We Made This

Summer Shows: CSM BA Graphic Design

We trundled along to the Central Saint Martins BA Graphic Design show last week, and from what now seems like thousands of students, picked out a few of bits for your viewing pleasure.

First up, above, is the Animal Collective project from Sroop Sunar, a tasty collection of screen printed images based on the collective nouns used for groups of animals, styled in the form of Indian matchbox labels.

Sticking with dogs, we rather liked Anya Belikova's Little Monsters book, which supplanted babies' heads with dogs' heads. 

We were also impressed with the entrepreneurial spirit shown by Charlie Kwai, who created a vending machine "...that aims to positively influence the future of those who participate. Over the course of the exhibition 70 people bought a box. The most popular category was Love closely followed by Career and Power. Orientation sold well, but Finances and Possession were the least popular." 

The prophecies were a £1 a pop, and sticking with the crowd, we picked Love - our fortune was "Love knows not time but patience. Be patient and love will find its way to you." So we will be patient.

Next up was Ben Lee's very polished Exponere zine: "A publication exploring and exposing the deception of law, the treachery of our government and the fraudulent corporation which we live for." Strong stuff...

We were also very taken with Louise Naunton Morgan's Human Graph Paper, which consisted of a series of graph paper pads drawn by hand rather than machine, and was oddly beautiful.

And finally, a special mention to Francesco Boni, for having the best business cards in the show.

Good stuff all round. And great to see that the students had (a) got their acts together so that most of them have their own websites and (b) had set up a shop at the show to sell their work. Interestingly, they'd decided not to have a show catalogue, instead relying on the show website and their own sites. There's a sign of the times...

Richard Long at Tate Britain

We nipped along to Tate Britain (we're so having to hold ourselves back from inserting a definite article before that...) yesterday to check out the new Richard Long show, Heaven and Earth.

If you don't know his stuff, Long is part of the loose set of artists whose work gets grouped under the heading Land Art (check out Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty and James Turrell's Roden Crater as good examples from that gang; or pick up the Land and Environmental Art book from Thames & Hudson).

Long's art revolves around taking walks. Short walks, long walks, and some giant walks - in Walking to a Lunar Eclipse he treks 366 miles in 8 days - heck he must go through a lot of socks. He then creates a variety of pieces out of his perambulations. Sometimes he creates site-specific installations during the walks, as with Dusty Boots Line (below): these are ephemeral pieces, which may last days, weeks, months or even years, but which can only really be experienced in their locations. Long does photograph the pieces though, often presenting those photographs framed, with carefully hand lettered titles - and thus creating new works.

He also creates beautiful text pieces (such as Heaven and Earth, top), combining poetry, typography, art and historical record. These vary in scale, and many of them are presented in the exhibition as full size text pieces made out of cut vinyl, often occupying a full wall.

Long also creates stunning sculptural pieces for exhibition, such as South Bank Circle (below), relocating materials found during his walks, and arranging them in stark geometrical forms. They're quite magnificent.

The show is brilliantly curated (largely thanks to Long's close involvement, writing the captions for the exhibition, and designing the guide too). The moment when you step from a room of photographs into a room of installed works is really brilliant.

It's also interesting to see an artist whose work is so closely allied to graphic design - a large part of his output is in the form of artists books, all beautifully designed and typeset. In fact, walking through the show is a bit like taking a walk through a sumptuous book...

The exhibition runs until 6 September, but don't dilly dally, get yourself along there as soon as you can.

The Gigantic Robot

Tom Gauld is one of our favourite writers / illustrators, and his latest book, The Gigantic Robot, has just been launched. 

He describes it as "a wry fable concerning the  production of an impressive secret weapon whose promise goes unfulfilled". 

You can pick it up from the comic store at Cabanon Press (the site he shares with the lovely Simone Lia, who also has her own site). And check out some more Gigantic Robot production shots.

We're dead excited about getting our copy - Tom's stuff generally sells out pretty quick, so hurry along now...

Summer Shows: RCA: Mark Hayward

It's the season of graduation shows, and we're going to get to as many as we can, and any good stuff we come across we'll post up here.

So to kick things off, a tasty little animation from Royal College of Art graduate Mark Hayward. 

The second part of the RCA 2009 Show kicks off on 26 June and runs through to 5 July, with work from Animation, Architecture, Communication Art & Design, Design Products, Design Interactions, Fashion Footwear and Accessories, History of Design, Industrial Design Engineering, Textiles and Vehicle Design. 

Labuat 'Soy tu aire' interactive promo

'Kay, so we try not to re-post stuff we find on the web, but sometimes something truly great comes our way, and we just have to share.

Cast your mind back, and you might remember the rather tasty interactive video for Neon Bible by Arcade Fire. Well, here's something that outdoes it by a country mile. It's the promo for the single Soy tu aire (I'm your air) by recently formed Spanish band Labuat (they opened for Beyonce in Barcelona recently don'cha'know), and it's quite staggeringly beautiful. 

During the promo you paint the song, with your mouse moves determining the movement of a beautifully inked line. It's utterly beguiling, particularly as the speed of the line tracks the passion of the song. 

It was conceived and art directed by Herraiz Soto & Co, animated by Jossie Malis, with creative programming (we think we're translating that right) by Badabing!

via Very Short List

Banksy Summer Show

Looks like that Banksy fellow's got a Summer Show lined up, opening this Saturday, 13 June. The kids over at Vandalog suggest that it might be in Bristol. Stay tuned for more news.

Passive aggressive much?

KK Outlet is the Hoxton gallery and office of Amsterdam's KesselsKramer agency, and they've been in touch to tell us about their latest show, Passive Aggressive Notes.

The show features pieces from the Passive Aggressive Notes site, and should strike a chord with anyone who's ever shared a house and found a polite-but-actually-furious note sellotaped to the fridge.

The show runs until 21 June.

The Ride

Regular readers will know that we've got a soft spot for all things bike-related here at We Made This, so we were particularly excited to pick up a copy of the second issue of The Ride Journal earlier this week.

And heck, it's just wonderful. The design, art directed by Andrew Diprose, is elegantly understated, mostly consisting of spreads with a single full bleed image on the left hand page, and an accompanying text piece on the facing page. These are then interspersed with occasional longer photographic essays - the illustrations and photography throughout are all really stunning.

It's a wonderfully intimate read, and an eclectic mix of all manner of two-wheeled goodness.

Issue 2 is out now, available from Condor Cycles and Magma in London, or online from the Ride website.

Adobe raising prices

The Guardian Technology section today has an interesting report on Adobe's imminent UK price hike of 10% on all its software, which will lead to the Design Premium CS4 package costing a staggering 39.7% more here than in the USA. Kerching!

Check out the full debate on their tech blog post.

Art Car Boot Fair 2009

Grab a Turk! Nab a Blake! Spot an Emin!

The ever-wonderful Art Car Boot Fair is upon us again, on 14 June at the Truman Brewery - it's a ramshackle event, with a fine selection of artists and designers hawking their wares out of their car boots. There's also a smattering of burlesque, some customised rides, and lots of food and drink. 

See you there.