We Made This

Photoshop for real

    

Loving these shots, from a series by a couple of about-to-be 2nd year Central Saint Martins BA Graphics students, Henry Hadlow and Ed Cornish.  

  

Degrees of brilliance

We made our way across to a couple of the Central Saint Martins degree shows over the weekend. 

First up we checked out the MA Communication Design show at the Mall Galleries, and then the BA Graphic Design exhibition at the Bargehouse (just behind the OXO Tower on the Southbank). Both shows were really professional, and had some great bits of work, including Yukinori Motoya's Japanese Icons series, pictured above. The BA show extends across three floors of the Bargehouse, which is a simply fantastic space. 

Check out Alistair's pick of his favourites from each show over on this Flickr set. There are some weblinks with each image, though only a few of the students have got their stuff together on them so far. 

Both shows run until Thursday, full details here.

Early Designs

Our friend Andy over at Now in Colour has set up an interesting project that kicks off today.

He's been asking the great and the good of the creative industry to post up their old college work, as part of what he calls a ‘raindrop idea’, where the individual contribution is small, but where it collectively has a noticeable effect. (A good example of this being done really well is the Blog Action Day that we took part in back in October.)

Alistair’s picked a couple of projects from his time at Central Saint Martins, where he studied on the BA Graphic Design course:

First up is Bob Book, a story about “the brief life and untimely death of an elastic band”. I put this together in my first year at St Martins, and it’s still one of my favourite projects. The typography is rubbish (14pt Arial? I didn't have a clue...), and the mix of photography and hand drawn images is peculiar, but it’s got real heart to it, and that just about carries it through. And I’m still quite proud of the binding, which is just a series of elastic bands stretched across two corrugated plastic boards. You can see the full book on this Flickr slideshow.

Next up is a series of pictures I took of Simon Pegg and Jessica Stephenson when they were writing the second series of the TV show Spaced. It was just a great way to spend a day. As a project it reminded me that there’s a real freedom you have at college to get in touch with people, and it’s hugely important to make the most of that.

You can see more work from other creative folk at the Early Designs Flickr group.

Jacob Holdt

We made our way over to the Photographers’ Gallery on Saturday to check out the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize.

Four photographers were nominated for the prize, and it was won by Esko Männikkö from Finland for his retrospective show Cocktails.

But for us, the real winner is Jacob Holdt, nominated for his recent book United States 1970 – 1975, published by the rather brilliant Steidl.

Here's what they have to say about the book:

In the early 1970s, when Jacob Holdt first arrived in the US with 40 dollars in his pocket, he planned to travel quickly across the country to South America. But, totally shocked and fascinated by what he discovered, he ended up staying five years. His family could scarcely believe the letters he sent them detailing the poverty he saw, so his father sent him a cheap amateur camera in order that Holdt could send home proof of his claims. Living as a vagabond, selling his blood twice a week, hitch-hiking over 100,000 miles, he depicted an incredible and unique portrait of America and its underclass. He befriended whomever offered him a lift in their car and a lift frequently became an offer to stay a few days. He never said no and ended up visiting more than 350 homes where he photographed the people he lived with: poor blacks from the ghettos, millionaires, junkies, members of the Ku Klux Klan. Holdt’s images echo the pictures of the F.S.A. and together with the work of another Dane Jacob Riis, his series have widely inspired the film-maker Lars von Trier for the movies Dogville and Manderlay.

The book features a selection of images from his American Pictures series, originally published in a bestselling book in 1977, and toured worldwide as a slideshow ever since. He’s an incredible man – just check out his curriculum vitae.

The show runs at the gallery until 6 April 2008, and is really fantastic. If you get a chance, go.

Two shows, one (stolen) space

The folks at StolenSpace are keeping themselves mighty busy at the moment, consistently putting on some of the best shows in town.

Up next is the Draw show, which starts this Friday, 7 March, at their gallery at The Old Truman Brewery. The show originated at the Fuse Gallery in New York way back in October 2006 - you can check out a full gallery of the work over here. The exhibition features over 300 bits of pencil based goodness from the likes of D*Face, KAWS, HR Giger and EINE, and runs till 23 March.

Not content with that, StolenSpace is also putting on Lightness of Being, an exhibition of light based portraits by the wonderful Chris Levine, including some of the work created while working on his portrait of HRH (shown above).

(There's a good interview with him over on the Creative Review blog.)

It promises to be a great show, and kicks off on Friday 14 March, in an extra 13,000 sq feet StolenSpace have taken over at The Old Truman Brewery especially for this exhibition. It's only on until 23 March, so don't dawdle.

Massive hair growth

Like just about every other designer in town, we've been loving the image bookmarking site Ffffound! which started up this year. We're not heavy users (you can see our meagre selection here), and there's a fair amount of crossover with our blog; but we do love the way it seems to represent the visual zeitgeist.

Our favourite image so far is the shot above, taken by Flickr user Dubstyle (also known as the illustrator and designer Luke Worley) as part of his Whiskerino set.

Whiskerino is an annual beard growing competition, curated by web designer Michael Eades. The rules are that you start cleanly shaven on November 1 2007, and then grow your beard, agreeing not to shave in any way for the duration of the competition, which runs until at least February 29 2008. Contestants then post an image of their growth to the site at least once a week, with various themed image days to spice things up. It's mainly happening stateside, with only six beards going on in the UK so far.

It might be a bit late for Blighty to catch up now, but how about next year gentlemen?

The Girls

Our friends Andrea Blood and Zoe Sinclair, collectively known as The Girls, have a fabulous new show opening at the Burlington Club in Mayfair next Wednesday, 5 December.

They create fantastic photographic self-portraits, part Cindy Sherman, part Gilbert & George, all tinged the sensibility of the League of Gentlemen. They've bagged a stack of awards, and are thoroughly wonderful. Go see.

Good Golly Miss Molly

Well, if it isn't just a huge weekend for getting a fix of furniture fun.

Having already posted about the Mid Century Modern show in Dulwich, we've just been sent the utterly delicious catalogue for the Modernism from a California collection auction at Christie's on Sunday, and it's a compendium of wonders.

How's about an Eames RAR Rocking Chair? Or four photos of Eames chairs, estimated at the same price as one chair? Or five original De Stijl posters by William Sandberg for a Gerrit Rietveld exhibition? A collection of eighty luggage labels from the USA circa 1920? A Theo van Doesburg lithograph? A pair of Frank Gehry's corrugated cardboard Wiggle chairs? Or perhaps a collection of twenty four microphones (pictured above)?

You know in the Simpsons when Homer tips his head back and drools if anyone mentions doughnuts? That's us right now.

Signs of age

Flickr user Roadsidepictures has a plethora of fantastic pictures, including a found set of old Polaroids of signs in Washington, all taken by an employee of a sign company.

There's lots of other great stuff on his pages, including a huge Ephemera collection.

Flickr: built for Fridays.

(Thanks to Yvette for the linkage)

Pictobrowser

We're very much liking this application – it lets you choose some of your Flickr shots (by set, tag or group), and post them on any blog or website. And it's ridiculously simple too.

To get your version, all you have to do is click the Info link on the bottom right, create your code, and paste it into your blog or website.

Good work interwebs.

Via Coolhunting