Alex Solis est un illustrateur américain qui a pu déjà dessiner de nombreux visuels. Avec un trait simple, sympathique et reconnaissable, ce dernier nous propose de découvrir ses mises en scène d’objets de la vie quotidienne, prenant une autre dimension avec son trait. De bonnes idées à découvrir dans la suite.
Design studio Carter Wong has produced an A to Z of bicycle headbadges, all of which come from the collection of Jeff Conner, a cycling-obsessed biology professor from Michigan…
Hundreds of examples of these small, slightly curved metal shields are contained within A Cycling Lexicon, which is curated and designed by the London-based studio.
Conner explains in the book how he only started to collect headbadges in earnest three years ago. Prior to this small-scale (and house-friendly) hobby his passion for bikes extended to owning eight of them.
His badge collection, however, celebrates the “little pieces of art riveted onto the headset of your bicycle”, as designer Paul Smith writes in his introduction. Smith, a cycling afficianado, also has a connection to the home of the most famous British make in the book – Raleigh of Nottingham.
The badges’ size is certainly no barrier to invention. With a canvas usually no bigger than a couple of postage stamps the designs reveal a fascination with notions connected to cycling, as Carter Wong’s Phil Carter notes in his text in the book.
There are symbols of freedom and speed – with wings and birds abounding – and also a debt to heraldic animals (serpents, lions and eagles, in particular), with ideas of strength and precision also conveyed in the designs.
Moreover, the headbadges also hard back to the birth of the “era of affordable mobility” – many pre-date car badges, for example – and usually reflect the maker’s location in the world.
With its gold edges and compact size, the book has a biblical look perhaps reflecting the sacred regard with which this unshowy art form is held. Yet part of the charm of the work featured is that it is unsung – each piece the product of an uncredited designer.
At 400 pages the lexicon includes a wealth of bicycle art from all over the world, but it remains an ongoing collection, too – Conner still needs to find a ‘Q’ and an ‘X’.
A Cycling Lexicon (£20) can be ordered from the Carter Wong design shop at carterwongdesignshop.com.
Baldwin Denim has opened its very first store that showcases both their men’s and women’s collections. Located in central Kansas City, it’s the brand’s first physical expansion since their brick-and-mortar flagship selling just men’s attire. Baldwin—which…
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We travel the world for this week’s advertising round-up, which features work for Johnnie Walker, Zurich, Lloyds, VW, EE, Kiss, and the New York City Ballet, as well as a set of Russian anti-smoking posters.
First up is this film for Johnnie Walker from BBH, which reveals a marked change in direction for the brand. The dynamic spot, directed by Fredric Bond, focuses on everyday workers frustrated in their jobs and encourages them to rise up and achieve their potential. The rallying cry does sound a little like one that might be heard in a more slurred form after a few post-work drinks in the pub (“you’re so much better than this job”; “I know, so are you… lezz ‘ave another drink”), which perhaps makes it all the more appropriate for a whisky brand.
Agency: BBH; ECD: Nick Gill; Deputy ECD: David Kolbusz; Director: Fredrik Bond; Production company: Sonny.
Another unexpected spot now, this time for Zurich Insurance. The film, one of two in a new campaign, is a surprisingly witty take on the subject of bike insurance. Agency: McCann WorldgroupEurope; Global creative director: Miguel Bemfica; ECDs: Lee Tan, Rachid Ahouiyek; Creatives: Cristina Caballeros, Pedro Piqueras; Director: Augustin Alberti; Production company: Stink London.
Lloyds has released its first spot since the bank’s split with TSB, which introduces a new strapline, ‘The moments that matter’. As with all bank advertising these days it seems, the message is painfully cheesy, but it’s a nicely made spot. Agency: RKCR/Y&R; Creative director: Mark Roalfe; Creatives: Adrian Lim, Steve Williams; Director: Sam Brown; Production company: Rogue Films.
Original A-Ha fans are probably the perfect demographic to be buying a VW car these days, so this spot, which mimics the classic Take On Me video will no doubt do very nicely for the brand. Agency: Deutsch; ECD: Michael Kadin; Group creative director: Matt Ian; Creative director: Mark Peters; Associate creative director: Ryan Scott; Director: David Shane; Production company: O Positive.
Kevin Bacon takes on Jamie Oliver in a battle of the bacon sarnies in this film for EE, which was launched on Oliver’s FoodTube channel on YouTube today. Agency: Poke; Creative director: Gavin Fox; Director: Chris Faith; Production company: Fresh One Productions.
This new campaign for Kiss TV, from Lola/Lowe & Partners in Spain, features three famous music videos (Gangnam Style by Psy above) with the music removed, to emphasise the channel’s position against music piracy. ECD: Chacho Puebla; Creative directors: Francisco Cassis, Paulo Areas; Creatives: Martín Feijoó, Fred Bosch; Director and editor: Mikolaj Gackowski; Production company: Deseif.
New York City Ballet shot this film, New Beginnings, at sunrise on the 57th floor of Four World Trade Center in lower Manhattan on September 12. It features a performance of Christopher Wheeldon’s After The Rain. Agency: DDB New York; CCO: Matt Eastwood; ECD: Menno Kluin; Group creative director: Andrew McKechnie; Creatives: Joao Unzer, Rodrigo de Castro.
We finish this week’s round-up with an anti-smoking poster campaign (one shown above) from BBDO Moscow. The campaign features a series of awful smoking-related illnesses printed in an internet search box, which looks like a cigarette. Art director: Alexey Starodubov; Senior designer: Timophei Ilyen.
Text & Images by Joey Cofone
There a few greater joys in life than the creative process. From an unexpected spark of inspiration to refining an idea, starting the process to applying the final touches—creating is the peak of human excellence. After searching for a notebook that would be the ultimate tool for the ultimate activity, and falling up short, we decided to make it ourselves.
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UnCommon Beat a imaginé ce projet typographique de toute beauté appelé The Black Book of Cards. A l’origine un projet Kickstarter qui va pouvoir se concrétiser, il s’agit ici d’un deck de cartes de jeu réalisé par des typographes voulant rendre ce jeu unique en y insérant des mots et valeurs propre à chaque carte.
wants an Industrial Design Intern
in Wayne, New Jersey
What are you doing between January and June of 2014? If you’re looking for something more meaningful than ringing up customers at one of your local retail outlets, why not apply for the New Balance Design Foundry Internship Program?
The New Balance internship is all about taking young talented designers and molding them into future design stars. You will be immersed into one of our business units that include running, speed, domestic, training, color, lifestyle and innovation. Your work at the Design Foundry will range from true inline projects to advanced concepts.
If you are a junior, senior or recent grad, what are you waiting for? Apply Now!
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News: rapper Kanye West has revealed he is frustrated he’s not taken seriously as a “real designer” and that he plans to move into architecture.
In an interview on BBC Radio 1 last night, West spoke to DJ Zane Lowe about how he wants to expand his creative field beyond music and fashion.
“I want to do product, I am a product person,” said West. “Not just clothing but water bottle design, architecture… I make music but I shouldn’t be limited to once place of creativity.”
The interview was originally intended to be about his latest album Yeezus but West spoke about his creative passions and ambition throughout: “I hang around architects mostly,” he said. “People that wanna make things as dope as possible.”
“I’m learning what I want,” he said. “This is the reason why I’m working with five architects at a time. The time spent in a bad apartment, I can’t get that back. But the education I can get from working on it is priceless.”
West has already established himself as a fashion designer, having released his Air Yeezy trainers for Nike in 2009 and showed his DW Kanye West womenswear collections at Paris Fashion Week. “I spend 80% of my time on [fashion design] and 20% of my time on music,” he explained.
He said he started designing trainers at the age of five: “I’ve got a very particular specific take on men’s footwear. No one can say I can’t design or don’t know how to design a guy’s sneaker.”
However, West was disappointed Nike didn’t extend his trainer line after 2011 even though pairs of his Air Yeezy trainers “eBayed for $90,000”. He also claimed to be knocked back by Fendi after taking his designs for tight leather trousers to the Italian fashion house.
West vented his frustration that as a musician he is not taken seriously in the fashion world. “I’m so frustrated,” he said. “I’ve got ideas on colour palettes, I’ve got ideas on silhouettes. I’ve got a million people telling me why I can’t do it, that I’m not a real designer.”
He spoke of his resentment that musicians’ forays into fashion design are limited to tour paraphernalia. “We’re making product with chitlin’. T-shirts, that’s the most we can make. T-shirts. We can have our best perspective on T-shirts but anything else and your Truman Show boat is hitting the wall.”
Design collaborations he mentioned included his Watch the Throne tour set design with production designer Es Devlin and the pyramid-shaped cinema by architects OMA, where his first short film was screened at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival.
Last week graphic designer Peter Saville disclosed he is working on a new visual identity for West, saying the rapper “wants me to do a YSL”.
West announced he was to launch his own design company named DONDA early last year and hoped to assemble a team of architects, designers and directors to work with him.
Dezeen featured renderings of West’s New York apartment designed by architect Claudio Silverstrin in 2007. See all our stories about Kanye West »
Main image of Kanye West is courtesy of Shutterstock.
The post “I’m working with five architects
at a time” – Kanye West appeared first on Dezeen.
News: science-fiction author Neal Stephenson is developing a concept for a 20-kilometre (12.4-mile) skyscraper that could be used to launch rockets into space.
Working alongside scientists and engineers from Arizona State University’s Center for Science and the Imagination, Stephenson is exploring the limits of tall building construction using materials that are already in existence.
The author, who studied physics before moving into science-fiction, says that high-grade steel could one day be used to build a tower that is around 24 times as tall as the 830-metre Burj Khalifa – currently the tallest man-made structure in the world – and near double the height flown by most commercial aeroplanes.
“It ends up being all about wind,” he told the BBC. “In a windless environment making a structure that tall would almost be trivial. But when you build something that is going to poke up through and get hit by the jet stream from time to time, then it becomes shockingly much more difficult.”
Stephenson and ASU structural engineer Keith Hjelmstad are now looking at where a building like this could be located and whether it is possible to address the problems caused by wind pressure. If so, Stephenson claims its height could make it the cheapest way to send objects into outer space.
“The future of space travel, at this writing, is up for grabs with NASA eyeing destinations more distant than the International Space Station and commercial space travel just starting to get some traction,” writes Hjelmstad in an accompanying research paper. “It is an interesting time to consider ideas like the Tall Tower.”
The Tall Building project is a strand of Project Hieroglyph, a research programme bringing various science-fiction writers together with scientists to develop ambitions for the future. Inspired by papers written by author and scientist Geoffrey Landis, Stephenson began his project with the question: “How tall can we build something?”
“The idea of the project in general is to come up with innovations or ideas… sufficiently near-term and doable that a person sort of graduating from university today could say, ‘Well, if I began working on this now, then by the time I retire it might exist’,” he said.
Here’s an introductory movie from Project Hieroglyph:
The Burj Khalifa became the world’s tallest building in 2010, but is set to be overtaken by the Kingdom Tower, currently under construction in Jeddah and designed with a height of 1000 metres. A report published in 2011 predicts what the tallest buildings will be in 2020.
Here’s some extra information from the project team:
The Tall Tower
The Tall Tower project is part of Project Hieroglyph, headquartered at the Center for Science and the Imagination at Arizona State University. Hieroglyph teams up top science fiction writers (including Neal Stephenson, Cory Doctorow, Bruce Sterling and Madeline Ashby) with scientists and engineers to imagine a near future radically changed by technological innovation. The project is designed to reignite our grand ambitions for the future and to inspire scientists, engineers and students to think big about the projects they pursue during their careers. The first Hieroglyph anthology, co-edited by Ed Finn and Kathryn Cramer, will be published by HarperCollins in late 2014.
The Tall Tower project began with Neal Stephenson asking a simple question: how tall can we build something? (The question was inspired by papers on the subject written by hard science fiction author and scientist Geoffrey Landis.) As he started working with structural engineer Keith Hjelmstad of ASU’s School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, it became clear that it might be possible to build a very large structure – up to 20km tall – using high-grade steel. Keith developed some simple models to explore the structural requirements of such a tower and Neal began thinking about where such a building might be placed.
As the tower conversation continues, the circle of collaborators has expanded to include aerospace engineering, sophisticated digital modelling and architectural design. In a sure sign that the tower project is about to get excitingly weird, Bruce Sterling wants in. In the months to come the tower project will continue to serve as a pilot for the larger ideal of Hieroglyph: a freewheeling conversation about a radically ambitious project that could be accomplished within the next few decades. An original story about the Tall Tower, written by Stephenson and titled “Atmosphæra Incognita,” will be featured in the Hieroglyph anthology.
The post Science-fiction author proposes 20-kilometre
rocket-launching skyscraper appeared first on Dezeen.
Reporting by Kristin Coleman
National exhibits present an interesting opportunity to examine the design culture of a country and 100% Norway at Dray Walk Gallery did not disappoint. For the 10th edition of the show, curators Henrietta Thompson and Benedicte Sunde presented a true cross-section of the Norwegian design scene with works from ten established designers and ten emerging talents as part of this year’s theme, ’10 × 10.’ From the exhibition design (by Hunting & Narud) to the collection of products and furniture, the whole show demonstrated Norwegian designers’ expert knowledge of material and craft, love of raw materials and nature-inspired forms.
Outside of the gallery, Hunting & Narud created a playful lounge inspired by the sun and Nordic light with patterned decking, angled panels and stackable poufs in a gradient of soft colors.
This three-legged seed-shaped prototype by Bergen Academy graduate Philipp von Hase immediately caught our eye. Originally designed for a seed center in Bergen, Spire is crafted from solid maple wood and three-dimensional walnut veneer with a recessed porcelain bowl that can be used for planting herbs or keeping fruit. It easily transforms into a functioning table with removable wooden surface plates.
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