The Magical Mastery of Blandini

Stumbled upon this beautifully designed & well written Little Book of 'Photo-shoppe' Trickery by Interbrand Australia, revealing tips, tricks and wizardry of Steve Bland, a skilled retoucher. Rebranded as 'The Great Blandini'. The piece is presented in victorian style photography and hand drawn calligraphic copy, showing tricks by the great man himself. From a woman sawn in half to the man who became a lion it is a beautiful and entertaining way of illustrating those tips us designer types really want to know. Tis on my Christmas list.

DIN DONG!

For anyone who gets obsessed with type to the point of actually being turned on by it - these are for you. Tart cards are the small flyers prostitutes advertise their services, and place in phone boxes. Yet these are designed with a twist. Using the names of well known typefaces, Fold7 design studio created these inviting you to be teased, spanked or dominated by a font. Although written with such wit, there is a serious cause being highlighted here. The sexual criminal underworld often subjects many to violent and horrid experiences. The Helen Bamber Foundation helps to rebuild lives broken by human rights violations, and an exhibition was held by all designers invited to take part in the project.

 

Monstrous update

I'd like to give a little nod and hoorah to the Ministry of Stories where I volunteer occasionally. It's been going for six months now and all involved have done a fantastic job in getting it up & running, spreading the word and making it it a huge success already. The Hoxton Street Monster supplies is fast becoming the place to go in the East end, (five-eyed creatures have been seen to queue up in an orderly fashion of a saturday afternoon). And the kids who visit benefit hugely from the many workshops held to assist their reading and writing skills and generally provide them with a fun place to go to get excited about books. The children from the drop-in sessions have published their first title, "Green Wobbly Things Dancing", which I myself found to make an entertaining night-time read. A group also worked on and produced a local newspaper, The Hoxton A.M. over the Easter break. Interviewing locals along the market and reporting on the history of the area.
The volunteers all got together for a knees up recently and were graced with entertainment from a variety of talented literaries. My favourite was a few performances by acclaimed poet/actress/writer/illustrator and all-round funny lady Laura Dockrill. She spoke and rhymed in character with such wit, it totally changed my sterotypical view of performance poetry.

Writers and design agency WeMadeThis have all been nominated in the upcoming D&AD awards in Writing for Design category for all the wonderful products and branding that make up the Hoxton Monster Supplies.

So please visit, volunteer & purchase anything from this wonderful project & keep the Monster work going!

mumbai taxi art

For anyone that was at glug a month or so ago, they will have seen the amazing video of the taxi art meticulously done in Mumbai - presented by Eliza of Creative Review. I had to put it up here as it was a nice to see a family run business still continued and brightening up the streets of the city. The craft that goes into making the graphic stickers is really quite amazing.

http://www.creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2009/march/the-cr-taxi

A Monstrosity of a project

"Howl if you want to come in" says the sign by the doorbell of the new Hoxton Street Monster supplies everyone is talking about. The shop on the back streets of East London is now home to a vast collection of products such as tinned fears, fanged floss, Human not and zombie mints  - essential items for any monster.

But behind the bizarre facade lies an important and worthwhile project. The Ministry of Stories has been set up by Andrew Hinton, Lucy Macnab and Ben Payne along with the design skills of We Made This as part of the 826 literacy project, which now has eight centres around the world. The oraganisation aims to help young people from 6 - 18 unleash their creativity through writing and storytelling. At the back of the shop is a beautifully designed space where kids take part in short workshops, and are mentored by volunteers to create their own Monster inspired stories.

The project has so far been supported by the likes of Nick Hornby and Zadie smith, as well as numerous volunteers offering their time in many ways. I for one am hoping to jump on board and offer my monster claws.

NIKE78 is an exciting new project created by Paul Jenkins and inspired by NIKE. Creatives were asked to challenge the function of the existing Nike trainer, using sport as their inspiration. From “Wacky Races” style characters, fish tank filled shoes, cake trainers to insole letters that travel the globe, the diverse collection will be showcased at the London Design Festival 2010. Check out more inspiring projects here.

Fire Kills Children!

Discovered this box of matches at home and love the original shout-about-the-product packaging. It's re-created everywhere these days in spoofs so it's nice to find a real piece. I especially love the very direct warning & illustration on the back.

Paul Rand

If you are into your graphic design here's a great animation put together by Imaginary forces to promote an exhibition of the late Paul Rand. It's a clever collage of the seminal fu=igure who, along with his work for the big Bernbach, also created the very reconisable logos of the 60's.
I just personally love the scrap book feel & jazzy symbols that accompanying this that remind me of cartoons when I was growing up. Take a look: