Hasta La Ideas

The Chop Shop has put up the pre-orders for the new Artist Transporter Tee. Get yours now!

(via an ambitious project collapsing)

Several well-known LA based visual artists came together to create a custom mural for Nat King Cole’s upcoming album Re:Generations. The track used for this piece is by the Brazilian Girls featuring the timeless vocals of the “King” himself. For more on this new album you know what to do.

Shepard Fairey’s Obama poster and The Guardian’s infographics both appear in the Brit Insurance Designs of the Year show which opens today at London’s Design Museum

When the Design Museum’s Designs of the Year Show debuted last year it had a mixed reaction. ‘Good first attempt, but plenty to think about for next time’ seemed to be the consensus. This year’s exhibition opens today – CR went along to the private view…

I have to declare an interest here – I was a nominator both this year and last. The process is fairly informal. A letter from the Design Museum invites you to suggest worthy projects from the current year (although, judging from some of the work included, time scales are flexible). You can nominate as many projects as you like in whatever categories. And then a few months later they tell you which of your suggestions will feature and ask for some text on your choices.

A segment demonstrating the technology used in Troika’s All The Time In The World installation at Terminal 5 which displays the time in London and at interesting sites around the world – such as the world’s highest mountains or most popular museums

Inevitably, this approach results in what appears to be a fairly random array of projects in the final show, and certainly a selection that differs markedly from the results of the industry award schemes, but it is this idiosyncrasy that I enjoy about it.

The weakness of all award schemes (and, yes, I include our own Annual in this) is that the only way to make them work economically is to have paid entries. Inevitably, then, choice is limited. The Design Museum show, on the other hand, is a totally blank canvas.

The Pixel Clock, designed by Francois Azambourg for Ligne Rosset – the clock’s face is made from honeycomb-effect fibreglass

Tony Mullin’s Green Felt Protest Suit – the idea is that demonstrators can wear the suit in areas in which political protests are banned. When filmed for TV, the protester’s suit will act like a green screen meaning that messages can be projected onto it visible to TV viewers but not the authorities

Juries on award schemes can flatten things out – the majority view holds sway. During judging there are often conversations about how the industry will receive the choices being made – is the selection a fair reflection of the year? Do we have enough of this type of work or that? Should we include a certain project because it did well at a rival scheme?

The Design Museum show method, on the other hand, encourages the quirky and the controversial – pieces of work that one person feels strongly about. That inevitably means that some will divide opinion and, as a result, encourage debate – both about the work and about what constitutes ‘good design’. Which is surely what a good exhibition should be all about.

Personally, I also think that this show is not necessarily about the ‘best’ design projects of the year but more about selecting projects that in some way have had an impact – either by changing thinking or influencing the culture or offering a new viewpoint.

The July 08 Black issue of Italian Vogue featuring only black models

From Onkar Kular and Noam Toran’s The MacGuffin Library – in Hitchcock movies the MacGuffin was always an object at the heart of the story, usually being sought by the protagonists eg The Maltese Falcon. The designers her imagined a new set of such objects, created using rapid prototyping.

There are obvious weaknesses in the show. Relying on the personal experience of the nominators can mean that geographical spread is uneven – I chose the Design Indaba 10×10 housing project, for example, because I had seen it in action in Cape Town.

And from a communications point of view it in no way represents the work that the average designer will have been engaged upon for the majority of his or her year. There are no big branding projects. Very little mainstream work at all. So it doesn’t provide a snapshot of the design industry as most practitioners will experience it. It’s not an accurate portrait of where the majority of activity is, but then neither are most awards.

The work of Job Wouters, aka Letman, including CR’s February cover

What the Design Museum show does provide is an interesting snapshot of where the design profession would like to be. It reveals design’s aspirations and its ideals. For that reason I think it is a valuable addition to calendar.

Rotational Moulded Shoe by Marloes Ten Bhomer

Magno wooden radios by Singgih S Kartono. The radios are produced by hand by villagers in central Java

Oase, the quarterly Dutch journal on architecture and urban design. By Karel Martens, Enrico Bravi, Werkplaats Typografie

Pet Shop Boys Integral video by The Rumpus Room, featuring QR Codes which link to websites containing additional information

And Trent Jansen’s 3D stencil, using expandable foam and an LED to create an ad hoc wall light

Raindance logo 1989-present by Pezman

Artcore, an exhibition and auction opening at Selfridges’ Ultralounge gallery space this Friday, celebrates the 1980s/90s rave movement in all its garish glory. Warning: the images that follow may be painful for some design sensibilities…

The Jester ‘Penny-wise’ flyer for Helter Skelter event, 1996

Artcore celebrates an era of design that many of us may prefer to forget: the Acid House and rave movement of the late 1980s-early 90s. Characterised by garish colours and badly Photoshopped images of iconic symbols such as marijuana leaves and smiley faces, it has to be one of the least subtle eras in graphic design history. And yet, looking at the Super Super-influenced graphics that assault our senses today, it may seem to some as if rave has never been away, making it the perfect time to explore the style’s heritage.

Wonderland (Pete Tong) by Goldie, 2008

The exhibition will be a mixture of original artworks and ephemera from dance music history (including flyers, posters, and even the floorboards of one club). All the works on show will then be auctioned off at exhibition’s end. “It’s a visual representation of dance and free party culture,” says Mary McCarthy of Dreweatts Auction House, who has curated the exhibition alongside Ernesto Leal from Our Cultural History. “We’ve worked alongside a lot of the artists who did the work that originally appeared on the flyers. Much of the artwork has been lost so they have redone canvases and prints for the exhibition.”

Beyond Therapy flyer, 1989

The exhibition will include artworks by prolific dance music artists and designers including Dave Little, Pez and Pierre Anstis. Artcore opens this Friday (13th), with the auction taking place on February 26.

Puzzled flyer, 1995