We Made This

Rodchenko at the Hayward Gallery

We made our way over to the Southbank Centre on Saturday to check out the Alexander Rodchenko show that opened recently at the Hayward.

Rodchenko was both photographer and designer, and it's a really fantastic exhibition, with over 200 of his prints and photomontages, many of them co-created with his wife Varvara Stepanova.

Rodchenko was one of the first photographers to take advantage of the new light-weight Leica, and his compositions show an absolute passion for trying out new angles and viewpoints, freeing the camera from its previous permanent residence just above the photographer's bellybutton.

His work journeys through various different styles, from very formal images that play with shape and pattern, through photomontage pieces that show a bravura graphic style, to later photojournalistic work.

There's a great short film at the start of the show from the BBC's Genius of Photography series (unfortunately not available on the iPlayer), with Martin Parr taking a look at the work Rodchenko did on the wonderful USSR in Construction magazine.

The show runs till 27 April, and is well worth a look. (You'll get to see the Laughing in a Foreign Language show that's running there at the same time, though it left us a bit cold.)

Bring on the Apocalypse

It's always exciting when a job comes into the studio that fits with something you're already interested in.

That happened recently for us when Atlantic Books dropped us a line asking if we'd be interested in doing the cover for George Monbiot's new book, Bring on the Apocalypse.

If you don't know him, Monbiot is a journalist, author, academic, and environmental and political activist. He writes a weekly column in the Guardian, and specialises in cutting to the chase when it comes to the big issues of our time, particularly climate change, while always backing his arguments up with fantastic attention to detail.

The new book is a collection of essays and articles loosely grouped into arguments about God, Nature, War, Power, Money and Culture. It sounds like pretty heavy stuff, so it's testament to Monbiot's talent as a writer that it is fascinating and exciting rather than just doom and gloom. (We particularly liked the essay "Is the Pope gay?")

Great stuff.

Motion graphics

Mmm, Saul Bass goodness.

We're just doing a bit of research ahead of a bit of work Alistair's doing with some Central Saint Martins students over the next few weeks, and we need your help.

We're looking for the best / most interesting bits of motion graphics we can find, whether they're from television, film, music videos, online, wherever. The only important thing is that they're principally typographic. Alistair's started to put a few bits together on this You Tube page, and it would be fantastic if you could drop us any links or recommendations.

Thank you thank you.

Designs of the Year

The new Brit Insurance Designs of the Year show started last week at the Design Museum, taking over from where the old Designer of the Year show left off in 2006. We went along on Saturday to take a look, and we'll tell you all about that in just a moment.

But first, a gentle rant.

The show is, as you can hardly have failed to notice, sponsored by Brit Insurance. They've stuck their name right in front of it. The awards that go with the show are sponsored by them too. They're called the Brit Insurance Design Awards. And frankly, that's just rubbish. Instead of being mutually beneficial, it's mutually detrimental. It makes the Design Museum look cheap, happy to bend over, grab its ankles and get its elegantly shaped butt branded by its corporate master; and it makes Brit Insurance look greedy and egomaniacal. Instead of making the event and awards the most important thing, they've made their sponsorship the important thing. And that doesn't make us like them much.

This is a grim trend that's been happening wherever sponsorship occurs (Carling Academy anyone?). Don't get us wrong, it's a very good thing that corporate sponsorship exists. It makes stuff happen, in bigger and better ways than would otherwise be possible. But, please, let's restore some sense of modesty, elegance and sophistication to the way it's done. Wouldn't the Designs of the Year show, as supported by Brit Insurance, sound far better? Patronage, not prostitution*.

Rant over.

The show itself is a great mix of work arranged by discipline: Architecture, Fashion, Furniture, Graphics, Interactive, Product and Transport. You might question some of the entries, but it's a really valuable opportunity to see what's being going on across the design spectrum in the past year. It's also great to be able to play with some of the entries, including the Nintendo Wii, Toshio Iwai and Yu Nishibori's TENORI-ON digital musical instrument, and Ross Phillips' Replenishing Body Kiosk (pictured above, being used by some kids in a much looser way than intended).

In the graphics section, we were particularly pleased to see the Butt Book nominated - it's a compendium of Butt Magazine (that link is not at all safe if you're at work), designed by Jop van Bennekom, and we've noticed it being the 'inspiration' for rather a lot of work recently.

Winners in each section, and one overall winner, will be announced in March.

* The fact that Peter Saville's "THIS IS NOT A BROTHEL THERE ARE NO PROSTITUTES AT THIS ADDRESS" sticker is one of the graphics entries feels deeply ironic.

20 jpgs x 20" = 6' 40"

We found ourselves shivering in the crisp winter air on Piccadilly last Thursday, waiting in the queue for the latest Pecha Kucha event, at the Embassy of Japan.

Organised in conjunction with the ICA and The Japan Society, it featured a fantastically varied cast of speakers, as well as some tasty sushi, plenty of Asahi and lashings of sake*.

Jonathan Barnbrook kicked things off with a speedy retrospective of some work he'd done in Tokyo (check out his brilliant identity work for Roppongi Hills and the Mori Arts Centre).

We were also particularly taken with a piece by Maria Marshall, who couldn't attend personally, but whose film 10,000 Frames fit the six minutes and forty seconds time slot perfectly.

We also dug the Trophy Tableware by Emiko Oki, and there was lots of great stuff from the highly productive Julia Lohmann, including her Cow Benches (shown above).

All in all it was a grand evening, and there was even some vague talk of more Pecha Kucha events later in the year, which would be a Very Good Thing Indeed.

*We'd like to add an accent to that, but apparently it doesn't take one. Also, we're not sure if any drink other than ginger ale is allowed to be described with the word 'lashings'... but heck, why not?

D&AD President's Lectures

We have a bit of a love/hate thing going on with the D&AD lectures. Sometimes they're utterly brilliant, with compelling speakers who talk with passion and wit about their work. Other times they're boring and banal displays of rampant self-love.

But it looks like the current president Simon Waterfall has done a bang-up job by inviting some really interesting speakers to come along for the 2008 series, and he gets extra points for nicking the Pecha Kucha format for one of the talks.

The line up is:

13 March
Nick Bell, graphic designer, and creative director of Eye magazine

17 April
The Pecha Kucha night, with speakers from Digit, Hi-Res!, Poke and AllofUs amongst others

30 April
Bob Greenberg from R/GA, creative genius behind the motion graphics for Se7en

22 May
Sir Christopher Frayling, rector of the Royal College of Art

5 June
Amsterdam based graphic design group Experimental Jetset

Apart from Nick Bell, who's speaking in Manchester, the talks all take place at Logan Hall at the Institute of Education in London (near Russell Square).

Secret Cinema

We're not supposed to tell you about this. So, if anyone asks, you didn't hear it from us. This conversation never happened. We're not even here.

Secret Cinema is a new monthly movie screening event, showing "stimulating, challenging and groundbreaking cinema" in random locations chosen because they help add something to the film being shown. It could be anything: "derelict theatres, rooftops, parks and other secret spaces".

The location and identity of the film being screened is only emailed to subscribers the day before the screening, adding to the air of mystery (and ensuring a lot of online chatter too).

Their last screening was Gus Van Sant's Paranoid Park (you can check out photos from the screening on their Flickr page).

The first film for 2008 is being screened this Wednesday, 13 February, in London and Bristol. Details about the what, where and when (as well as how to get tickets) will be emailed out tomorrow. We have no idea what the film will be, the only rumor we've heard is that it somehow relates to Valentine's Day. Go to their site to register for info. You can also check out their Facebook page.

A box of tricks

If you're a London based graphic designer of a certain age, you'll have heard of Artomatic. It was a fantastic company that helped designers to realise tricky and unusual print projects. They had an incredible print and materials library, a wealth of knowledge, and a great little shop too; and were often to be found behind many D&AD award winning projects.

Artomatic was run by Tim Milne, who has now set up a new venture in conjunction with Royal Mail. It's called Matter, and it's basically a new way for brands to advertise at you. The basis of this is the Matter Box, which is a cardboard box that gets mailed to you for free, and which is full of bits and bobs from various brands. It's direct mail, but with the volume turned up.

The first version of the box was sent out a week or so ago. It had a mix of stuff, including some Play Doh pots (for Sony Bravia), a Wii wristband, a little plastic toy from Sony Ericsson, and some crayons from Nissan. You can see a full rundown of the contents on the Matter Blog, and people have been posting their pictures of the boxes in their homes on this Flickr set.

Tim is being really quite brave by being very open about the project, and sent out this first box as a sort of experiment, asking for feedback on how it might be improved. (Our mate Charlie has written his own great review over here by the way.)

We reckon there's potential for the Matter Box to be really interesting. It's a chance for companies to talk really directly with their (potential) customers.

But we get the feeling it will only succeed fully if they can find some way of tailoring the content to the recipients' personal tastes. Otherwise you're just being sent junk that's going straight in the bin, and that's just a horrible waste. If you're not planning on buying a car, you're not planning on buying a car, no matter how many bits of clever marketing you get sent.

We think that one way forward might be to set up detailed user profiles for people who register for the Matter Box. That way the brands can get a real idea of who might be interested in getting stuff from them; then when you do get the stuff, you're more likely to think, "Hey, yep, this is interesting. And heck, yes, I would like one of those...".

You can see the beginning of something similar on Facebook, which has been tailoring its advertising to the information users have already entered: it actually seems to work quite well. It seems reasonable enough, after all, that if you like the music of a particular artist, you'd be interested in hearing about their next album, or gig.

We've grown up accustomed to broad spectrum advertising, be it on billboards, on the TV, or on radio, where the advertisers shout their message out to everyone, in the hope that just a tiny proportion of those who hear it might be interested. It feels like now there's room for something much more focused, and much more effective.