Our crafternoon with stencil-guru Ed Roth and his new style-focused book
Drawn to stenciling years ago as affordable form of art, stencil artist Ed Roth is now an industry wizard, applying his chosen medium to everything from postcards to rugs. Roth, a talented artist and natural teacher, recently stopped by CH HQ for a fulfilled crafternoon using the stencils from…
Continue Reading…
Designer Tom Budding puts a creative spin on an essential Hackney shop
When you ask East Londoner Tom Budding to tell you about the selection of items in his newly opened shop, his face lights up. Stocked with a handsome assortment of practical goods sure to delight any discerning adult, J. Glinert is Budding’s professional take on a store that entertained…
Continue Reading…
Really interesting study and a good example of how to potentially structure daily tasks for maximum performance. Especially the mid day nap!
Lucienne Day, circa 1952The work of Lucienne Day inspires a lot of contemporary interpretations, but it always worthwhile to know more than the surface of a designer’s work. Day’s work is part of Designing Women: Post-War British Textiles: a current exhibition at the British Textiles Museum. The book Robin and Lucienne Day: Pioneers in Modern Design by Lesley Jackson (Chronicle, 2001) is also worth adding to your library.
Around the web:
• Lucienne Day 1917-2010, remembrance in the Guardian
• Robin Day obituary
• An interview and home tour of Robin and Lucienne Day with Wallpaper magazine, December 2008.
• V&A Lucienne Day archives
• Classic Textiles‘ reissue of some iconic designs
Calyx
Lapis
Fall
Ducatoon
photo by Anne-Katrin Purkiss
Some of UPPERCASE’s favourite stationery companies will be at the National Stationery Show (May 20-23).
The following are all represented by Crow & Canary, a fine art card and gift representation company:
Dear Hancock
Susy Jack
Pie Bird Press
Studio Olivine
If you’re exhibiting at NSS or Surtex and you’d like us to consider featuring your work on the blog, send us your url via twitter!
Gloria GoldfinchBritish bird and LEGO enthusiast Thomas Poulsom created a series of gorgeous local birds in LEGO blocks. Pictured here is Gloria Goldfinch, but he’s also done a puffin, a woodpecker, a kingfisher, a robin, and a blue tit.
Thanks to the LEGO site Cuusoo, amateur designs like this actually have a chance of being made into official LEGO products, if they get 10,000 supporters on the site. Poulsom’s birds still have a very long way to go, but they are very deserving with their lovely simplicity.
via Make.
Ji Lee’s simple plug-in removes text from any site to let images stand alone
The endless stream of information available on the web can easily get clogged with an overload of messaging. To simplify your daily surfing sessions, former Google Creative Lab Creative Director Ji Lee—with the coding help of Cory Forsyth—has come up with the Wordless Web, a simple browser plug-in that takes any website and gets rid of the text, leaving only pictures. As longtime supporters of Lee’s “special projects“, we were keen to see a substantial array of websites’ content reduced to a context-free assortment of images with one simple click.
By presenting the Internet as a palette of pictures only, the website reader becomes a viewer. “No text means no context,” says Lee. “You’re free to enjoy the images in their purest form, without names, labels, definitions, or purpose. It makes the pictures we see across the web more mysterious and open to interpretation of our own imaginations.”
Although we love the clean look of most websites without words, we noticed an interesting effect that the “Bubble Project” founder has exposed as a true eye-opener. While some websites benefit from being free of text, others seem to turn into giant advertising billboards. Regardless of the outcome, Wordless Web is an interesting adventure in turning something so vital upside down. Give it a go yourself at Wordless Web.
I get a lot of email and lots of submissions and suggestions and genuine interest in the magazine. It can get overwhelming in that I don’t have time to reply as personally or quickly as I’d like to, but I do review everything and it all gets categorized into Evernote for future reference and possible posting on the blog. I appreciate your submissions (keep them coming!), but be patient with hearing back from me…
Amanda McCavour sent some notable examples of her installation work this week. Using thread and dissolving fabric, she sews intricate scenes of domesticity.
In my work, I use a sewing machine to create thread drawings and installations by sewing into a fabric that dissolves in water. This fabric makes it possible for me to build up the thread by sewing repeatedly into my drawn images so that when the fabric is dissolved, the image can hold together without a base. These thread images appear as though they would be easily unraveled and seemingly on the verge of falling apart, despite the works actual raveled strength.
I am interested in the vulnerability of thread, its ability to unravel, and its strength when it is sewn together. I am interested in the connections between process and materials and the way that they relate to images and spaces. Tracing actions and environments through a process of repetition, translation and dissolving, I hope to trace absence. My work is a process of making as a way of tracing and preserving things that are gone, or slowly falling apart.
Show support for two new supportive undergarments
Kickstarter helps get an array of independent endeavors off the ground every day. While many of these entrepreneurial projects revolve around the arts, we recently found two creative minds using the funding platform to up the underwear game. Each with a different motive, both JoeyBra and Flint and Tinder aim to enhance our lives with a new take on the ubiquitous undergarment. Check out the “kickstapants” projects below.
A concept sure to be a hit among ladies who love to go out and dance or go for a run, the JoeyBra gives women the advantage of a hidden pocket in their bra. The small side compartments are big enough to fit an iPhone, but the elastic seams keep it all conveniently secure. The JoeyBra is the brainchild of two business students at the University of Washington who will use the funding to first create an adjustable sexy push-up style with a sports bra to follow.
Former FHM Magazine editor and Buckyballs founder Jake Bronstein would simply like to bring men’s underwear production back to the US. His idea is Flint and Tinder, a line of premium Supima cotton skivvies made in a family-run factory. Comfort and function are key components to the three styles in his collection, but another driving force is job creation—for every 1,000 pairs sold, one full-time job is generated.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
