Miles Aldridge

Miles Aldridge is a fashion photographer, taking photos for the likes of Vogue. His work is artisitic and captivating.

http://www.milesaldridge.com/

Big Brother Logo's

Following a few links through other's blogs... I came across a site which James & Joe suggested to take a look at.

I'm a great follower of BB... and as bad as it is... it is giving people a chance to design which is never a bad thing!

I found this logo which somebody has created which I think is brilliant! It's an eye created out of water bubbles and in a fish bowl. The idea of the eye is that Big Brother is always watching... and the concept of looking into a fish bowl... sort of ironic.

Leeds Urban Development

The urban development in Leeds is happening so quickly... as soon as a plan is authorized, another is being proposed. Lumiere is currently under construction on Wellington Street, Leeds which will be the tallest residential building in Europe. The new face of Leeds is commencing. I hope that the contemporary will highlight the historic.

Wellington Place is the most significant urban regeneration project in the region, a 2 acre city centre site that will provide in excess of three million square feet of offices, residential, hotel, retail and leisure uses with the added appeal of galleries and inspiring public spaces. All this plus the extensive frontage to the River Aire.

Reusing Design

Guerilla anti-drug campaign for the Berlin Suchthilfe, the Berlin drug awareness organisation. Translation: Not all drugs are as harmless as music.

Whether or not the Berlin Suchthilfe will be taken to court over using the apple ads or not, it's an interesting way of communicating to it's target audience. It's taking a market which has already been cacooned and targetting them by using visuals similar to those which they relate to, to tell a serious message.

ipod ads

Apple continues to inspire and amaze me. They outway any other mp3 player by design. They have become such a global brand and they make technology 'cool'. I remember their TV adverts from only a few years ago; simplistic and colourful, but they have since developed this same concept... the same idea into something more interesting and playful.

The most recent advert reaches out to other music listeners but doesn't exclude anybody.


The latest i-pod advert:



Apple have branched out and they advertise in conjunction with artists such as Paul McCartney and Eminem. I think it's brilliant when their doesn't need to be a message and only the 'look' of an advert and a logo to get the message across.

Eminem with i-pod:

Design Museum Website

I stumbled across this website which is really interesting. There are exhibitions and talks on throughout the year so worthwhile keeping an eye on it.

If the first years are doing the type brief again the following may be of interest... or in fact for anybody who is interested in type.


17 July – 02 September

The 50 exhibition, in the Design Museum Cafe, imagines the world from the perspective of Helvetica itself, highlighting events and inspirational things it has seen - and been influenced by - during its lifetime from the lunar moon landing to the first British nudist camp. For the exhibition, 50 leading designers and graphic artists from around the world have joined forces with Blanka and Candy to create a visual diary of 50 separate events from the last half century. The exhibition is a birthday party that pays homage to Helvetica’s massive influence on our visual culture.

(Design Museum
Shad Thames
London SE1 2YD)



Useful Website

http://www.designmuseum.org/digital/introduction

Scott Wade

Dust Art

Fascinating stuff... It's amazing what people can do with what's in front of us from day to day living. It would interest me for this guy to do some sort of promotional art or something relating to the advertising and marketing industry.

The detail is incredible and his work sort of reminds me of Andy Goldsworthy because as soon as it rains, or as soon as you need to use the car, the art has dissapeared. It also brings into the equation... what would we do without cameras. They catch moments in time which would be forgotten and not as widely seen.



Poker Dogs: Wet Dogs

Greyt Britiain

Whilst researching last year for the 'manual' brief, I came across something which was really inspiring but I can't manage to track it down.

Concept:

It was called 'Greyt Britain' and it was similar to a pantone colour chart except it was all different colours of grey, linked to Great Britain.

I find both the name and concept interesting because of it's relevance to the course.

If anybody knows who did it and where I can find some more info, I would greytly appreciate it!

Simpson Movie Promotion

A doughnut-brandishing Homer Simpson has been painted next to the giant on the hill above Cerne Abbas, Dorset, to promote the new Simpsons film.

Pagans have pledged to perform "rain magic" to wash away a cartoon character painted next to their famous fertility symbol - the Cerne Abbas giant.

My View:

I think that this is a clever way of advertising and promoting the film because it is controversial but humorous at the same time. They have used biodegradable paint so when it rains, Homer will be washed away.

Toyota

I think that this advert for the Toyota Yaris is brilliant!!! The hillariaty is heightened by the fact that the woman is protective over the car... not the man!

Jennifer Steinkamp

Visual Music

Jennifer Steinkamp is an internationally exhibiting installation artist who works with new media and video in order to explore ideas about architectural space, motion, and perception.


(Aria, 2000, Las Vegas)


(Loop, 2000, Washington DC)

Jennifer Steinkamp uses light projection and music in rooms to create calming and dream-like motions. When taking photos of the art, people position themselves within the frame and they become part of the art, something I'm sure Steinkamp intends.

Many famous artists have used music to put themselves into an emotional state and then their art reflects this, so Steinkamp's work is a progression of this in terms of using music and images together. Her choice in music and image are homogeneous but it would be interesting to see how conflicting music and image would be perceived.



Jennifer Steinkamp, SWELL, 1995, computer generated projection and installation with soundtrack by Bryan Brown, the Musuem of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles




I find the work really mesmorizing. The best art is that which is calming and electrifying at the same time.

To see Dervish in motion:

http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://www.artsjournal.com/man/images/Steinkamp.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.artsjournal.com/man/archives20041101.shtml&h=240&w=350&sz=39&hl=en&start=7&sig2=eox_kvuNq_K_11CxqKYX1A&um=1&tbnid=k-YAYHmXunNTYM:&tbnh=82&tbnw=120&ei=wjqXRueCJ6ba0gSUrfjTCg&prev=/images%3Fq%3DJennifer%2BSteinkamp%26svnum%3D10%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG

Yuken Teruya

After seeing Peter Callesen's work using paper I found these works by Yuken Tertuya. He creates these sculptures out of fastfood takeaway bags and paper shopping bags. The Okinawa-born, New York-based artist creates treescapes by meticulously cutting intricate shapes from these bags. His work is fuelled by his political commentary on the environment and globalisation, and is informed by his Okinawan heritage.

Welt Kompakt

A series of advertisements from a German newspaper where they have used the tagline "Big News. Small Size" backed up by transforming the faces of a baby to look like figureheads of the world including George bush and the Pope. I'm assuming that the newspaper is a small size one.

Economist

Another clever idea from the Economist! The idea being that if you read the economist your brain will grow... the same as blowing up the balloons. Just wondering whether this was an advertisment or whether the balloons were given away with the economist.

Audi RS 6

I think that this ad campaign is really clever by Audi. I don't know how clear the photo is but basically Audi have placed ads in front of Speed Cameras saying "Say Cheese". (The Audi RS6 is a fast car). The concept behind the ad is clever and humorous. It would be great to see the advert looking more like a road sign though.... don't know about the legitimacy though!

The Art of Knitting!

I was watching Graham Norton on TV the other week and one of his guests (Alison Murray) was in the process of knitting an entire house and its contents for charity. Everything in the house was made from wool and stuffing.

About 500 women from across the UK, USA, Canada and Spain sent knitted contributions to the house which goes on show on Friday until 20 September. It just shows that people can pull together to create something wonderful.

So, in my inquest to find out more about the process of making a house from wool, I came across a few other people who have been creating similar things.



This house is made by Tasmanian knitters.

This community art project grew out of nursing homes in and around Hobart, Tasmania. Residents of the homes have some terrific skills and memories, and their carers were looking for some useful projects for them to be involved in that would have both physical, mental and social benefits.




"The knitting site" is a device for remembering, say the ladies who made this house in London.

They had met weekly to prepare, and continued on the day of the event, as the house unfolded before the crowd’s eyes. As they said: “Some people think that the act of building should be hidden behind screens, we like building site stuff - nets and ropes and scaffolding. We knit with them. And while some people think knitting is to remain behind walls, we build walls that are knitted. The knitting site is about bringing the backstage to the fore."

Minnie Weisz : I am a camera

Minnie has turned to some of the oldest, most rudimentary optical technology. Her latest show features photographs of rooms in the now empty 1854 Great Northern Hotel in London, and in most of the images she has turned the spaces into giant pinhole cameras.

The technique is simple. "You just black out the windows with paper or whatever, and make a pinhole. And then you're inside a camera, with the image of the outside projected in it. You can see people walking over the ceiling. It's quite eerie."

One of the photographs, "Room 418", is particularly disconcerting: you don't immediately notice that it is upside-down because, in this state, the projected image appears the right way up. The flat roofs of what look like railway sheds hover over the floor like a daylight hologram, and a wire coathanger rises, from a hook, like a cheap aerial.



Minnie Weisz approaches her subjects, her site-specific works as an artist, as one might approach an archeological dig. She unearths historical references to the buildings she chooses to inhabit, cataloguing these spaces in the context of history, myth and local lore. Weisz uses photography, projections and found material to explore the unseen narratives of the building, engaging with the present, past, real and imagined. Weisz’s application of pinhole technique, allows the building to become an eye, viewing an everchanging outside world which is captured and recorded by the interior and in turn awakening memories and stimulating dreams. A dialogue unfolds between Weisz’s response to the subject and the subject’s response to its surroundings. These processes of reflection and projection, in Weisz's images raise questions about the identity of space, and of real and imagined interior worlds.

Weisz’s work engages the organic haphazardness of London’s architecture, re-mapping memory within the cityscape, offering its secrets to us as we navigate through dreamscapes layered with history and fantasy. Time, memory and place in flux: luminous artefacts, gestures to past and present. Weisz’s rooms and buildings watch each other , in silent witness and look back at us.

(above information taken from other websites)

I like this art because as the weather and time of day changes outside, so does the art. It's such a simple traditional method with eerie results! Seeing this makes me want to have a go... so watch this space!!!

Peter Callesen

I came across this guy from somebody else's post. It's really taken me back to when I was younger and cut out snowflakes from paper. I loved opening the paper up after cutting it to find out what sort of pattern you have made!

It strikes me that such awesome shapes and figures can be made from a simple sheet of paper.



Some of the works e.g. the birds escaping, remind me of M.C. Escher's work where you are faced with something which isnt real but it's coming to life. The art is jumping out from the paper, it's trying to escape or is about to. There is a sense of reality.




His practise is precise and there is a lot of attention to detail, e.g. 'the other side' (door) where on one side the foot prints have been cut out and placed on the other side.



I am also posting what looks like a sheet of paper. I didn't quite get this one at first ; it almost looks like a cop out in comparison to the others but actually very clever, in my opinion. The piece cut out is a sandcastle on the beach and the curl in the paper is a wave! So simple but brilliant at the same time!

A-Style Logo

I came across an article about this photo and one comment was "I love Logo's that make me smile".

Being blonde... I didn't get it at first, which is why I think that this is fantastic! I looked and I looked, and then it clicked!

As the other person said.. It made me smile! It's great when companies aren't so stuck up and can have a laugh with design and bring a few smiles to people's faces!


http://www.astyle.it/ - The website is pretty cool as well. Different to anything I have seen before. It's interactive and a juxtaposition of illustration and photography. Don't quite understand it but the story is... interesting!!!

Rouzbeh

Rouzbeh is uniquely poised to elevate the merging of photography and graphics to new levels of artistry.His background is as an artist & designer who studied Visual Arts, Design, Illustration & Photography at the prestigious fashion school “Modeschule Hetzendorf” & University of Applied Arts “Hochschule fur Angewandte Kunst” in Vienna, Austria enhanced by his journeys across many countries.



He is an emerging artist whose photography and graphics inspire a new genre called “PhotoGraphix”.




His artistic style is an attempt at harmonizing various dimensions of perception, blending apparent opposites through the kaleidoscope of colors and a myriad of expressions that interconnects the outer and the inner, the physical and the metaphysical, reflecting the diversity and multiplicity of existence as an essential part of one reality.



These pieces are inspiring because they convey so much emotion, yet they are so simple. I think many designers strive for the same reaction but try to hard and complicat things. For me, the eyes say it all in these pieces. This idea of 'PhotoGraphix' is the same sort of idea as Vault49. It's fantastic! The way that the two interact with each other it vital for a piece to work.

I also think that the design and impact of Rouzbeh's work is iconic and they form an identity.

Vault49

Vault49 was founded in May 2002. Vault49 quickly emerged as one of the UK's leading and most innovative design companies, with a broad and professional portfolio which spans typography, illustration, and art direction.



They have quickly developed a reputation for creating consistently innovative work for an international client list, and are achieving sustained coverage in the best of the UK and worldwide design press.



The spirit of collaboration is at the heart of all work produced by Vault49, and they firmly believe that the most exciting designs are not produced in isolation, but in the middle of a buzz created by many creative minds working together.

Vault49's clients include: Dazed & Confused; EMI; MTV; VH1; Greenpeace; Express; Orange; FUBU.



I like their work because of the collaboration between photo (reality) and illustration (imagination). The illustration interacts with the emotions of the photo and Vault49 really emphasis what it going on in the picture through use of colour and layout.

Part of the pieces remind me of Si Scott's work of whom I really admire.

I think that this is what contemporary art is about in the early 21st century.

Sean Henry

I came across Sean Henry's work purely incidently. At first, from a distance they look like real people but closer up you can see the detailing of the bronze. The sculptures took me by suprise because you usually see bronze, plastic, glass, stone etc sculptures but the fact that these are bronze and Henry has painted over them is really weird. If he is hiding the bronze, it makes me wonder why he could make them out of this material.

The location of these sculptures, for me, is vital. They mean so much more when they are placed. 'Standing Man (italia)' provokes more questions about who he is and what he is doing when he was relocated to Burton Place in London.




Henry revealed that it doesn't enter his head what people might think or take from the sculptures when he is making them. For him, it is all about what it does for him. There is something lifeless about the sculptures because they are slightly larger than the average human being. This makes casting rather more difficult for Henry. From a distance they look the same as a human being but as you get closer, it heightens the sense of reality when you realise how tall they are.



Some of the sculptures, such as 'Catafalque' have been moved around to various locations. The one from London doesn't work for me. It detracts from the meaning of the sculptures. I think that they work best in locations where you might find them, then you can ask why are they there, what are the doing. For this sculpture to be on a platform - it is quite obvious it is just there for show, to to intrigue peoples emotions. When it is in the grass, this is where it comes to life.




I think that it is a shame that this figures face doesn't have more emotion. If I was to change this sculpture, I would have more emphasis on how the eyes would squint in reaction to the brightness of the sun. Currently, this figure looks quite morbid.