strange characters. Check them out below, folks. alexjohntait.net @Twitter @Instagram

Spot On: Kate Copeland

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If you’re an attentive reader of independent as well as big name magazines and newspapers, plus follow art and illustration blogs, there’s a high chance you (deliberately or accidentally) bumped into one of Kate Copeland’s gorgeous works. As she’s one of my favourite illustrators currently out there, featuring the N/E London-based artist was pretty much a no brainer. In the last few years, she took the illustration world by storm and has quite a few heavy-hitting commissions under her belt, working for Der Spiegel, Esquire, Converse, Church of London, The Times or Sagmeister & Walsh, to name a few. Though it’s hardly surprising why clients from all sorts of industries queue up, with a style so classy and sharp, balancing on the fine line between simplicity and complexity, yet delivers punchy and imaginative portraits that bear her distinctive handwriting. If you haven’t done so already, care to remember her name. We’ll probably gonna see it out there more often. If you can’t get enough of Kate’s amazing works, these links will help you out: Website Tumblr …

INSA: ‘GIF-ITI’ from Space

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Everybody seems to love them or hate them in equal measure. But what would the internet world be without its quickly tinkered, highly catchy and sometimes slightly silly GIF creations? Right, a tad bit poorer in hilarious stuff. For a good few years now, Shoreditch-based designer INSA takes this internet spirit to a whole new artistic level and became an illustrious name in street art circles, turning his graffiti pieces into hypnotising digital animations: Painting, photographing, painting over, photographing, and all over again. With these ‘GIF-ITI’s, how he calls them, the artist deliberately vaults the streets and façades of London, Miami or Shanghai onto our screens, conveniently playing into the hands of those who more and more turn to the countless tumblr sites and art blogs for inspiration. After generating a buzz in the media with his large-scale murals, such as Stanley Donwood’s animated ‘Atoms for Peace’ album artwork in L.A. or the ‘Make Your Own Way’ collaborative GIF-ITI during last year’s Art Basel in Miami, INSA dared to have a crack at his yet most ambitious project. Well, I wouldn’t …

Converge: Mark Salmon x Column Arts Agency

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Normally I’d refrain from praising myself, and this is definitely not the time to challenge old habits. Though in this case, it was probably my humble self that played a tiny part in bringing both sides to the table for photography-design-fusion project ‘Converge’. A few months ago, a tweet from Will Astbury’s Column Arts Agency – who already mounted the incredible ‘Triple Hop’ exhibition together with Test Space & Honest Brew – turned up in my twitter feed, hunting for a Birmingham-based photographer. My first idea was Mark Salmon, who recently collaborated with me for a story in The Quarterly, so I gladly put down his name for the raffle. Apparently, it did work out quite well. For ‘Converge’, which has been commissioned for annual visual arts festival Eye Candy, Mark teamed up with Birmingham Royal Ballet dancers Celine Gittens, Kit Holder and Anna Monleon to produce some really sweet live-action shots. Column Arts in turn send off an ace selection of their represented artists, including Trou, Joshua Billingham, Sweaty Eskimo, Laura Tinald, Joel Millerchip or Guy McKinley, to run riot on Mark’s images and add their very …

The Cloud

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Thunder and Lightning. In a room. Yeah right! ‘The Cloud is an interactive lamp and speaker system, designed to mimic a thundercloud in both appearance and entertainment. Using motion sensors the cloud detects a user’s presence and creates a unique lightning and thunder show dictated by their movement. The system features a powerful speaker system from which the user can stream music via any Bluetooth compatible device. Using color-changing lights the cloud is able to adapt to the desired lighting color and brightness. The cloud also has alternative modes such as a nightlight and music reactive mode.’ That’s how experimental product, lighting and furniture designer Richard Clarkson describes his fluffy creation. Pretty damn clever, if you ask me. Richardclarkson.com Facebook twitter

‘Aden’: A silent narrative graphic novel by Laura Griffin

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What’s an easy-peasy way to find out about bright new talents of the creative fields? And no, I don’t mean pinterest or behance this time – it’s the annual art school degree shows. Edinburgh, here we go! For the second year running, the Edinburgh College of Art celebrated the innovative work of more than 500 graduating artists in an extensive 9-day exhibition. As I am still amazed by the illustration, product design and architecture pieces, I’d like to showcase some of my ECA discoveries over the next few days and weeks. Let’s start off with illustrator Laura Griffin, who exhibited original artworks of her 66-page, self-published project ‘ADEN’. Taking inspiration from black & white photography and the medium of cinema, she describes her impressive work as ‘an artistic silent narrative graphic novel about a man’s journey through a surreal dystopian location called ADEN and through his experiences it shapes his understanding of his own existence.’ Beautiful, thrilling and thoughtful, have a look: Find out more about ADEN and Laura’s other projects here: Lauragriffinillustration.co.uk Instagram Twitter …

Quick Snap: Ivan Belikov ‘Social Networks’

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Pretty much everyone has a distinctive image of today’s social media in mind. Whether they’re considered useful, questionable or simply a waste of time, facebook, tumblr or the gazillion of other services (you perhaps never heard about) are destined to polarize. The young Russian illustrator Ivan Belikov reveals his very own relationship to social media in his juicy, two-piece design series ‘Social Networks’. While his first few artworks were loose interpretations of common logotypes, taking on twitter, instagram and dribbble, his more recent designs rather play around with the name and metaphorical features of each brand. Voilà: Tumblr Twitter Facebook Instagram

Hey Studio’s ‘Oh my God’ @ Kemistry Gallery

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Other than comic book superheroes like Superman, Batman or Thor, the ancient gods of Greek mythology have nearly vanished from our present-day cultural consciousness. Nonetheless, the Spanish design collective ‘Hey Studio’ playfully tries to reinstate the old order of Zeus, Heracles or Hades with its most recent series ‘Oh my God’ at Kemistry Gallery: “In ancient Greece they had something better than superheroes. They had gods – each with their own powers, weaknesses, history and followers. Jupiter and Mars came, Jesus and Mohammed, Buddha and Elvis. 2,500 years later, they return to claim their place and remind us that there is nothing more dangerous than believed immortality.” However, the legendary characters and creatures of ancient scholarly books are not unleashed in their dusty, cryptic and impalpable form of Homer’s or Dante’s narrative, but approach the observer with a slightly updated, simplistic comic-style, sparkling with cheekiness. Welcome to Mt. Olympus 2.0! True, compared to the images of the flashy Clark Kent, the gadget-lover Bruce Wayne or the hammer-swinging son of Odin, our exhibited Greek gods appear rather innocent, tame and somewhat cute. Well, …