Above is the cover of Kala, M.I.A.’s new album on XL Recordings. And isn’t it perfectly SuperSupersuited to the times? Brash use of colours: check. Seeming disregard for any classical design tenets: check… The artwork is a mix of M.I.A.’s own input along with graphics by Carri Mundane and Steve Loveridge. Photography by Janette Beckman, Liz Johnson-Artur, Michael Kamber and M.I.A. herself

We’ve seen lots of great sleeves in the last few weeks. Bright colours and illustrated forms seem to be flavour of the month…

“People said ‘what the f**k is that? It looks like a clown’s been sick’.” Not necessarily the response you might hope for when launching a new style magazine, but it didn’t worry Steve Slocombe. As creative director of the fiercely trendy Super Super, Slocombe is used to being, shall we say, “challenged” about his work…

Understanding (detail) by Samantha Briggs, Camberwell College of Art

Following on from my post on some of the best photography we’d seen at the recent graduate degree shows, we’ve now picked some of our favourite pieces of work shown by illustrators. As you’ll see, there were a huge range of techniques and styles on show, not to mention big differences in scale: from Sawa Tanaka’s delicate rice paper prints, to Samantha Briggs’ enormous drawn installation at Camberwell College of Arts. Shown above is a detail from Briggs’ piece, Understanding, an axonometric drawing examining the atmosphere and familiarity of structured space (a supermarket), which took up an entire wall at the college.

“What the hell are you doing?” asked my editor when he spotted me, clearly on MySpace and watching an embedded movie of a girl writhing around on her bed wearing next to nothing. “Oh, this?,” I stuttered. “Erm, it’s a new campaign for Elle Macpherson’s Intimates range of lingerie,” I responded. “Honest.”

You remember the Coca Cola ad where the guy puts his coin in a vending machine, inside of which a combination of bizarre creatures and whirling machinery comspire to happily bottle the fizzy brown stuff and make sure it’s icy cold before it’s delivered out the chute? Well, Wieden + Kennedy, Amsterdam have created a follow up er, film (it’s three and a half minutes long) called Happiness Factory – The Movie…

An ad promoting the joys of not being subjected to advertising might seem a contrary notion, but this is the premise behind the new Sky Movies Billboards spot, which emphasises the lack of advertising breaks on Sky’s film channels.

The spot was filmed in São Paulo, which, as CR reported in our June issue, is currently enjoying a hiatus from billboard advertising after a “Clean City” directive from the city’s mayor, Gilberto Kassab, which banned all outdoor advertising, including shopfronts. As a result São Paulo was left with numerous empty billboard structures, which without their signage appear ghostly and oddly beautiful.