I just called to say...

i love you

Musical Interlude: Beach House "walk in the park"

I love Beach House. I was a latecomer to their album "devotion" which i would absolutely recommend to anyone, especially those who like things on the dreamier end of the scale (the scale of dreaminess?). This is a new one from their freshly released album "teen dream" which i havn't got, but have absolute faith in it being amazing. (update: i got it, its amazing)

2010 is shaping up to be a pretty good year musically so far, especially in pop - Vampire Weekend, Toro Y Moi, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Beach House, and its only the end of january.

Photo: Laney & Loren

click to enlarge

Adrian Tomine

Do you like Daniel Clowes, Chris Ware or Charles Burns? If the answer is no, please allow me to punch you in the face. If you answered "i don't know who those people are" please vacate the premises before I call security. If you answered "YES! YES! YES!" Please direct your browser to the link below.

Illustrator Adrian Tomine

Photo: Snow Day

So you may remember that it snowed heavily recently? I have photos to prove it.

It is ON

Teach yourself Swedish, and why the hell not.

to be continued (in swedish)!

Quote: What inspires you?

"I'm inspired by my monthly mortgage repayment"

- Chip Kidd

Musical Interlude: Washed Out "feel it all around" (Toro Y Moi remix)

you may remember a while back i posted the original "feel it all around" (possibly best track of 2009? mind blowing, people like to give this new thing a name like 'glo-fi'. I dont know what its supposed to be called but i know i love it) and this is the remix version by the equally fantastic Toro Y Moi. I think we will be hearing a lot more of him (as well as Washed Out) in 2010 and thats just fine by me. If the original "feel it all around" made you want to go swimming with a beautiful girl (it did, right?) then this version is the tequila sunrise at the beach bar afterwards (drinking then swimming is unsafe, kids). Imagine "something about us" by Daft Punk meets 'caught up" by Metro Area. Big words, i know.

Photo: Lucy

New (old) Work: Indian Tiger

An illustration of an angry Indian tiger done a few months back for a project about a man's travels through India.

100 Free Geometric Patterns

I stumbled across through a google image search looking up some geometric patterns. It is a download of a .ai file with 100 hundred geometric pattern swatches. Very useful, and some of them are pretty attractive to boot.

100 geometric patterns download on Planetary Folklore

Another thing that i discovered whilst searching geometric patterns is that the University of Cumbria's internet filter block a LOT of content hosted on websites and blogs about Islamic culture, with titles such as Peace In Islam. I wonder why...

R.I.P. Jay Reatard

may 1 1980 - january 13 2010

hammer, we'll miss you

Records of 2009

How has it taken me this long to post this? Anyway...

Top 5 records of 2009 in no particular order:

Atlas Sound "logos"

Grizzly Bear "veckatimest"

The XX "xx"

The Pains of Being Pure At Heart "the pains of being pure at heart"

Ganglians "monster head room"

Honourable mentions:

Vivian Girls "everything goes wrong"

Pissed Jeans "king of jeans"

Lotus Plaza "the floodlight collective"

The Strange Boys "the strange boys and girls club"

Thee Oh Sees "help"

Mika Miko "we be xuxa"

Sky Larkin "the golden spike"

Most disappointing record of 2009:

Yo La Tengo "popular songs"

Most overrated record of 2009:

Girls "album"

2 record that i really loved but then after about 2 weeks forgot about (but don't get me wrong, theyre still good):

The Horrors "primary colours"

Animal Collective "merriweather post pavilion"

Least favourite thing in music in 2009:

Autotune

Favourite record cover of 2009:

New Work: Valentines ball (amended)

Poster for Valentines ball at Concrete. Thanks Ilka for turning me into a total sissy soppy girl!

Valentines Masquerade & Sunglasses Ball

Concrete

Saturday 13th Febuary 2010

Come to dance, romance & maybe even fall in love

10pm-4am

Musical Interlude: David Bowie "rebel rebel"

Fried gold.

Styling & Salvage

great blog "Recording the projects and interests of Rupert Blanchard. London, UK.
"An art director specialising in conceptual salvage and interiors"
- Adam Carr (Today Is Boring)", go and check it out.

Styling & Salvage

p.s happy new year

Genius

Bladeless fan by Dyson. It's a good thing that Sir James Dyson has chosen to use his super powers for good and not to enslave the entire human race, as i imagine that would be entirely possible for him.

(via Heynumber2)

The Return of the Glitch

My very own piece of glitch art. It occured when previewing a print in photoshop before sending it to the printer. Cheers adobe. Does this make it a piece of art, graphic design, or found imagery? Is it the same thing as the original image, is it a representation of the original image, Is it an image of an image or an image in its own right? Does anyone really know or care? Original screen shot can be seen here

Musical Interlude: Black Lips "punk slime"

If this song doesn't get you at least a little bit pysched, want to dance, drink spirits and/or smash stuff up for funsies, i dont know what will. Possibly my favourite Black Lips tune, if not least for the opening line.

Albums to (spend all night ) photoshop(ping) to No. 4

Coincedentally, an example of the use of Rosewood that does not look totally lame.

Screen printing pt2: Cotton bags!

After i spent this morning letterpressing like a madman i went to the textile printing studio to screen print like a mad man also. Good thing i like printing, otherwise id probably be a bit catatonic by now. Anyway, here is what i produced: some lovely black cotton tote bags perfect for shopping and what have you, with a mighty fine floral print in white.

Detail of the print on the bags, which is taken from a 19th century carpet design. Imagine that on your floor, bloody hell.

Close up detail of the print showing the halftone effect i applied.

I printed 12 of the bags and if you would like one please ask and you are more than welcome to have one for free. Some of the alignment is a little imprecise though as it was all done by eye, and two of them have printing errors (but that just adds character, right?). Some people don't have a choice about if they're going to get one or not because i'm going to force them to take one.

Extra special thanks to my good man Mark Howlette of Motive Sounds fame for providing me with the bag hook up at a very reasonable price. Cheers howlette!

Letterpressing pt2. - Hot off the press!

Letterpressed like a mad man this morning using large woodblock type this time. Wood, obviously, is much easier to scuff and to damage than metal is so the blocks are often a bit scrappy, hence the lo-fi, distressed quality of the prints. A joy, but a knackering joy. I have tried to photoshop this effect before, and i've read some tutorials on how to photoshop it too, but nothing beats the real thing, thats for sure.

School of Saatchi

I tried to write something funny here about reality tv, narcissism, beautiful but slightly mental art school students, and that BBC series about the disabled girls who wanted to become models but i couldn't think of anything that was a) actually funny, b) made sense. To conclude, i recommend you watch School of Saatchi on bbc iplayer.

Screenprinting

Continuing my current analog/hand made/ink addiction, I have been screenprinting today. It made me very happy. Hopefully i will have some spoils of my endeavours to show you soon, and if you're very lucky, i might even give you a little screenprinted gift.

Letterpressing (pt.1)

Today has been a day of ink stained fingers. This morning i coated screens in time for printing on wednesday then headed down to the fine art print making facilities with the one and only Tony Moore so we could learn to use the old letterpress machine and have some fun. It is safe to say that we learned, and we had fun.

Tony psyches himseful up for what will no doubt be a highly educational and probably haphazard afternoon. Also please note the woman in red in the background, i dont know her name but she is awesome. She told us all about old fashioned colour photocopiers and we bonded over 35mm film. She later told me that i should start an analog revolution. I just might lady, i just might.

It is actually law that all fine art printing facilities and letterpress studios must have this poster displayed on the wall. Due to the painstaking nature and constant frustrating of hand setting moveable type many old and traditional typesetters would turn to alcohol for help. The ones who resisted the booze often went totally insane.

Typography fact: Upper case and lower case letters are called so because back when letterpress was the primary method of printing type, the metal letters were kept in seperate cases (fancy trays) the capital letters being in the 'upper' case and and the small letters being in the 'lower' case. Typography irony: The cases in this facility contained both upper and lower case letters.

Typography fact: "leading" (or linespacing to non-typographers) is called so because of the strips of lead that were used to separate the lines of type when creating the layout of the design. Typography irony: These ones are infact made of wood. They also double up as handy little tools (also called 'furniture') which allow you to keep the type in place before you print.

Applying the delicious red ink. One of the best parts of the printing process (although to be honest, there were few parts which werent a total joy).

To be continued!

Musical Interlude: The Velvet Underground "sister ray"

The first ten minutes of "sister ray" by The Velvet Underground,
roughly the length of time before most people get a bit bored of it. Class.

British Letterpress

What kind of monster doesn't love a good bit of old fashioned letterpressed typography? I stumbled upon this neat little resource site about letterpress, including explanations, diagrams, guides to processes, foundries and what have you. Quite an enjoyable way to pass the time (aka procrastinate).

British Letterpress

also, if you happen to have nothing to do in the London (an oxymoron maybe?) then you can take yourself down to the St. Bride Library, "the world's foremost printing and graphic arts library" which is home to thousand of books, magazines, specimens and artifacts relating to printing and typography. It is also very near to Tate modern, so you can really geek out on art and design stuff.

Square America at sea

Absolutely incredible set of photographs taken aboard a US Navy Destroyer
during the Vietnam War, showing the "odd langour of life at Sea". Creepy and a bit surreal. Square America is definitely one of my favourite websites.

Musical Interlude: The Flaming Lips "silver trembling hands"

Great clip of The Flaming Lips performing 'silver trembling hands' from their new album Embryonic. When i was about 17 i was totally obsessed with The Flaming Lips. Not anymore, but I still love 'em, and this ones a cracker. Please note this video includes gratuitous people-dancing-around-wearing-animal-suits content.

Colours

A colour palette i just put together working on a current project. I liked it, so i posted it.