Noisy Decent Graphics

The Rhizotron at Kew Gardens

Rhizotron originally means "clear-walled chamber through which one can observe roots as they grow". This version is a little different as it climbs through and over the tree tops at Kew Gardens.

I was impressed by how it seemed to fit into it's surroundings. It would have been an obvious (aesthetic) choice to make it from wood but I prefer it in metal (iron?). It looks stronger for a start. I know wood can be as strong as metal, but I can imagine that those of a vertigo disposition would feel better knowing it was made from metal. The rust colour looks organic and even bolts have a natural feel about them.

I loved the way they've mirrored the look of tree branches for these supports. It's got that nice exciting engineering Brunel look about it. It doesn't look threatening. It looks cool.

The view are pretty cool too and you get to walk amoungst the trees. Little plaques tell more about the trees as you pass and there's even a Bluetooth game.

Actually the Kew website is pretty good and there is a good interactive map of all the trees. Exactly the sort of thing Kew should be doing. Good.

All good fun. At the moment it's a temporary structure but I hope they make it permanent. More pictures on Flickr.

I liked this as well. Reasonable, common sense, non preaching, on brand message, environmentalism. One last full stop wouldn't hurt though.

The Fastest Art In Town

I went to see Martin Creed's Work No. 850 the other day.

A person runs through the main gallery of Tate Britain, as though their life depended on it, roughly every 30 seconds.

Is it art? No. Is it a great, fun, interesting way of getting people into an art gallery? Yes. So is it art? God knows. It is however tremendous fun and it's free. Therefore I commend it to the House.

(More pictures on Flickr.)

Richard Rogers at the Design Museum

The Richard Rogers exhibition at the Design Museum is very good. You should go. It's full of those lovely models that architects make.

Those models must make for brilliant "pitch theatre".

But it's also got great typography. Those great big signs are gorgeous. Really lovely.

But you should go because, in a bit of a shock for the Design Museum, the other exhibitions are worth seeing too. There's some very cool, interesting and playful stuff from Industrial Facility and there are some colourful photographs from Tim Walker. And of course they let you take lots of pictures.

Esquire Covers Exhibition

I went to the Esquire Magazine Covers exhibition at The Hospital the other day. Don't waste your time going, it's shit.

They've taken great covers from the sixties, the Muhammad Ali, the Vietnam one, the Dustin Hoffman one etc, and recreated them with, er, people from the fashion industry. It's not even well done. Bad photographs and bad Photoshop work. It's quite insulting to be honest.

Anyway. One of them is good and that's this recreation of the Warhol cover with Paul Smith. You can buy these exclusive, limited edition covers at the exhibition and so I bought the Paul Smith one. It cost £5 and came in a handy, foil blocked paper bag. Maybe that's the way forward for magazines - put them in over elaborate bags and raise the prices?

There's a more sensible discussion about these over on Jeremy's blog.

Golden Anniversary Celebration McDonald's

Chicago is home to the Golden Anniversary Celebration McDonald's. Essentially a huge McDonald's built to celebrate their 50 year anniversary.

The angle of the photograph isn't quite right, but the building sits under two huge arches which, when viewed from the right angle, form one massive golden M.

I was told they had an exhibition upstairs of every toy they'd ever given out with a Happy Meal. This isn't correct, but they do a have an interesting display of memorabilia through the ages. I'm no McDonald's fan, but there's some fascinating stuff here.

There are some pretty funky arches on that cup.

I wonder how many they've sold now?

I bet that Rubik's Cube is worth a few coins now. More pictures, inevitably, on Flickr.

From Russia To Flickr

I went to the Royal Academy's From Russia exhibition the other day.

It was packed. Too packed really, but don't let that put you off. It's a great exhibition. Lots of blockbusters like this  Matisse.

That bloke in the glasses is a happy chap, isn't he?

The best bit for me was this model of Tatlin's Tower. It reminded me of this secret project. In fact maybe that secret project should be called Cardigan Bay's Tower?

Another thing I'd not seen were these paintings by Kazimir Malevich. He coined this excellent expression, "the zero of form". I'm not 100% sure what that means but I like it none the less. To me it means stripping an idea down to the bare essentials. The zero of form. The opposite of Peter Saville.

Here's the zero of form of some Russian icons. The kind you find in a Russian church. They appeal to the graphic designer in me.

Continuing the Russian theme there's another great exhibition on at the moment. It features the work of Alexander Rodchenko and it's on at The Hayward gallery on the Southbank.

We've designed the minisite for this show and there's a great little competition where you can upload your Rodchenko style photos to the Flickr group. The latest pictures get pulled through to the ministe and the 10 best pictures will be exhibited in the foyer of The Hayward from 14 – 27 April, in the final weeks of the exhibition, which is pretty cool.

The Flickr group is getting some decent traffic and if you ask me (and I'm a bit biased) it's a good, sensible idea and an appropriate combination of Rodchenko, Flickr and the web. If you're asking.

Both exhibitions are well worth a visit.

Stereoscopes

Tom and I popped down to the Photographers Gallery last week for a signing of the new Magnum book. I didn't buy a copy, and I should have done. I should have done. And I could have got it signed by 5 or 6 Magnums. Damn.

Still. Whilst we were there they had an exhibition called Seeing Is Believing, which is about all sorts of things, but which has some fantastic old stereoscopes.

I don't have any big point to make here, I'm not advocating the arrival of wifi enabled stereoscopes or anything. I'm just saying that old stereoscopes are a good thing. If a little fragile and fullstopless.

Ivan Chermayeff

To end Beauty Week here's some pictures of the wonderful work of Ivan Chermayeff who spoke at the D&AD lecture on Wednesday night.

No words, just amazing work.

Normal, normal service will return next week.

Exhibition Review: Friendly Fire - Jonathan Barnbrook

When I went to this I should have mentioned that I also went to Friendly Fire - Jonathan Barnbrook.

I don't like Jonathan Barnbrook's work. I find it too style driven and Ray Gun for my liking. I don't like Adbusters either.

Still, he's a very good graphic designer and he does lots of interesting work. Squeezed behind the Hadid exhibition is an exhibition of his work and I really enjoyed it. It helped that lots of the work was explained better in the 'exhibition' context. Do yourself a favour and make a visit to both exhibitions soon.

There are some more pictures here.

Get some Z at the Design Museum by Henrietta Thompson

I went to see the Zaha Hadid exhibition at the Design Museum the other day. It's good. It's not just about the buildings, Hadid does some really interesting drawings and paintings. And she's one of those rare people who manage to make the finished product look like the concept sketches. You can see more pics over on Flickr.

My good friend Henrietta Thompson has been writing for the exhibition blog and she's spotted something I think you'll find interesting. Henrietta is a professional writer (for proper publications like Arena, Monocole, Blueprint and the Guardian) so the words are by her and the pics are by me.

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Get some Z at the Design Museum

Give us a “Z”! Give us an “A”! Give us an “H”! Give us an “A”! Zaha Hadid is the queen starchitect - the undisputed champion of signature architecture.

Critics and fans alike have long wondered where she finds her inspiration - where do her forms come from? Her architecture rarely fails to astonish, and yet it is always unmistakably her own. It has been attributed to her willingness to experiment with new technologies, her tireless pushing at the boundaries of materials and construction methods. Over and above all that, however, Zaha is an artist. And her conceptual approach begins by taking a long hard look at herself.

From the moment she could write her own name, Zaha has been creating masterpieces. Her trademark geometric Zs are almost certainly the starting point for every project, but it is perhaps only when we see all her buildings, paintings, plans and projects together that we can fully appreciate how she follows through with those perspective warping combinations of As and Hs. And every now and then she will surprise us with a beautiful sinuous D curve and a rare straight vertical I. There’s no doubt about it, this architect puts the “I” in “iconic”.

You can see more pics over on Flickr. This post also appears on the Zaha Hadid Exhibition Blog.

Open House 2007

I love Open House. Even if I have seen the logo somewhere before.

I love architecture and I love going to buildings that you don't normally get to see, I love London and, obviously, I love design. So Open House is right up my street.

Technically Open House is the name of an organisation that promotes appreciation and debate of the built environment in London. The organisation started in 1992 and I think the Open House London Weekend started later than that, but I could well be wrong. During Open House London Weekend, many famous, hard to access and residential buildings of architectural significance open their doors to the general public. For free. Fancy going to the top of the Gherkin? With Open House Weekend you can.

I moved to London in 1997 and for the first time in my Ten Year I went to Open House this weekend. For the previous years weddings, birthdays, holidays, more weddings and other such must attend events have stopped me attending Open House. Trust me, it's become a bit of a 'thing'. This year I finally made it.

An hour long queue of people wanting to see a small house in Peckham.

Something that I guess has changed in ten years is the advent of serious architecty property programmes like Grand Designs, serious as opposed to Changing Rooms etc. I hate these programmes.

I like architecture, I like design and like most Londoners I can sit and talk property prices with the best of 'em, but these shows leave me cold. I find them really boring. Another wet room - sigh. Another wall of glass bricks - sigh. Another standard two bed flat turned into a one and half bed apartment with the kitchen on the roof and the bedroom in the wet room - sigh. Oh shit we're £30k over budget, how did that happen? Etc etc etc.

I reliably informed by people whose opinions I trust that Grand Designs is the best of these programmes. The house shown below had won some sort of Best of Grand Designs Award.

I can see why. The house was brilliant. Really clever and interesting. (It has a retractable roof for fuck's sake!) The photos don't do it justice but the house was squeezed into a piece of land that was 4 meters wide at one point. There were loads of really clever ideas.

There wasn't enough room for a proper bathroom so you slide back the bed and voila! There's a bath underneath.

Round the corner a bit and there isn't enough room for a sink, so you pull a drawer out and voila! There's a sink.

I don't want to be down about the house, it was brilliant. And it was really clever and it was really well done and well thought out. But it all just felt a bit, laboured. A bit hard work. A bath under a bed is a brilliant piece of design and engineering and it may even be practical, but isn't it just a bit - complicated?

I think there's a huge amount of visual comfort in seeing stuff laid out before you. Remember those beds that flip up into the wall? That's a good idea, but isn't it comforting to see your bed in the room? Wayne Hemmingway talked about this once, he said one of the reasons so many new housing estates were really ugly was because the British insisted on parking their cars right in front of their house so they can see them.

Like I said I don't want to slag the house off, but this whole Grand Designs sort of thing leaves me cold.

Open House isn't just about modern architecture. There are old buildings too. This house is from the 1700's. It was lovely. But this really brought home the Openess of Open House.

This is a picture of someone's clothes, in that person's house on a public website. It's a bit weird isn't it? Maybe it isn't.

I also went to look at the HQ of the Thames River Police. Not clever, not good deisgn, not prying. Just jolly good fun.

There are a few more photos on Flickr.

The Science of Spying

Went to the excellent Science of Spying the other day. I had to really, after seeing Fiona's talk here.

And it was good. Very good. It's lots of fun and it's playful and informative and you know those Pixar movies where they say "it's great for kids on a kid level but it has so much to offer to adults too", well it's like that too.



The graphics are great and strike a nice mix between Orwellesque knowing sci-fi, modern graphics and just ,sort of, clear information.



I particularly liked these shadows which reflect that style you see all the time, most recently seen in Iain's Best Thing Online Ever, Fuzzwich.



These, of course, are the undoubted graphics star of the show. Enough has been said about these already, but they are bloody gorgeous. Who wouldn't want one at home?



Last but not these are these cute little POS devices. A nice way of displaying the obligatory souvenirs.



Some more graphics focused pictures here. Well worth a visit.

The Haçienda: Urbis Exhibition Review by Tom Shaw

I've only ever had one guest post before and that was from the unstoppable Marcus Brown.

Here's another one. Tom, one of my partners at TDC, went to see The Haçienda exhibition in Manchester  last weekend and I thought you guys would like to read a little review and look at some pictures.

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The Haçienda: Urbis Exhibition Review

It all started with my sister, like all people with an older sibling, they tend to dictate what we grow up listening to. Being 2 years older, she was always first with fashion and music. The 80s were a pretty special time - and Acid House was my Punk. My sister had the DMs with big safety pins, oversized secondhand jeans and Smiley Face tees. She also had a boyfriend who was very into the scene, bought all the records, and took turns on the decks at the local sticky floored nite spot, and went to the Haçienda.

I was 15 when I first heard about the Haçienda - that was 1988, the 'Second Summer of Love', everyone had smiley tee's, jeans were getting baggier, mens hair getting longer and the sun kept shining. I struggled to get into most clubs locally - I looked so young even with fake i.d. they turned me away! I was never asked for i.d. ever to get into the Haçienda, once when being searched at the door, a bouncer took my passport (my i.d. for the night) from inside my pocket... "Alright son, where you off then, on yer 'olidays... Ha ha ha".

Walk through the world famous Fac 51 doors at the Urbis exhibition and you get a really good display of what the Haçienda was all about, grouped both chronologically and thematically, it contains just about everything and anything from the history of the club.

There is a really great family tree which links all the people and events back to the club.

Previously unseen video footage showing the construction of the club, alongside a giant print of Tony Wilson, Peter Saville and Alan Erasmus,  a small amount of early Factory items, setting the scene for the Haçienda, and the visual style of the club.

You then get a great slice of design through the years, with early sketched visuals through to art work and finished items.

Alongside the 2D items, there are numerous videos to view - a whole room is The Fall in performance, as well as original scratch videos by Claude Bessy and Swivel.

One of my favorite items displayed had to be the 'original' neon bar sign for the Kim Philby Bar.

I thought I knew all the design done for the Haçienda, but I found items I had never seen, one of which was the all gold poster for Haçienda90 - a lush print of gold on gold, no copy other than the title...

Also featured are light boxes with Madonna's first UK appearance, a wall of logos, axonometric drawings of the club and lets not forget - FAC51-Y3 The Haçienda 25th Anniversary trainers designed for Y3 by Peter Saville and Ben Kelly.

The exhibition also traces the impact the club had in shaping the economic and urban development of the city.

A final, nice tough was the graphics and items that were created for the crew working on the film TwentyFourHourPartyPeople - Crew tees, invites to after show parties and viewing of the premier.

More pictures:

Global Cities: Tate Modern

I went to the Global Cities exhibition at the Tate Modern t'other day. On the recommendation of Lauren.

It's great, really good.

Scale, scale, scale. It has this really good scale thing going on. It's tall and narrow and crowded, y'know, like a city. (It's also free which is not at all like a city but bloody brilliant all the same.)

Graphics (by Pentagram) are really part of the exhibition. Integral to it, as you can see below.

It opens with this brilliant film which I think you can also see on the website, scroll down. There are some fascinating and useful facts. Dan and Matt would love it.

But the real star of the show are these 3D visualisations of city density. They're amazing. Dynamic, representative, appropriate. Worth the trip alone.

The other thing that struck me was how quickly these satellite style of images have entered the graphic language of 'city'. How familiar they seem now, when, visually, they're actually very unreal. You never actually see a city like that.

It's hard to explain what the exhibition is about. This Flickr set should help. Just go.

I saw a Degas on the way to work

And I saw a Constable too. All part of a campaign called The Grand Tour by the National Gallery, "A collection of priceless paintings set free around the streets of London".

Pretty bloody good it is too. More details here.

The Unknown Monet: Pastels and Drawings

The other day I went to the Monet exhibition at the Royal Academy.

It's good. Very good. Much better than the lame, predictable poster for the show.

I've had an affection for Monet and the Royal Academy ever since my Mum took me to see the famous Monet in the 90's exhibition in 1990. Interestingly, Mum now says it was my reaction at seeing that exhibition that convinced her I was serious about this 'art thing'.

This new exhibition shows never seen before sketches and pastels from Monet, including some really early stuff and some preliminary sketches of some of his really famous works. It's a great exhibition and well worth a visit. It's small, but worth a visit.

There are some great caricatures that I didn't know Monet had started his career with. Alone they're not that stunning, but seen as the beginning to Monet's career they're fascinating.

Two pictures particularly struck me. They struck me because of their graphic qualities.

Seascape:Storm 1866

 

Towing A Boat, Honfleur 1864

Look at the drama. Look at the drama those simple compositions and simple colours convey (although you really have to visit the show to see the full effect). They're almost duotone images yet they're so rich in colour. The compositions are so simple, there's almost nothing in the pictures, yet the stories are so vivid. Really powerful stuff.

I love visiting art galleries. For me they're a huge source of inspiration - after all if you're a graphic designer the chances are you started out loving art and wanting to be some sort of artist. Art can teach you so much, light and dark, shape, form, spatial relationships, layering ideas, communicating messages, story telling and of course chiaroscuro.

Ladies who've just lunched.

One other thing about the exhibition. They had loads of Monet's sketch books which were fantastic, but obviously you couldn't touch them. So instead there was an interactive display. Most art galleries interactive things are shite. Complete bollocks. But this one was brilliant. You could flick through the pages and you could rotate them and you could zoom in and look at pages in really close detail. Brilliant.

A bad photograph taken by a bad cameraphone of a brilliant interactive display of a brilliant sketchbook.

Go and see the exhibition.

One Secret Is To Save Everything

More here.

A decent car design

I saw this car at a thing I went to the other day. I fully intended to give you an in depth NDG review, but I kind of forgot.

No bother, Beeker was there and she will explain all.

 

Only one weekend left

Is this graphic design?

(Before we get started let me restate that this is a blog about graphic design. I make no case for or against the political issues pictured below. There are plenty of political blogs and if you're interested in that sort of thing you could do worse than start here. OK. Pantones to the ready.)

Take a look at this. Is it graphic design?

It's a poster, it's been thought about, it's been considered. Not as obviously 'designed' as Lennon's anti-war posters but that type still fills that space on purpose. The colour has been used to highlight the message. The big text shows awareness that the poster will be read from a distance. All these posters are communicating a message. All of them have been created to get across a clear message to a clear target audience. So, in effect, it's been designed, right?

Except it's not design. It's art. Have a look at this picture.

At the weekend I went to see Mark Wallinger's exhibition State Britain.

For those of you who don't know the back story goes something like this. Way back in July 2001 Brian Haw began a protest in Parliament Square, London. Bang outside the entrance to the Houses of Parliament. He was protesting against the economic sanctions in Iraq.

Obviously, given the events of the rest of 2001 Brian's protest grew and grew. And so did his site along the edge of Parliament Square. It's hard to capture in a photograph but the protest ended up looking something like this.

Better, more comprehensive, pictures here. 

On 23 May 2006, following the passing by Parliament of the ‘Serious Organised Crime and Police Act’ all 'unauthorised' demonstrations within a one kilometre radius of Parliament Square were banned. Shortly afterwards the police raided Brain's protest and took all the posters down bar a short 6ft area.

It so happens that the one kilometre radius bisects Tate Britain (bisects it a little too perfectly for my cynical eye) hence Wallingers recreation of Haw's protest and hence the title State Britain. Each one of the posters (which were destroyed by the Police) were recreated in Wallinger's studio and are now on display in the Tate Britain. So that's art, then?

But a minute ago we thought it was graphic design, didn't we. So is it both? At least we can agree it's a protest, right? What if Charles Saatchi buys it for £1 million, what is it then?

And what about the target audience we talked about earlier. Are they still the same people the posters were intentionally created for? From a visual point of view the posters look better against the lush green grass and historic stone of Parliament Square. The protest had an organic, scrap book feel to it that added to the vernacular of the weathered posters.

I was very quickly stopped from taking pictures by the security guards in the gallery. Why? An art exhibit that charges the police with curtailing freedom of speech but you can't take pictures of it. Does anyone else find that odd? I can take pictures to my hearts content in the Design Museum.

I left with more questions than answers, which is maybe the point of art, but I'm sure these weren't the questions that Wallinger, Haw or the creators of the banners had in mind.

What do you think?

Elevenses with the A list

One of the things I like about blogging is that it gets you out of the office every now and then.

This morning to The Breakfast Club (which is becoming a bit like the Coach and Horses but with planners) where I had coffee with 0.4% of advertising's A list. And some other people. I love those Coffee Mornings. If you haven't been please try and make the effort before the year ends. You won't regret it. Lots of nice people sat around chatting about whatever.

You do not need to be a planner. You do not need to have a blog. You do not need to have a Phd in Brands. You do not need to be there at 11 on the dot. You don't even have to say anything. Just turn up.

On the way back I spotted this on Earlham Street.

So I had a look inside.

It's small but interesting. Graphic designers (or maybe just Airside, I'm not sure) have created screen prints of song lyrics. And you can buy them for Christmas. Particularly good if you're loved ones have this. 

Fletchr

I know some of you (yawn, yawn) are getting bored of the Fletcher posts. If that's the case, look away now.

Millions (well, not millions literally) of people are arriving at this blog looking for pictures of the AF exhibition. Mostly this is because they're overseas and can't make it to London.

Here's two places where you can find superb pictures of the show.

1. Go to Flickr and search for Alan Fletcher.

2. Click on this excellent post over at City Of Sound.

You can look back now.