Air Lines is an art project showing worldwide airliner routes. Every single scheduled flight on any given day is reresented by a fine line from it's point of origin to it's port of destination. Thereby forming a net of thousands of lines. Hubs like JFK, FRA or DXB turn into dark knots where lines meet, lesser served local services are only are a subtle hint.
Details on the Maldive Islands
Australia, showing every route from Outback Piper service to the SYD-MEL racetrack
(Digital samples, actual print quality& printing details may vary)
While I was definitely not a fan of Pixar’s Cars, this I like. Artist Vladimir Nikolic has taken photographs of cars, along with self portraits of himself mimicking the emotions and expressions of the automobiles. The series is called Autoportraits, and could be a handy exercise for animators and illustrators who need to find ways to inject life into inanimate objects on a regular basis.
It’s been a while since we posted up some fresh-looking musical packages and what with everyone talking about “renewing value in music releases” we thought now was a good time to show a few things that have caught our eye recently for one reason or another…
Actually, the 12″ record sleeve is plain white with a central hole. But pull out the enclosed record to find a 12″ square, 12-layer screenprint, signed and numbered by Galapon from an edition of just 100. Photography by Anne-Cecile Caillaud.
Small, independent record labels, such as Show Off, have long understood the importance of creating collectible, desirable music packages and the larger labels are finally realising that they shot themselves in the foot by introducing the jewel case – which, over the years, has persuaded the music-buying public to place zero value on music releases. Oops.
The Vinyl Factory - a company in London that owns Phonica record store, EMI’s old vinyl pressing plant in Middlesex and FACT magazine, has recently started to produce limited edition musical packages for vinyl-lovers… The first package they did was a boxed edition of Beautiful Future for Primal Scream but we’ve just clapped our eyes on their second project – which packages sumputously the music and artwork of Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett’s Monkey Journey To The West – and felt duty-bound to post up some images:
The red, cloth-effect box measures approx 40cm wide, 35cm high and 4cm deep
Open the box to find the text-free cover of a gatefold double vinyl pack…
Remove the gatefold vinyl pack and a folded print on bible paper to find a small book of artwork housed snugly in a foam surround…
Open up the vinyl pack to reveal more artwork on the inside and also on the two printed inner sleeves. The music is spread over three sides of the vinyl discs with the fourth side adorned with etched illustrations by Hewlett
Here’s that etched vinyl
So, to recap - here’s what you get when you purchase this box: Double vinyl pack, small exclusive book of artwork and an art print on bible paper - not to mention the code to download a digital version of the album
We can’t deny that this box set is lovingly conceived and produced to a very high standard. In fact it feels like pretty good value for £65 - although we are left wondering how we’d store it at home… The fact is that we’ve become so used to storing music digitally that being faced with such a nicely produced, oversize box of vinyl and printed goodies is slightly discombobulating. And let’s face it, this isn’t something to keep with your other records. It’s a collectors item that demands to be kept somewhere safely away from the harbingers of greasy fingerprints and clumsy hands…
The Vinyl Factory’s Sean Bidder also told us that there will be a special edition of the Monkey box set that will cost £250. So what do you get for such a sum, we hear you ask? Sean sent us a list of what will be included within the clothbound, foilblocked box:
• Four exclusive Jamie Hewlett giclee-on-somerset prints, each stamped, dated and numbered, one signed. • Exclusive hardback, cloth covered 78-page 12″ size art book containing story, exclusive sketches and illustrations. • Two super-heavyweight 200-gram vinyl LPs will be housed in the book, containing six bonus tracks not available on the commercial release. Pressed on the classic EMI 1400, with one-side specially etched.
Also, when you purchase the box, you also receive a digital version of the album. And, if you’re among the first 500 customers to order the box set, you will also receive a custom-made special limited edition Monkey Om Box, with musical tones composed by Damon Albarn and artwork designed by Jamie Hewlett. As soon as this is ready (release date of the special edition is next week) we will endeavour to post up images here on the CR blog. In the meantime, read more about The Vinyl Factory’s collectible box sets here.
We also noticed that US band, Of Montreal, have been thinking beyond the bog-standard stick-it-in-a-jewel-case approach to music packaging. The band’s new album, Skeletal Lamping - released last week through Polyvinyl Records is available as a straightforward download, there is also an option called the “2xLP Package Deal”. Purchase this $100 package and you get the album on double vinyl, a download code to grab a digital copy of the album, a paper lantern, a set of 9 button badges, a choice of wall sticker packs, tote bag and T-shirt, a sticker set, die-cut poster, the code to download three rare extra songs and a compilation CD. Full details of the package can be found here.
Actually, I also just noticed that Of Montreal have a new animated video for track Id Engager, directed by Marc Reisbig and Hanne Berkaak through Passion Pictures:
Another music release that comes with additional goodies that caught our attention is the forthcoming release of Subliminal Girls 10″ box enclosing their Self Obsession EP - a package created by artist Stuart Semple. The screenprinted cardboard pizza-style box contains a 10″ record, a fold out print, a photographic book, a screenprinted T-Shirt, a laser cut acrylic disk and one-off signed negatives of the band. The press release that accompanied news of this release (release date 17 November) talks about injecting album art with renewed value in the face of digital downloads - yet there are only 10 of these boxes being made and they will be priced at £600 each. So at first glance this box looks very punk - it’s a cheap cardboard box that’s been hand decorated by a mate of the band who’s an artist. However, launching the box set in art galleries (that’s the plan for this) with a sorry-you-can’t-afford-it price tag seems totally at odds with the look of the package.
Sadly, this seems like a PR project created to generate column inches rather than something that will give real fans the chance to own and cherish a beautiful release. How lovely will the ‘normal’ release be, we can’t help but ask ourselves? As for the limited, arty Stuart Semple box – you’d think £600 would buy you something more deluxe and impressive than a cardboard pizza box…
OK, it’s time to move away from arty limited edition box sets and head back to Sheffield, which is of course, where this blog post started… Sheffield’s own Tony “Is This The Way To Amarillo” Christie does his very best to shake the Amarillo association with a new album, entitled Made In Sheffield, on which he teams up with various Sheffield-lads to surprising effect. The album has been produced by Richard Hawley and the songs on it have been written by the likes of Jarvis Cocker, Alex Turner of Arctic Monkeys, Phil Oakey of The Human League, Christie himself and more… As befitting such a Sheffield-focused album, Sheffield-based design duo Peter and Paul’s sleeve for the CD promo version (shown above with innersleeve), sees Tony Christie’s initials in a hallmarked emblem, referencing, of course, Sheffield’s rich silverware heritage.
This is the artwork for cover of Cicada’s latest single, Falling Rockets, art directed and designed by Zip. Illustration by Eric Zener. There’s really not much to say about this, other than we like it so here it is
OK so this isn’t a record sleeve or package - it’s the logo for a brand new musical supergroup that’s lurking in the offing. Yes, The Bottletop Band (logo devised by Brighton-based Red Design) will be a showcase for the combined talents of Carl Barrat (Dirty Pretty Things), John McClure (Reverend and the Makers), Drew Mc Connell (Babyshambles), Mat Helders (Arctic Monkeys), Jagz Kooner (Primal Scream) and several others. But why would these musicians team up to form a new group? For charity of course - the Bottletop Band is a collaborative project devised by the Bottletop charity and clothing brand Fenchurch. The idea is that a selection of talented musicians and producers come together and produce an album, to be released sometime in 2009, in support of Bottletop’s charity work.
As well as the logo, Red has commissioned artist Jim Stoten to produce the above illustration which will adorn T-shirts.
Four Feet From A Rat cover, agency/creative: Mother, publisher: Mam Tor, Designer: Jim Bletsas, artwork: Roger Langridge
The current edition of Time Out London includes the third installment of advertising agency Mother’s Four Feet From A Rat comic. Created in collaboration with graphic novel publishers Mam Tor, the comic offers a quirky insight into London life, with one story, illustrated by artist Roger Langridge, focusing on London’s ebullient mayor, Boris Johnson.
The story, titled Young Boris, sees our intrepid mayor cast as a heroic adventurer, fighting off the dangers of the commies, pesky picaninnies, and the evil Livingstone, natch.
Artwork: Roger Langridge
Four Feet From A Rat, which is appearing in four issues of Time Out London over the course of this year, is the first offering from Mother’s new comics arm, Mother Comics. Alongside its appearance in Time Out, the comic is also available from London bookstores.
Artist Stanley Donwood, who is perhaps best known for his Radiohead artwork, has created this beautiful linocut which depicts his vision of Fleet Street being destroyed by fire and flood.
Fleet Street Apocalypse forms a companion piece to Donwood’s London Views linocut, which featured on the cover of Tom Yorke’s solo album The Eraser. It was based on photographs and observational drawings of Fleet Street and features the Royal Courts of Justice, the Cock Tavern, the Daily Express building, St Dunstan’s Church, the Dundee Courier building, St Bride’s Church, a distant St Paul’s Cathedral and the King & Keys pub all in flames. It was created specifically to be printed at the St Bride’s Institute on Fleet Street.
“Like my earlier London Views series, this picture is ultimately, if loosely, inspired by the 1493 book the Liber Chronaricum, also known as the Nuremburg Chronicle,” says Donwood. “Although the style of the woodcuts in that book has been twisted almost out of recognition.”
“I have been fascinated by Fleet Street for many years,” he continues. “Ever since ending up there one freezing winter night at the end of a disastrous psychogeographical exploration of Clerkenwell and Holborn. Once a shoreline track between London and Westminster it has, over the centuries, become synonymous with the printing trades, home at times to innumerable publishers, printers, newspapers and writers, including Samuel Pepys.
“The print trade has now gone from the street. I don’t think you can even get a photocopy done there now. In the 1980s a combination of factors, including Thatcherism, the disgraced Robert Maxwell, Rupert Murdoch and unfettered greed finally silenced the presses. Fleet Street Apocalypse was printed on possibly the last remaining press in Fleet Street.”
The printing press at St Bride’s
On printing the linocut, Donwood says: “Due to the large size of this linocut we had to think laterally when it came to working out how to print it. The picture was made up of two sections of linoleum, each cut separately and designed to fit on the platen of the Hopkinson & Cope press. The process we developed involved wrapping sections of the oily press with paper, rolling half of the large sheets of paper within a protective sheet and then printing the unrolled half. When the edition was done, we then repeated this process with the other section of lino. Registration of the two halves of the print was achieved with the archaic technique of making pinholes in the sheets during the first printing then lining up the pinholes for the second. This process means that each print, though part of an edition, is unique.”
An edition of 50 prints is available from slowlydownward.com. Donwood has also donated an additional edition of 40 prints to the St Bride’s Institute.
Before the Euro, Dutch money was the most beautiful in the world. A new Five Euro coin, designed by artist and architect Stani Michiels, is a worthy successor to a great tradition
Michiels won a Dutch Ministry of Finance competition to design a coin with the theme of ‘Netherlands and Architecture’. “I approached the subject ‘Netherlands and Architecture’ from two points of view,” he says on his blog. “On one hand I paid tribute to the rich Dutch architecture history and on the other hand to the contemporary quality of Dutch architecture. These form also the two sides of my coin. Traditionally the front of the coin needs to portray the queen, while the back side displays the value of the coin.”
For the front of the coin, Michiels listed the names of prominent Dutch architects according to how many hits they gained on the internet: “Of course this order changes over time and as such this is another time stamp on the coin besides the number ‘2008′. Only the first 109 architects fitted on the coin, so that was immediately the selection.”
Using different weights of a monoline font that he designed especially for the task, Michiels arranged the names to create a portrait of the Dutch queen.
On the reverse, Michiels referenced the sheer number of architecture books published currently, arranging different sized books around the edge of the coin so that the space between their tops forms the outline of a map of The Netherlands. “The books rise as buildings towards the center. Through their careful placement they combine to outline the Netherlands, while birds’ silhouettes suggest the capitals of all the provinces. The following scheme reveals the process:”
In a delicious added twist, Michiels designed the whole thing using only free software. The coin was released to the public on 30 October.
Four seminal visual arts texts by Bruno Munari, Marshall McLuhan, Susan Sontag and John Berger have been republished as part of Penguin’s ongoing project to honour its design heritage.
The books, reissued as part of the Penguin on Design series, include Munari’s 1965 book, Design As Art; McLuhan’s 1967 classic, The Medium is the Massage; Berger’s seminal Ways Of Seeing from 1972; and Sontag’s 1977 essay, On Photography.
Penguin Press art director Jim Stoddart explains the thinking behind the re-releases: “Part of Penguin’s creative publishing direction includes refreshing some classic creative texts that still sell many thousands of copies each year, despite their tired covers and designs that haven’t been touched for decades.
“I approached Yes Design to work on unifying these four books into a timeless and dignified series, while also taking much care to complement the integrity of the original texts.”
For Ways of Seeing, Yes attempted to reassert the book’s unconventional format (originally designed in 1972 by Richard Hollis) including his famous cover that featured the first half-page of the book’s text.
“It was originally the intention that the inside text would follow seamlessly from the cover,” explains Stoddart, “but the publishing conventions at the time resulted in the text starting again after the usual copyright and title pages. In this new edition we’ve at last made this possible, while retaining the fundamentals of Hollis’s original design.”
With McLuhan’s book, Penguin have also honoured the famous spelling mistake on the cover. According to marshallmcluhan.com, when the author saw the typesetter’s error (”message” as “massage”), he exclaimed, “Leave it alone! It’s great, and right on target!”.
All four are available now: more visual arts titles are promised for the future.
Advertising agency KesselsKramer has published the latest in its In Almost Every Picture series. Each book in the series documents a body of photographs of one subject. Usually found imagery of persons unknown, and never intended for public display, the images are intimate, often banal and always strangely fascinating. The seventh book in the series continues the theme but with one difference - its subject is still alive.
Tilburg, 1964
The photographs reveal a chronological series of images of Ria van Dijk, with each one showing her at a shooting gallery. What makes them unusual is that the viewer appears to be in the position of the target, with the gun pointing in our direction. In fact they are also images documenting success, for the fairground game is rigged so that the shutter of the camera is triggered each time Ria hits the target, and then she is given a photograph of herself in firing pose as a prize.
Goirle, 1969
The series documents Ria’s love affair with the shooting gallery, with the book revealing photographs from almost every year of her life (apart from the conspicuous absence of 1939-1945). Now aged 88, Ria still makes her annual pilgrimage to the shooting gallery.
Tilburg, 1973
Due to the similar position that Ria adopts in the shots, the images contain a uniformity, which make the differences - her changing fashion and companions - all the more impactful. The photographs were given to Erik Kessels, who edits the In Almost Every Picture series, by a Dutch journalist, Joep Eijkens, who lives in the same town as Ria and saw her become a local celebrity after an exhibition about the annual funfair in Tilburg took place some years ago. Several of the self-portraits she had ’shot’ were on show at this exhibition and she made it into several Dutch newspapers.
While the advertising community was celebrating at this year’s D&AD Awards and rightly so (see results here), many designers looked on aghast. The reason? There are no D&AD awards in graphic design this year. Not one. Not a single yellow pencil was awarded in any of the graphics categories. Now what?
It’s been coming for some time. Despite the efforts of D&AD itself, successive graphics juries over a number of years were, I believe, excessively mean. Entrants became discouraged, it seems, and now, by all accounts, some leading graphics studios have given up on entering entirely. Judges this year tell us that the standard of work was “appalling”.
And now here we are. It bears repeating because it is scarcely believable, but there is not one graphics pencil at D&AD this year. Which isn’t to say that graphic design or designers were totally absent from the stage. There are some graphics-related winners – in magazine design, books, packaging and even a coveted Gold award for The Partners’ Grand Tour project. The latter (below) was entered into an advertising category. It was also entered into graphics, where it only managed an In-Book. Go, as they say, figure.
We invited Michael Johnson and Sean Perkins to discuss what the organisation needs to do in order to win back graphic designers (which you can read here). Perkins’ North is one of those leading design studios that no longer sees a reason for entering D&AD. Johnson, on the other hand, is an ex-D&AD President and has been one of the organisation’s greatest advocates for many years. If even he is losing faith in the awards, then something has gone terribly wrong.
Yes, there are other contributing factors beyond D&AD’s control. The nature of graphic design is changing with many studios engaged on projects that do not fit comfortably into D&AD’s graphics categories or judging methods. Music, so long a rich source of the kind of aesthetically pleasing work that juries have long favoured is no longer providing the opportunities it once did. And now that nearly all design studios have websites, there are other ways of showcasing work and reaching potential clients than winning awards. Plus the trend in graphic design is toward smaller studios for whom entry fees put considerable pressure on finances. But there is great work out there, as exhibited in CR’s own Annual.
Should we care? We should because this is about more than just a few bruised egos. Yes, awards are an imperfect measure of worth in a field as complex as design, but they have their place. If leading graphic designers are turning away from the D&AD awards, they are turning away from D&AD itself and the educational activities that are at the heart of what D&AD stands for. One goes hand-in-hand with the other. If you believe in D&AD’s mission, as I do, then you enter the awards in order to fund that important mission, with the added bonus that, should you win, it will help your business. D&AD’s charitable activities are immensely valuable and it deserves the support of everyone in the creative industries.
Somehow, D&AD has failed to get this message across to the graphic design community. It has failed to make the link between entering the awards and ensuring the long-term health of the design profession by both honouring excellence and nurturing the next generation of designers. Instead, designers are looking at an increasingly expensive awards scheme, being increasingly dominated by advertising and saying ‘no thanks’.
So, what to do?
Entry Fees Every year someone pipes up that awards should be free to enter and that they can be financed by sponsors. Having worked on a few, that’s just unrealistic. There aren’t enough sponsors with deep enough pockets in this sector to make that even a remote possibility for something on the scale of D&AD: this is about fund-raising for a charity, don’t forget. Entry fees will have to stay in some form, but why not make them cheaper for design? It may seem unfair on other categories, but there is a precedent with the magazine category where prices were lowered in order to increase entries. Ninety percent of design studios in the UK have 5 people or less. They don’t have the self-promotional budgets that ad agencies do and there isn’t such a direct link between winning awards and getting work, retaining staff and so on to make the case for those budgets.
Change the categories The dismal showing for graphics this year is made to look worse by the category system. There are no winners in Graphics – that just sounds awful. But it doesn’t mean that no graphic designers won awards. Graphic designers produced the Gold-winning work from The Partners and worked on Projector’s Uniqlock blog part. Graphic designers made the Sara Fanelli book, Carl’s Cars and Fantastic Man (all Silver winners, shown below). It’s far from a total wash out for graphic design.
There are reasons why awards shows have categories and not all of them are altruistic. Sure, they help judge like with like and they help organise books or exhibitions. But they are also there to maximise income: 25 categories means 25 opportunities to sell a sponsorship. And they lead to carpet-bombing – people entering the same work across a number of different categories which, of course, is great for the finances of the organisers.
Maybe it’s time to drop the categories and just pick the good stuff no matter where it comes from. In our own Annual we have no categories. To make judging easier, we split the work into disciplines so that we can view all the commercials together rather than watching one, then walking over to look at a poster, then onto a computer. It just makes sense. But the work is not judged in terms of its appropriateness for a category. It’s judged on its own terms as a piece of communication.
Scale down judging and the awards night Cheaper entry fees and fewer categories mean less revenue, so how would D&AD cope? First, it could introduce a sift – a pre-judging with a different jury to weed out the real no-hopers. We do this on The Annual. In my experience, when judges are faced with a mass of work, nearly all of which, inevitably, is not going to meet their standards, it brings the whole mood down and makes them feel far less positive about the whole experience. Present them with a smaller amount of better quality work and they are more likely to be generous.
A sift would allow D&AD to do the judging in a smaller space and with fewer judges flying in from around the world, thus cutting costs.
Tonight’s awards ceremony broke with tradition by doing away with the sit-down dinner. Instead, the awards were presented in the auditorium at the Royal Festival Hall, with a party afterwards. This allowed D&AD to bring the price of tickets down. Hopefully, the response will be positive. If so, D&AD can perhaps continue down this road and open up the night to those who previously found the cost prohibitive. Two weeks ago I was at the Art Directors Club awards in New York. Winners got a free ticket, extra tickets cost just $50. There was a free bar, food and DJs. OK, so it wasn’t a glitzy production, but there were plenty of designers there.
Re-connect with its audience The beauty of the ADC is that it has its own, relatively modest, space where not just the awards are held but also a variety of activities throughout the year including talks, conferences, portfolio reviews and so on. This means that every week people are literally coming into contact with the organisation. It has a constant presence in their lives, even if they are only going past it in a cab. Something similar happens at the ICA in London. The idea of having such a venue has been talked about at D&AD – in my opinion, it’s a must.
Explain itself D&AD is a charity. Its mission is to support and aid the creative industries through promoting excellence and by educating current and future practitioners. It relies on awards entries in order to do this – I’ve always thought of the awards as a levy on the egos of the creative industries. Like the tithe that Christians pay to the church, entering should be seen as an obligation, there to provide for the continued good health of something you believe in. D&AD needs to convince people of this.
Apparently, D&AD was waiting until after the awards to start the process of finding its new chief executive. Whoever is appointed has a lot of work to do.
