Marian Bantjes: Love Stories Monograph
Typographer and illustrator Marian Bantjes has created a beautiful project for our Monograph series on all the people - and things - she loves…
Archive for July, 2008
It’s a wrap for director Thomas Hicks
Gravenhurst’s Nightwatchman’s Blues / Farewell, Farewell – limited edition (1300 only) double A-side, double 7″ pack, in handprinted, numbered, fold-out poster created by Thomas Hicks
CR readers may recognise the name of director Thomas Hicks - he was one of our second Warp Records competition winners (CR June 2005) in which he won the opportunity to direct a film to a track by Gravenhurst entitled I Turn My Face To The Forest Floor. Now, three years later, it gives us an enormous sense of well being to hear that he’s still working with Gravenhurst – and to see this, their latest collaboration…
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Record sleeves of the month
Cover of UNKLE’s latest release: End Titles… Stories For Film, which features imagery by Robert Del Naja
It’s been a while since we’ve rounded up a few of our favourite music packages in a blog post – so here are a few that have caught our collective eye in the last few weeks…
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Bonfires of July 11
A timely release from Steidl brings together John Duncan’s photographs of bonfires built by Protestant communities in Belfast, Northern Ireland to be lit the evening before the annual July 12 celebrations. Each is depicted as an unlit, imposing structure piled together from wooden pallets and tyres. While post-ceasefire political progress has been lauded in the past decade, these images reveal the divisions that remain within parts of Belfast…
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Faber Finds generative book covers
Faber Finds is a recently launched service offered by publisher Faber and Faber that utilises digital print technology and affordability to make out-of-print books available once more. Basically, a book is only printed when someone orders it - and, thanks to some clever generative programming by Universal Everything collaborator Karsten Schmidt (undertaken through his own studio, postspectacular.com), each cover printed promises to be totally unique. Various decorative elements designed by Marian Bantjes are arranged by the programme into a decorative border around the book’s title and author. The latter appear in a bespoke font, b-hmmnd, designed by Build’s Michael Place…
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Iron Fists: Branding the 20th c. Totalitarian State
“Glory to the great October!” A Russian poster commemorating the 1917 Revolution,
from Steven Heller’s new book, Iron Fists: Branding the 20th-Century Totalitarian State
In Iron Fists, an illustrated survey of totalitarian visual propaganda, Steven Heller offers an insight into the visual representations of Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Communist USSR and China writes Katya Kan. Heller’s argument centres around the idea that totalitarian imagery is based on the potential of brand devotion. “Like any corporate identity campaign,” he writes, “the totalitarian regime demands the brand loyalty of its subjects.”
In his new book, Heller discusses how posters, magazines and advertisements were used within the visual systems of these dictatorships, alongside more formalistic elements such as typefaces and colour palettes…
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UK Music Video Awards
The UK Music Video Awards is a new awards scheme celebrating, um, the UK music video scene. The event takes the place of the recent CADS awards, and will include a gala awards night held at the Odeon West End in London’s glittering Leicester Square on October 14.
The deadline for entering the awards is August 12, and videos eligible for entry are for singles released in the UK after May 1 2007 and before July 31 2008. For a list of categories and further info, visit ukmva.com (where you can also see the awards’ rather fine logo in animated form).
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Obama’s Simulacra
A poster for Barack Obama’s speech in Berlin yesterday. But was
there substance beneath this well-honed visual styling?
Standing amidst a crowd of 200,000 Berliners yesterday, writes CR contributor Daniel West, Barack Obama was Jean Baudrillard’s messiah. As his sermon boomed over the Tiergarten, our presence was explained: this was a pilgrimage to postmodernism, not politics. We came to snatch a tiptoe glimpse of the man who has dominated our inboxes, TVs and newspapers. A man whose logos and slogans and soundbites have so comprehensively flooded our collective consciousness. We came to witness reality. But Obama’s performance was not a speech, it was a simulacrum…
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Get Your War On: Animated Version
If you’re unfamilar with David Rees’ hilarious comic strip, Get Your War On, then check out his vast archive of biting Clip Art satires that lay into, among other things, the War on Drugs, the War on Terror, Dubbya, McCain, Obamania et al. Now there’s an animated version – set to appear on 236.com each week. If this taster is anything to go by, the trademark simplicity and tone of Rees’ ilustrations has been maintained while the dialogue is as razor sharp as in his original three-frame strips. Thanks to Coudal’s blog for the link.
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Monkey Returns for the Olympics on the BBC
With animation from Jamie Hewlett and music by Damon Albarn, BBC Sport’s new campaign for their Olympics coverage is based upon the traditional Chinese folklore tale, Journey to the West by Wu Cheng’en – probably more familiar to UK viewers through its TV incarnation, Monkey Magic!, itself an English language version of the 1970s Japanese show, Saiyūki. In the BBC’s trailer, Monkey and the inimatable Pigsy make their way on a Journey to the East, ultimately to the bird’s nest-like National Stadium in Beijing.
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This month’s issue
CR Commissions
Special projects commissioned by Creative Review and our partners
Monitor
Rushes Soho Shorts Festival 2009 is free to enter and open for submissions across six categories: Short Film, Animation, Documentary, Music Video, Newcomer and Broadcast Design
Designing through the recession: Michael Bierut has some advice for 2009
There’s probably no God… The atheist bus campaign is to appear on 800 buses across the UK
Objectified, the new documentary film from Gary Hustwit, looks interesting. Marc Newson, Jonathan Ive and Karim Rashid all feature
The Vignelli Canon, a “little book” – available as a 50 page PDF – “for a better understanding of typography in Graphic Design”
The Wellcome Collection’s excellent exhibition War and Medicine has a website, Remembering War, which encourages people to post up their own memories of war
So what is the art of the Bush era? Well, Kevin Drum reckons its Damien Hirst and Jack Bauer in 24… (link: Andrew Sullivan)
Bizarre marketing image of the week: MillerCoors’ entire 1,200 person sales and marketing team come together to form the brewer’s new Pentagram-designed logo.
Playboy Mexico says its latest cover is nothing to do with the Virgin Mary, honest
Mojo is the name of a new software that allows you to share the content of your iTunes with friends…
Burger King launches meaty perfume
Santa’s Beard competition. Download the beard. Cut it out. Take a pic of yourself wearing it and send it to the guys at Un.titled. You could win a prize!
Something’s very wrong with the cover of January’s Tatler (and not just the subject matter). Clue: count the legs…
Eric Baker’s “images of the day” is always an intriguing post over at Design Observer
Framestore CFC’s new Christmas game is based on their forthcoming feature animation, Desperaux. Addictive (be warned!) platform fare starring a little mouse with big ears…