A new set of stamps to mark 150 years of Battersea Dogs & Cats Home tugs on the heart strings with images starring the likes of Leonard here

The stamps were designed by CDT with photographs by Steve Hoskins.Each one features a cat or dog who has been succesfully 'rehomed'.

Yes, it's very much a straight-up approach but you can't argue with the cuteness. The stamps are available for purchase from Post Offices across the UK.

Having gone through a bit of a patch where no-one sent us any CDs or records at all (we got sent download links to download the music instead for a bit), thankfully, the joy of physical music product is upon us once more... Here are some nice sleeves of various musical releases to have landed at CR towers recently...

The brightly coloured sleeve (above) is the cover for the single Can't Shake This Feeling by Grum – aka Graeme Shepherd, a 24 year old Scot who, we're assured, is about to hit the big time with his dancefloor-aimed disco pop. The single (sleeve designed by David Bailey Ross who designs under the moniker GOODBOY) is out May 3 and Grum's debut album, Heartbeats, is due for release May 24 on Heartbeats. Check heart-beats.co.uk for more info.

We got sent a promo copy of Mock & Toof's (absolutely brilliant) forthcoming debut album, Tuning Echoes - out May 24 on Tiny Sticks. Artwork is by Billie Jean. Duncan of Mock & Toof also sent us more of the album artwork (digitally) to look at...

We featured a great video for Liars track Scissor here on the blog a few weeks ago. Since then we've received their just-launched album, Sisterworld - and its packaging is most unusual... Inside a slipcase (shown above) is a hardback book-like object with the same image (as on the slipcase) on the front. Open it and two discs are housed in sleeves on each side - as per the image below. One disc contains the 11 tracks of the album, the other contains a reworking of each track by a different artist (Devendra Banhart, Thom York, Alan Vega are just some of the artists that appear on this disc)... A small window in the sleeve on the right reveals the centre hole of the CD housed on that side. You can just make out that that disc has a photograph of trees on it.... 

Behind the book-like bit, is a concertina-folded section with woodland photography on the inside and seaside panoramas on the two outside panels...

The idea is that you can peek through the hole of the CD and look through to a woodland scene... Here's a photo to show you what I mean:

Art direction and design: Brian Roettinger. Photography: Zen Sekizawa. Styling: Jennifer Johnson. Label: Mute.

This is the more than slightly Monty Python-esque cover of yet another debut album: Reintegration Time by Canadian band Shout Out Out Out Out.

Above, the open jewel case and also the unfolded cover insert. Sleeve design by La Boca. Release date: May 17. Label: NRMLSWLCM.

Illustrated cover of Keane's forthcoming (out May 10) eight track EP, Night Train. Art direction, design and illustration by Rob Chenery at  Tourist. Label: Island.

This album was sent anonymously to us with no enclosed note, possibly from the LA-based band The Deadly Syndrome themselves... This is their self-published album, Nolens Volens - out March 23. Nothing on the album packaging reveals who it is art directed by or who the photographer is. It's nice though.

Regular readers will recall we posted up the artwork for Copenhagen band Efterklang's recently released album Magic Chairs in last month's record sleeve post. This (above) is the sleeve for their forthcoming single, I Was Playing Drums, art directed (like the album sleeve) by Hvass&Hannibal. Label: 4AD.

This is definitely the weirdest musical package we've received recently. Perhaps 'weird' is the wrong word. The most unusual. That's better... A cardboard package had a two track CD attached and an email address (see above image). Within the package we found a nicely wrapped screenprint...

An accompanying press release informed us that The Electric Opera "release graphic art and music through their new website." It also informs us that The Electric Opera comprises the talents of Mark Bown (formerly a creative director at Ogilvy & Mather, New York) and Gerard Johnson - former "music director" of Saint Etienne.  The pair seem determined to associate their music with the accompanying artwork. this is futher borne out by the fact that on their website - theelectricopera.com - visitors can view images of artwork only while the music is playing. Stop the music and the images disappear... There are three prints that accompany the track, I Know: All feature Darth Vadar on the left and a different character from the Star Wars films on the right. One print features Padme (shown above), another features the Emperor, and the third features C-3PO. Each print is available as an individually numbered, hand pulled screenprint in an edition of 125. See theelectricopera.com for more details

The AV Studio show is a collaboration between 14 designers; seven from Bath Spa University and seven from UWE in Bristol. The students have taken over an old audio visual shop in Bath, creating work in response to objects that might have been sold there when it was open.

To promote the show each of the 14 designers involved created a custom letterform that could be read as an A or a V depending on its orientation. The UWE designers' letters are in red and Bath's in yellow. The letters were then screenprinted onto A (or V)-shaped paper with the details of the show, so that the posters could provide 49 different combinations when paired together to create an AV in normal poster format.

In the show itself, Myles Lucas's piece (above) involved him taking a picture using five cameras. Each one was focused into the preceding camera's viewfinder, to create an eerie image of Ashton Court Park in Bristol.

Romilly Winter's contribution was a series of type specimen posters for a font based on one found on an old Goodmans portable tape player. Winter used silkscreen and foil-blocking to create the posters.

Jono Lewarne (whose work CR has previously featured in this Monograph) created two silkscreened instructional diagrams found on an old Rolls Automatic 8 Electric Eye Movie Camera, one for the placement of reels of tape and the other for the batteries. The original diagrams were screen-printed onto the camera itself so it seemed a logical solution for the show.

Rowan Caney's piece was a double-sided print entitled Worry as Light Entertainment which featured the word worry writ large on one side and a ten minute interview from the Alan Titchmarsh Show transcribed on the other as a comment on the crossing over of news and entertainment and the lack of analysis found on news programming.

Kenneth Shaw collaborated with a sound designer, Joe Cowton, to create a bizarre audio visual piece that imagined the sounds certain fruit would make if able to. An old tape recorder played the sounds while a french-folded book displayed images of the fruit.

Garry Cook brought along an old Atari console, complete with Cosmic Arc to play on it. He hosted a private view competition with the opportunity to win a range of limited edition screenprints.

Luke Archer and Jack Maxwell presented a carousel of over 200 miscellaneous 35mm slides which were edited, sorted and reissued as Rotary, a projected magazine .

James McCann created an eight-page silkscreen publication called Gulliver's Travels which was based on an old 8mm film reel he bought. The piece is a visual journey exploring the four voyages of Gulliver in the story by Jonathan Swift.

Richard Jarrett created Virus – the first volume of a directory of computer viruses together with abstract interpretations of selected Worms and Trojans acting as illustrations within the book and as promotional illustrations.

Robin Cox's piece, Dusk Till Dawn is a pair of light sensitive silkscreen canvases. A UV torch was supplied with the poster so that people could create their own artwork that would slowly fade. Here Ollie Kay, another Monograph contributor, is seen tracing his hand.

The AV Studio is at 7 Lower Borough Walls, Bath.

The complete list of designers whose work makes up the show is

UWE Bristol
David Gibson
Jono Lewarne
Kenneth Shaw
Liam Randall
Myles Lucas
Romilly Winter
Rowan Caney

Bath Spa
Garry Cook
Jack Archer
Jack Maxwell
James McCann
Luke Archer
Rich Jarrett
Robin Cox

Old Spice's advertising of late has used the tried-and-tested path of irony in an attempt to shrug off its fusty image. This new global campaign for the deodorant from Wieden + Kennedy Portland continues in the same amusing vein...

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The campaign consists of two new TV spots, shown above, plus a series of print and poster work, including two 'rub and sniff' executions (shown below), which will appear in men's mags including Men's Health and Maxim. Interestingly, they don't seem to have updated the bottle design much, which kind of makes us happy. Are we just being nostalgic though?

Credits:

Agency: Wieden + Kennedy Portland

Creative directors: Eric Baldwin, Jason Bagley

Copywriter: Jason Kreher

Art director: Eric Baldwin

Production company: The Directors Bureau

Director: Mike Mills

Typographer & Typeface (posters): Mike Weihs, Peter Yue, Cathy Ormerod

Photographer (posters): Justin Fantl

Untitled, 2009

Beat Takeshi Kitano may be best known internationally as a filmmaker, but a new exhibition at the Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain in Paris shows off his skills as an artist...

His paintings have appeared in his films, particularly Hani-bi, but at the Fondation Cartier, Takeshi Kitano was given entirely free rein to construct whatever exhibition he wanted. In response he has created a site-specific show that is half-art installation, half-children's playground. "With this exhibition I was attempting to expand the definition of 'art', to make it less conventional, less snobby, more casual and accessible to everyone," he says.

Installation views, photos: Grégoire Eloy

The exhibition arose from a meeting with the Fondation's director, Hervé Chandès, and is specifically geared towards children, including various pieces that audiences can interact with, including a store where visitors can hire paintball guns to fire at the large dinosaurs in the space. Also part of the show is a giant sewing machine and various funfair attractions, including a marionette theatre and a waffle stand.

Preparatory sketches for the exhibition

All this jollity may seem surprising to those familiar with Takeshi Kitano's film ouevre, which tends towards the darker sides of life. But paintings and other imagery related to his films also form part of the exhibition, alongside excerpts from his Japanese TV comedy shows. Fun for all the family.

Top image: Imperial Army Elephant, 2010; bottom image: Hippopotamus-ranchu, 2010. Photos: Yoshinaga Yasuaki. All images shown © Office Kitano

Gosse de peintre by Beat Takeshi Kitano is on show at Fondation Cartier throughout the summer, until September 12. More info is at fondation.cartier.com.

The video for Hot Chip track, I Feel Better - directed by comedian Peter Serafinowicz - offers a glimpse at what a performance by the band might be like if they were a synchronised-dance-happy, four-piece boyband...

Hot Chip - I Feel Better
If the space below this text is blank, please be patient and wait for the video to load... it will. Honest!

Hot Chip | MySpace Music Videos

Apparently, director Peter Serafinowicz provided the voice of Star Wars baddie Darth Maul.

peterserafinowicz.com/

The innovative Folding Plug designed by South Korean student Min-Kyu Choi has won the top prize in the Brit Insurance Designs of the Year Awards...

Choi's radical redesign of the humble three-pin plug came about after his Macbook Air (the world's thinnest laptop) suffered scratches from its bulky plug that he had placed in his laptop bag (the UK plug is the world's largest, apparently).

The UK plug has in fact changed little since it was designed in 1946. Choi's design allows the plug to be folded down to a width of just 10mm. It is currently on show as part of the Brit Insurance Designs of the Year show at London's Design Museum. A recent graduate of the Royal College of Art's Design Product MA, Choi has also turned his hand to designing a folding suitcase.

Deyan Sudjic, director of the Design Museum said, "It's great to see such a practical but elegant demonstration of what design can do to make everyday life so much better. Min-Kyu Choi is a designer just setting out on his career and he clearly has a great future ahead of him." A short video on Choi's plug is on YouTube, here.

The individual Brit Insurance category winners were announced last week as follows:

Architecture Award 2010: Monterrey Housing, Mexico by Elemental (Chile). 

Fashion Award 2010: Plato's Atlantis show by Alexander McQueen – Spring / Summer '10 collection (UK).

Furniture Award 2010: Grassworks (below) by Jair Straschnow (The Netherlands).

Graphic Award 2010: The Newspaper Club by Ben Terrett, Russell Davies and Tom Taylor (UK).

Interactive Award 2010: The EyeWriter (below) by members of Free Art and Technology, openFrameworks, Graffiti Research La, The Ebeling Group and Tony Quan (USA).

Product Award 2010: Folding Plug by Min-Kyu Choi (UK).

Transport Award 2010:  E430 Electric Aircraft by Yuneec International (China).

Find out more about each of the winning designs at the links above and at the Designs of the Year website.

The Designs of the Year exhibition has also recently been extended to October 31.

In the next issue of CR, our Reader's Panel reveal what they thought of their tour of the show.

Illustrators Peskimo and Chris Dickason have teamed up to put on a tea-time themed exhibition opening this Friday March 19 at Start - a new shop and exhibition space in the heart of Bristol...

The exhibition, entitled Tease Made, will celebrate, Peskimo tells us, "the social rituals, history, iconography and biscuit-dunking goodness of enjoying a cup of tea." There will be prints, paintings, sketches and sculptural pieces on show. Here are a few images that will be on display...

Start is a new art space and shop which will look to exhibit work by both established and up and coming artists working in the South West region across the mediums of illustration, graphic design, photography, painting and printmaking. The shop will look to stock and sell work by local artists and musicians, and stock a small range of art magazines, prints, cards, jewellery, CDs, T-shirts and vinyl and plush toys. There will also be an area to sit and have a mug of tea. Start's website should be up and running this Friday. wearestart.co.uk

Tease Made runs from March 19 through to April 9 at Start (above Start The Bus), 7-9 Baldwin St, Bristol, BS1 1RU. 

peskimo.com
chrisdickason.co.uk

Designer and art director David James has steadfastly refused to step into the limelight, until now.  An online exhibition presents his 20-year portfolio for the first time

Born just outside Manchester, originally made his name designing record sleeves, worked with the late great Trevor Key and Nick Knight before moving to fashion and establishing himself as one of the leading art directors of his generation: no, not Peter Saville but a designer with a somewhat less developed public persona, David James.

James has resolutely shunned the public eye. He routinely refuses interview requests, there's no glossy monograph and he has never set foot on a conference stage.

But his career has reached a point where it is about to make a major change of direction and James has decided to say a public goodbye to his work in print. As we mentioned in our March issue, James's work for Prada is shifting toward moving image, with even the print ad campaigns being stills taken from the moving image footage. Over the next year, James will reposition his studio toward working in this way and away from print.

David James: Out of Print is an online exhibition of highlights from James's career to date. Beginning with his first solo project (a catalogue for clothes brand Moto printed on plastic, shown top) it charts his early career designing record sleeves for the likes of Soul II Soul and, notably, System 7, the electronic outfit named after the Apple Mac operating system for whom James created a series of memorable sleeves with photographer Trevor Key (Limited Addition shown below).

In 1995 James moved into editorial with A Be Sea, a large format newsprint 'visual paper' which he designed with long-term collaborator Gareth Hague. Each issue was named after a consecutive letter of the alphabet: for Issue I (below) all the headlines were shot on Super 8 film then re-photographed

While Issue G featured a series of abstract forms

James is probably best-known for his work for Prada for whom he has been art director since 1997. He first got involved with the brand at the invitation of photographer Glen Luchford. The pair pitched some ideas which became the Spring Summer 97 ad campaign (below).

For each Prada show James produces exquisite invitations, mixing materials to create lavish pieces of communication.

While, under his creative directorship, Another and AnotherMan magazines have been notable for their typographic experimentation

Because he has shunned the 'celebrity designer' route, James has become almost the forgotten man of British graphic design. This online exhibition, which will come down on 15 May, is a welcome opportunity to view a beautiful body of work.

David James: Out of Print

David James will be profiled in the April issue of Creative Review, out March 24

Richard Murray, co-founder of design consultancy Williams Murray Hamm, has died of skin cancer. He was 44.

Along with his partners, Richard Williams and Garrick Hamm, Richard Murray built Williams Murray Hamm into one of the UK's leading design consultancies, renowned for its ability to create witty, challenging work for major consumer brands.

Richard was intelligent, funny, warm and tremendous company. His wit shone through his work. He could be outspoken, but he was always worth listening to. Needless to say, he will be greatly missed, not just by those who knew him personally but by the design industry as a whole.

Donations in his memory can be made to Hatherop Castle School via Cowley and Son Ltd, Cirencester, on 01285 653298.

We would like to offer this space to all those who knew Richard to express their thoughts and tributes to him.