Fear #09: “A fearless adventurer is on his way to climb up his last mountain. After that he will only stay home, reading newspapers, drinking tea and picking his nose. This is the daydreaming in his head right now. He is used to it. Actually this really will be his last mountain. An avalanche is coming.”
Bulgarian artist Nedko Solakov’s latest work is a collection of 99 drawings. Using pen and ink, Solakov describes a range of personal worries and a few of the more general anxieties that characterise modern existence. So it’s cheery stuff then? Well, actually, it’s all very funny – in the wry, existential way of David Shrigley – pairing bleak imagery with a few scrawled sentences in order to bring each piece together…
David Shrigley has been hard at work for Tate again, this time coming up with this appealing selection of goodies that comes with the purchase of a gift membership. Shrigley, who previously designed a limited edition travel wallet for the Tate, has put together a bag, a selection of stationary and a membership card all drawn in his signature style. And with the London Tates showing blockbuster shows of both Mark Rothko and Francis Bacon this autumn, it might be just the time to join.
The 2008 D&AD Annual, designed by Neville Brody, launches in mid-September, but we’ve been given a sneak preview of its cover, shown above. This year the Annual is finally recognising the digital age with the theme ‘Digital vs Anti Digital’, which according to D&AD President Simon Waterfall represents “the evolution of the digital industry”.
The Kalmar Konstmuseum is a new space for contemporary art in southern Sweden and Stockholm-based studio Sweden Graphics were invited to design the identity and signage for the building. We asked Sweden’s Nille Svensson to talk us through the project, which involved stencilling directly onto the building’s walls…
Can we take Obi-Wan’s word on this one? Sadly not, as it seems that Star Wars fan Michael Horn is in fact behind the short film, Death Star Over San Francisco, which he created for Imperial Fleet Week (we’re not sure either) in San Francisco. According to Horn, who is interviewed on the official starwars.com blog, “I shot everything on my junkie DV camera, did motion-tracking and comping in After Effects, and basic sound design in Final Cut.” (Thanks to Coudal’s blog for the original link).
The first ever UK retrospective of the work of Vilhelm Hammershøi is showing at the Royal Academy of Arts in London until 7 September writes Katya Kan and features over seventy paintings by the Danish artist. Hammershøi’s works are famed for conveying an atmosphere of equanimity and mystery: therapeutic by nature, his paintings almost lull the viewer into an absent-minded daze…
Stills from Somers Town, directed by Shane Meadows, produced by Mother Vision for Eurostar
Somers Town, the new movie by Shane Meadows, director of the acclaimed This Is England, opens across the UK next week. On the surface it looks like a typically British movie, a gritty tale of urban life and friendship set on the streets near King’s Cross Station. However there is something that sets this film apart, and it comes from how it was developed, and, more keenly, how it was funded
James Jarvis’ window display at NikeTown in London. Photo by his dad
Brightening up this decidedly gloomy summer is illustrator James Jarvis’ new installation at NikeTown in London. A giant bird features in his window display for the Oxford Street store while, inside the foyer, there’s also an eight-panel vinyl artwork with the same avian character donning his Nike Windrunner jacket (click through for pics)…
For almost 20 years, Creative Review has been encouraging the next generation of talented creatives through our annual Creative Futures scheme in which we celebrate the promise of a selection of emerging talent in visual communications.
This year’s crop of Futures were selected by the CR editorial team – our only criteria were to find individuals or teams who we feel have an extremely bright future ahead of them and who are indicative of the future direction of the industry.
Just before Christmas, each of our selected Futures gave a talk at one of three Creative Futures events. We invited everyone coming along to the talks to bring a piece of work with them – an image, some text, even a piece of music. We then asked each of our Futures to produce a new piece of work responding to the experience of being selected for the scheme, giving their talk and to the work brought along. These projects were funded by a bursary provided to each Future by CR and PlayStation. Over the next week or so we will be posting up the resulting pieces of work plus documentaries on each Future, made for us by Fallon…
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
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
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…
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…
