Frida Kahlo

"Frida" A film about the life of Frida Kahlo, is a moving and fascinating story. I did not know alot about the artist but enjoyed every part of the film. From a creatives point of view it is well directed with lovely surreal animated sections, the political and cultural references throughout keep it exciting and interesting. It also seems beliveable unlike some biographical films. Recommended!

Matisse Museum

During a trip to Nice this year I visited the Matisse Museum. The location of the museum and its grounds really attributes to the work as you can see where Matisse got his inspiration from and it rounds off the whole experience, there is also a huge collection of his works presented in a great building.

Sicily

During a recent visit to Sicily I found the Architecture and Urban landscaping really interesting.
Although Sicily is actually a part of Italy it combines alot of different styles, from Typical European to Byzantine and Moorish influence. The pictures above show the variation between these styles and it was intriguing to see an affluent Catholic Church alongside Arabic looking Cathedrals and paintings.
A lot of the towns in Sicily were designed in the Baroque Architectural style, with sophistication, power and wealth as major influences, my favourite part of this style is the town planning - how every road and piazza is planned as a visual delight often with views towards the sea or the focus buildings of the town.

Typographic rugs!

They speak for themselves. ha ha

www.johnpourhome.com

Death Magnetic

Metallica's new branding, designed by Turner Duckworth, great because it works on a lot of levels, and has the possibility to be exploited across many different media.

'We had a great brief to work from – we knew it was about attraction and repulsion and wanted an iconic image that was expressive but also open to interpretation. A great sleeve has a strong image but also things that you can read into it.'

Village Green

Love this work by Village Green design studio, Incorporating key characteristics of musical genres, these characters were commissioned to promote a music and art event for print, marketing, online and event visuals. I think their best works are the beautiful intricate photo montages featured in a lot of their projects.
www.villagegreenstudio.com

HelloVon.com

I love HelloVon's stunning monochromatic illustrations. Although he also does paintings and typography I think his recent Migration project featuring drawings of animals which are being shown 'migrating' between London and New York galleries is his best work. What I like most is the flexibility of his illustrations, they could make a gorgeous print on a wall or work equally well featured on the side of a bottle. Also like the intricate and mature quality to his work.

The Mighty Book of Boosh

The most recent product from the great men of Boosh, this book has it all. Even if you aren't a fan of them, the creativity and spontaneity of every page is a great way to procrastinate. The typography is what makes it so clear and visually stimulating and there are loads of funny quips and characters that will make any other creative person feel completely unworthy!

Pot Noodle Fun.

Pot Noodle's latest campaign in conjunction with The Sun is a series of spoof news reports which purport to show what happens when people really do realise the cliché “you are what you eat".

The 100-second online clip was shot in the style of a 1980s news report by a TV station called Northern Eye and has been treated to give it the look of old VHS footage. I found it a very funny viral, not sure where it will be shown as its too long to be on tv. A great example from Pot Noodle of a perfectly suited campaign to its target demographic of young men.

She Says

www.shesays.org.uk is an organisation I was part of whilst living in London last year. Formed by a group of women in the digital industry who feel there are not enough women at the top, they hold monthly events around London discussing various topics. They are usually held at great locations with drinks, nibbles and presentations from some industry experts and it was a great way to get involved with and meet some of London's best. Topics such as How to get your dream job and Forecasting future consumer trends are a few examples. A must for any ladies moving to London after they graduate!

Cy Twombly: Cycles and Seasons

Cy Twombly is considered one of the most influential American artists of the 20th century. His paintings and sculptures introduced elements of hesitancy and fragility to Abstract Expressionism, a style that is generally regarded to be aggressive and bold.
I enjoy Twombly’s work as it shows how an artist’s environment can deeply affect their work and I think we can all relate to that. The pieces Twombly created in Rome during the summer of 1961 show the suffocating heat of an Italian heatwave, orange, red and yellow smears hang heavy on the canvas. The green and white paintings Twombly paints for the 1988 Venice Biennale show the ephemeral beauty of water, a sense of urgency is captured in the execution, Twombly’s handprints and finger smears can be seen in the paint giving the audience a sense of the artist behind the painting. As the exhibition continued I was drawn into the world of Abstract Expressionism, Twomly’s work seems to make more sense. Out of scrawls you can make out definite subjects, this is the kind of work you need to understand to fully appreciate.

Speed the Plow

I went to see Speed the Plow at The Old Vic mainly because I love Jeff Goldblum, but it was Kevin Spacey who held the play up. They are a great double act and the chemistry on stage was great to watch.
Speed the Plow focuses on Hollywood and the ruthless nature of the film industry, examining the inherent conflicts between art and profit. The play includes your typical damsel, who is obviously on the side of art, and the rogue ( Spacey) who favours the money. A good play but mainly for the great cast!

Richard Rogers + Architects

Richard Rogers, one of Britain's most influential architects, had a recent exhibition at The Design Museum. I'm not a great fan of the Museum, as I haven't seen much there before to be excited by but I really enjoyed this display.
Richard Rogers Architects are responsible for the Pompidou Centre in Paris and The Millennium Dome, amongst many other buildings, the exhibition was in a huge room which held architects models from alot of their major projects.
As a designer I loved the models themselves, tiny to scale examples I can imagine would be great to show to a client and describe the work you plan to do. As you went around the room it was also interesting to see Rogers distinct style developing, much of his work seems to be 'inside-out' the structure of the building isnt hidden behind facades and the pieces seem quite honest.

Apparently this style has been called 'Bowellism'!

'Based on the rationale that the greatest amount of floor space possible should be allowed for the interior so as to maximize space to appreciate the exhibitions, everything from the lifts to the sewage pipes were made visible on the outside of the structure. This inside-out style was termed 'Bowellism'.

Olympic Posters

Last year I posted about my favorite Olympic Logo by Lance Wyman, recently came across this great blog which details every Olympic poster since 1896!

http://haha.nu/beautiful/history-of-olympic-posters/

The 1956 in Melbourne reminds me a bit of the 2012 logo?!

Grand Designs

This summer I visited the Grand Designs exhibition at The Excel in London, although I love the program I wasn't that impressed with it! Unlike the program this seemed to be basically a fair for companies to sell their products and standard housing products at that. I'm not sure if I was expecting too much but most of it felt like I was walking around Homebase!
The best bits was the furniture design section and I saw a really interesting lecture and debate on progressing Modern Architecture, but excluding that I wouldn't recommend it unless you are a housewife seeking a day out!

MOMA

Whilst in New York I made a bee-line for the MOMA- took a while to find as the location is a bit secluded but it was definitely worth the trouble!

As it is so huge I was only able to visit two floors, one of my favourite exhibitions was Bernd and Hilla Becher: Landscape/Typology. Bernd and Hilla are best known for their "typologies"—grids of black-and-white photographs of examples of a single type of industrial structure. To create these works, the artists traveled to large mines and steel mills, and systematically photographed the major structures, such as the winding towers that haul coal and iron ore to the surface and the blast furnaces that transform the ore into metal.

The typologies portray the clarity of engineer's drawings, while the landscapes make the viewer experience a particular place, all the studies are in B&W and showcase industrialisation at its most impersonal and dominating.

Drench

http://www.staydrenched.co.uk/

This great advert also has a great interactive website, an all-rounder I think! The work was produced by Clemmow Hornby Inge and I think it really works as a fun random way to attract consumer attention, reminds me a bit of the Cadburys gorilla advert which was so successful, maybe we should all be doing it!

Couch for couch potatoes

This was my favourite piece of work from this years D&AD student awards. The brief, from Vitra, asked for “a sofa inspired by the new Vitra Edition collection that is unencumbered by commercial constraints and pushes the boundaries of innovative furniture design”.

Kingsnorth says she was inspired by media coverage of obesity and Jenny Saville’s paintings to create One - “a sofa that has been devoured by its obese occupier”. “The flesh has spilled and encased the sofa… until the two have married into a new grotesque form,” she explains.

I think the chair form and the materials used work in a fantastic way which is appealing but also unappealing, it seems to be a contradiction of beauty and therefore is an innovative piece of design.

Life Through A Lens

Life Through A Lens is the first major Hendrix exhibition to take place in the UK since 2004 and features pictures of the musician at every stage of his career.

I happend to walk past the tiny gallery in Soho which held the exhibtion and was amazed to find some fantastic and rare photographs captured by 18 of the worlds top Photographers. Hendrix exudes a great presense in all the pictures and I especially enjoyed the spotaneous shots where he was interacting with people around him.

This is England

Directed by Shane Meadows, This is England follows the lives of the white working-classes up north in 1980's Britain. As a lover of english films I think maybe I was bias towards it as no-one else I know has been as impressed with the film as me! Perhaps it is because it quite slow moving and just examines the relationships between the characters but I found this very endering and loved the cultural references throughout it.
The film starts with a positive (and brilliant) soundtrack and vibe but becomes very negative towards the end, portraying the dark side to skin-head culture, the impressionism of youth and how we all crave a feeling of belonging. (Maybe this inspired Carling's new advertising concept!)

China Road

China Road by Rob Gifford documents his 3,000 mile journey across China by Route 312, which stretches across China from Shanghai to Xinjiang, running parallel with the Old Silk Road.

He passes through the factory towns of the coastal areas, through the rural heart of China, then up into the Gobi Desert, where it merges with the old Silk Road. The highway witnesses every part of the social and economic revolution that is turning China upside down and I would highly recommend this book for anyone with an interest in Chinese culture and world economics.

I really enjoyed the book as it descibes China on many different levels, Gifford's personal journey gives a face to what has historically been a faceless country to Westerners, and a study into why China is in the situation it is now and what could lie in the future for this troubled republic.