Photo: Oslove. (Taken with Instagram at Aker Brygge) http://t.co/POznoPD8
I like to keep a blog of projects that I'm working on, exhibitions that I have been to and work that has influenced me. You might like to subscribe to my blog or add it to your Google homepage.
This is some great photo restoration work from swedish artist Sanna Dullaway. She brings famous black and white photos to life by injecting quite realistic colour into them. I found her via reddit, where users were requesting that she restore old photos that they had of relatives.
And a few amazing reddit restorations…
As someone with more than a slight to moderate interest in infographics, and complex data displayed visually, I am completely enamoured with infosthetics.com, it’s such an interesting site plotting a host of obtuse and unusual facts in such an exciting way.
I found this one particular article about experiencing the strength and directions of wind flows, entitled wind map.
Surface wind data comes from the National Digital Forecast Database. These are near-term forecasts, revised once per hour. So what you’re seeing is a living portrait. Its absolutely fascinating, and it makes the wind look tangible and powerful. I only wish there was a wind map for Europe too!
This project was made by Martin Wattenberg and Fernanda Viégas, they are technologists and are constantly challenging themselves to think of new ways for people to think and talk about data.
Check out the wind map for yourself and be amazed!
If you’re not American, you probably get quite cheesed off at having to use Americanized spelling in your CSS. Spiffing CSS is a pre-processor that takes care of all that for you.
Just write your CSS using the Queen’s English, and then let Spiffing CSS convert it to the American spelling for you. No more having to write things wrong! Brilliant!
How did I not even know that one of my favourite illustrators David Shrigley has written, composed and directed an Opera about cookery called Pass The Spoon? How excited I am to hear more about it! How I wish I could see it somehow? – A feat proven difficult seeing as it was shown in Glasgow last year for only three nights and its only on this weekend in London as I am all the way across the North Sea in Norway eating smorgasbord. Shit. But I would really recommend any of you smelly old Londoners to go have a goosey ganders at it, its only 15 quid.
I really hope its good and not a bit crappy, as I always liked Shrigleys work for its simplicity, abrupt humour and charmingly rough style drawings that cheekily remind you of silly thoughts you had when you were a kid. Its hard to imagine how he will bring that simplicity and gaucheness to the stage.
It has a story to it whereby the ingredients are characters and they’re cooking a meal for a sinister guy (Mr Granules) who comes along at the end, and they’re all slightly scared of him. The list of characters in itself is hilarious.
She’s a lady in her 40s who’s a seasoned television professional and is a very good cook, and she’s sort of the leader of the show. Beneath the surface she’s also a little bit mad. She talks quite a lot of nonsense, but then a lot of the script is about nonsense. I think if there’s going to be an inspiration for these characters it’s from the kind of TV cookery shows that I wouldn’t normally watch. June’s somewhere between Fanny Craddock and Nigella Lawson, with some other people who aren’t TV chefs thrown in.
He’s June’s cohort in the kitchen. Phillip’s a bit stupid. He’s quite funny too, but he’s mostly a bit stupid. He has a slightly fractious relationship with June, but it’s not totally apparent. It’s more of a latent conflict. I guess if Phillip was a real-life TV chef he’d maybe be like Gary Rhodes – a little bit daft and doesn’t really know what he’s doing.
He’s a manic depressive alcoholic egg. He has pendulum depression, whereby he swings from joy to despair and back again. And he’s an ingredient – well, he’s actually the waiter, but he turns out to be an ingredient when he’s used as one later. But he’s an alcoholic and depressed before he finds out he’s going to become an ingredient. He does actually die – I don’t want to spoil it for anyone but there you go. You become an ingredient on account of being dead. His depression is neither here nor there thereafter.
The Banana is the voice of reason, the sensible character who contextualises some of the other characters’ irrational thoughts and steers them towards more reasoned behaviour. Mr Banana is also an ingredient but the important difference with Mr Egg is he is aware of being an ingredient prior to that, but nevertheless is very pragmatic about his position.
He’s the sinister character, the dinner guest everyone is cooking a meal for who appears towards the end of the show and everybody is slightly scared of him. For one thing he’s kind of a giant, so he’s a lot bigger than everyone else. He doesn’t really speak as such, he just moans and groans. He’s quite an unpleasant guy who does something mean to June.
He’s a proper opera singer. And he’s an average butcher – he sells meat products, as butchers do. He has a really fine voice, and he has a certain sort of ecclesiastical quality to him. The Butcher’s shop is like a place of worship, which makes him a minister of sorts. The Butcher is a giant in terms of his voice – he’s a got a big, big voice. He’s not as physically big as Mr Granules, who is a medical giant.
He’s a little sidekick of the Shit. Like the Root Vegetables, who also appear as characters, the Dung Beetle is a puppet. He has a few lines, but he’s basically a puppet operated by the Shit.
He’s a shit. He’s kind of a metaphysical character if you will, in the sense that he represents some kind of evil – or at least something very unpleasant – which is the consequence of something that happens in the course of the story. He’s called the Shit, and he is a shit. He doesn’t even really have a name, he just is what he is – he lives in a toilet.
The show follows a bizarre television cookery show, at times directly engaging with the audience. It teases with elements of pantomime, but doesn’t quite go there, the whole way through the bizarre performance is accompanied by equally unnerving singing and live music from Red Note Ensemble
Pass the Spoon is on at the Southbank Center in London this weekend.
Yes. Here is how you can make some fancy ass origami bows, from an A4 piece of scrap paper, or fancy origami paper if you are super rich. These are perfect for decorating presents or even your christmas tree.
They’re really satisfying and quick to make and theres no glue needed! Just your scissors to make a few cuts. (more…)
You can find a ton more lego reconstruction artwork here.
This coloured pencils installation is by helsinki based artist Jonna Pohjalainen.
Ive seen so many examples of yarnbombing online – I’m still yet to see some in real life. I wish I could see a tree all knitted beautifully like this.
French artist OaKoAk makes some really funny street art. Juxtapoz magazine did a nice little piece on him a while back too. Read it here.
I’m at Rygge airport with Queen Cox enroute to Dublin where we are going to spend tomorrow doing irish stuff and cute stuff like visiting galleries and going to watch Jeff Mangum in a small cosy venue. For once in my life I’m not getting a flight at an ungodly morning hour so I’m nice and awake and it gives me time to write a chunky bit of a blog post.
I just wanted to talk about the scribbled plans that I have on a bit of graph paper in my office, to do with my illustration work in the run up to summer. If i write it here then I definetly have to see it through and get the job done. You may have noticed that I have been a little quiet with posting work up recently, that’s because I’ve taken a bit of time off since Christmas to focus on some more personal illustration projects.
I think as a designer you should always try to do your personal projects as well as client work. It’s only really in your own projects that you are really truly free to try new stuff, unusual ideas and those crazy ‘what ifs’ that you think of in the middle of eating your cornflakes. You can go back to those strange avenues that you used to explore in university but with much more experience.
So right now I’m working on a set of illustrations based around pop culture, and celebrities. They’re coming along really well and I think another two or three weeks on them and they should be done. I’m thinking of selling these as large prints but also cards or something when they’re finished!
I’m also sketching out a layout for a little Cooking zine right now, I’m not going to say too much about that right now but it’s been adapted from a project that’s been on the back burner for too long. I’m making another small zine too, a small zine that celebrates the small things that we often take for granted (I haven’t thought of a good title for it yet). This basically started as I one day spent all my money on e-books about amazing facts about everyday things. I also bought a book about the amazing things that the body can do. So I’m illustrating my favourite findings and putting them in there. I like making zines, I remember when I used to run the Nexus Art Cafe zine. It was so nice to make them, and see everything in a little booklet.
So I’m hoping to get all of this done before May. It’s not that far away really, I should get a move on! In June I’m honoured to be a part of Oslo Comics Expo so I will be selling prints and zines and cards there. I’m really excited to be part of it, last year it was incredible and I met some amazing artists and bought an fabulous Flaming Lips screen-print.
As well as this work I have three other client jobs on the go right now and they are very exciting, I’m also still working full time at Hava Media and we are so very close at releasing a public beta of the app we are working on. We are all so excited but I have a lot of design work to do on the UI before I will let anyone see it!
On top of all that I have decided to run the 10k Oslo mini marathon this April so I will be (trying to) train hard over the next 6 weeks.
Life right now just consists of sleeping, working, eating, working, running, working, and cats! I’m ok with that as it means when July rolls around I can go on my holidays with a load of work done and hopefully a svelte body from all the running.
Ok I’m going to enjoy a day in Ireland before its back to work! Fred ut.
Today is the start of Filmfest Oslo 2012 and I’m really really excited about it. Its a 5 day festival in some of Oslo’s smaller and more independent cinemas. My freelance work will have to pile up on my desk until next week because I have decided that I’m going to sit back, relax, and take a well earned break watching a ton of delicious movies.
A few of the films I’m going to watch:
Comic-Con Episode Four: A Fan’s Hope
This documentary is a behind-the-scenes look at the fans who gather by the thousands each year in San Diego, California to attend Comic-Con, the world’s largest comic book convention. I know Matt will enjoy this, and the (not so) secret geek girl inside of me will too.
Into the Abyss
I really like Werner Herzog documentaries, I find them very cold and haunting. This film looks like no exception. Conversations with death row inmate Michael Perry and those affected by his crime serve as an examination of why people – and the state – kill. Cheery!
Take Shelter
Plagued by a series of apocalyptic visions, a young husband and father questions whether to shelter his family from a coming storm, or from himself.
These are just a few of the movies, I still have to make sure I have the right ones in the right order in my schedule. Pass the popcorn!
I didn’t post a music monday playlist last week because, well, I didn’t want to. Thats it really, deal with it! This week I have a playlist of some of my old favourite songs. These are basically some of my all time faves that I know all of the words to and even do a little dance alone in my studio to sometimes. I’m not very good at dancing, but not many people are so its all OK. I tend to just look like this. I’ve even done a little cheeky illustration of some maracas to make up for not posting a playlist last week.
In this playlist there is some nice stuff from Braid, Rainer Maria and Piebald as well as Tellison and Fun.‘s first ever release. Theres also some golden oldies with Phil Collins, Hall & Oates and Toto sandwiched in. I couldnt call this a ‘favourites’ playlist without also putting in some Neutral Milk Hotel and The Mountain Goats.
I would really like some feedback on whether you like my playlists, get in touch and tell me what you think or maybe even send me some of your own favourite songs.
Listen to my ‘Some Old Favourites’ Spotify playlist here.
You can also follow me on spotify.
Or maybe add me on Last.fm.
Here is another lovely #musicmonday spotify playlist for you to share and play. This week its valentines themed, so find lots of old classic love songs on there to woo that special someone with. I’m an old romantic and heart and love a good smoochy number. Send me your valentines playlists too so I can have a good listen!
What are you doing for Valentines day? I will be cooking up a nice big dinner for Matt Cox and watching a nice film with a bottle of red. This weeks playlist features loved up tunes from the likes of Peggy Lee, Ella Fitzgerald, Stevie Wonder and The Shirelles.
I love a ruddy good font, be that a nice readable serif or some wacky illustrated thing thats bordering on really being called a font at all. I used to be a comic sans hater but recently I have to hold up my hands and say, it ain’t so bad when its used correctly. Check out this blog which comic sans-ifies famous logos. Its pretty good. Oooh also, when I was in London the other week, I saw a Comic Sans church, painted in classic primary colours. Very etheral, it looked great!
1. Bree
This friendly upright italic is the serif cousin of TypeTogether’s award winning font Bree. Designed by Veronika Burian and José Scaglione, Bree was originally released in 2008 and it became an immediate success because of its originality, charming appearance and versatility. Bree Serif was initiated with the help of Google webfonts and will be expanded with more font styles later this year. The new serif style adds some extra flavour to this tasty font… and is for FREE.
2. Otama
I love the high fashion look of this one and the ampersand’s awesome. You may have noticed that this is the font that I use for all the headlines on my site. Thats how much I’m in love with it. Tim Donaldsons other type work is also excellent, and I like him becuase he is also a tea fanatic, much like myself.
3. Junction
Junction is a a humanist sans-serif, and the first open-source type project started by The League of Moveable Type. They’re expanding Junction to include additional non-English characters and also plan to expand Junction to include different weights, to make a complete family. I like this because its looks very modern but still quite elegant. So, you can use Junction to give an organic feel to your text while at the same time allowing it to display crisply & cleanly on a computer screen.
4. Duke
This is a typeface inspired by the sign for The Cup & Saucer, a coffee shop in Manhattan. It is designed by James T Edmonson and the free download comes with three versions of the font for all your designing needs. Actually, this one is possibly better suited to print design, but what the hey, I will stick it on my list becuase its very pretty.
5. Wisdom Script
Another great great font from James T Edmonson, availiable for free from the Lost Type Co-op. Wisdom Script was originally designed for Woods of Wisdom, a 50 part poster series on bad advice. Wisdom script is designed to be on a thirty degree incline to get perfectly vertical strokes.
Have you found any other great free or otherwise fonts recently? Let me know. I love finding new fonts to buy and play with.
Sally Renshaw
Sally Renshaw