Explain This Image

so much amazing/hilarious stuff HERE

Art Direction sneak peek

Working with the beautiful, pink haired and highly talented Laney Gaffney has been a dream and so far this art direction thing has been a truly collaborative effort which is what i wanted from the start. Above are some roughs (you will notice that they still need to be cropped) that are the spoils of todays labour in the studio. May post some of the photos we shot on medium format too later, as they are b e a u t i f u l.

Want

Dennis Tyfus poster for Sonic Youth (one of my hands down all time favourite bands, if not the number one). Limited edition and its like $25 or something.

Get Excited

In the world of design you see the same things day in and day out and monotony is boring, and being cynical and critical is useful, however every once in a while you will see something that makes you think "DAMN, I WISH I DID THAT" For me, that was the new issue of Lodown magazine.

Lodown started as a skate magazine but is now more of a visual culture magazine with lots of skate adverts in it which is just fine by me. They change and shift their design each issue and use multiple paper stocks and experimental ideas. Last issue they printed this insane pink which is the most beautiful pink i have ever seen and it just glows off the page, i don't even know how they did it. I might make a post just about that pink alone. At the top of this post is a scan of the cover of the latest issue. I wish i designed it. Its exciting and unsual, interesting and irreverent and like nothing else you see on newstands, not even from design magazines. How many magazines are there out there that use a borderline illegible typeface for their constantly changing anyway masthead? Couple with an unusual format and exciting content and you have the best damn publication £5 can buy. There was only two copies in the shop though and me and Noo got 'em, so keep your eyes peeled for a copy on your travels.

Check out their website right HERE

Also i have added a little Mixtape widget because i love making mixtapes. Each one will have a thematic title and then the idea is maybe you can listen to it all on spotify or something? I dont have spotify but i know that thats what all the kids are doing these days.

Tara McPherson & ATP

Ok so me, james, andy and gemma go ourselves tickets to go to ATP this summer! For those of you who don't know ATP (All Tomorrow Parties) is a festival that is held in cornwall - and more specifically in the Butlins there. The whole Butlins is taken over by the festival so i guess its pretty much the opposite of what Butlins is like the rest of the year round? We are pretty much kids are christmas right now as we are going to get to see The Breeders, The Bronx, Wire, Deerhunter, Melt Banana, Bon Iver and a whole bunch of others, as well as getting to go like horse riding or and do archery and eat fish and chips, which is pretty good, although i am terrified of horses and i've stopped eating fish. I would like to shoot stuff with a bow and arrow though. Ok whatever i'm rambling now so ill get to the point:

The festival is also going to be hosting an art exhibition of the delightful Tara McPherson. I Don't know if its common knowledge or not but i really love Lowbrow art and Juxtapoz magazine and people like Robert Williams, Frank Kozik, Tim Biskup, Coop, David Choe and Art Chantry are artists and designers who i have tremendous respect for, so getting to see a show of Tara McPherson's is a real treat.

On McPherson's work:

"Tara McPherson is an artist based out of New York City. Creating art about people and their odd ways, her characters seem to exude an idealized innocence with a glimpse of hard earned wisdom in their eyes. Recalling many issues from childhood and good old life experience, she creates images that are thought provoking and seductive. People and their relationships are a central theme throughout her work."

The images at the top of this overly long and excitable post are taken from McPherson's website which can be viewed right HERE

Let's go Over The Wall

Poster i've been lucky enough to do for the upcoming Over The Wall gig in leeds. Over The Wall are a magical band and if any of you are around the Leeds area on the night of the gig make sure you get yourself down to the show! Click to enlarge and get a better look/chance to scrutinise.

Over The Wall

Just Handshakes (We're British)

Sal's Paradise

Sam Airey

Tuesday 14th April

Royal Park Cellars

39 Queen’s Road

Leeds, LS6

Doors 7.30pm

Tickets: £3 adv.

available from

hideandseekrecords

.bigcartel.com

it should probably also be noted that a couple of the images i used for this were taken from Flickr. I tried to use creative commons images wherever possible, but either way, thank you very much to the uploaders of the original photos!

Inspired by Kittens

ok so a non design related post but this is actually the most joyous thing i've ever seen

NCC & TVOTR

Neasden Control Centre directed video for 'dancing choose' by Tv On The Radio. Good stuff.

Terror at Talkin Tarn

Went out to talkin tarn the other night to have a go at some ideas for the art direction project. This game is way harder than it looks! Basically we just messed about in the dark and i didn't achieve as much as i had hoped, but there you go. Got some cool photos one way or another!

Grow Your Own

It might be a bit of a faux pas to rant but this brief has been really horrible and possibly caused me the most stress in my entire life (haha thats probably a bit dramatic maybe). The brief itself was awkward and ambiguous and there has been way to much emphasis on coming up with 'wacky', 'creative' ideas, that are fundamentally meaningless. This is not first year anymore. I would post more images buuut blogger keeps inverting the colours for no reason. Cheers blogger!

On a better note, the art direction project is going well. Working with laney is a dream, did some test shots i will post later, everything is coming together and hopefully ill be able to do some good work to be proud of!