CR for CR: Wim Crouwel Vormgevers print

OK, this is a big one: an artist’s proof of Blanka’s lovingly produced 2008 reprint of the classic Wim Crouwel Vormgevers poster, signed on the reverse by Wim himself. Bid on it now to benefit Comic Relief.

Mark Blamire of Blanka was first introduced to Dutch designer Wim Crouwel in 2006 by Tony Brook of Spin. Blamire invited Crouwel to participate in his 1 An Exhibition In Mono project. It was during the exhibition’s stint in Dublin that Blamire asked Crouwel, also in Dublin at the time, if he would allow Blanka to reprint his most famous poster, Vormgevers. Crouwel gave permission but explained that the artwork would need to be redrawn and recreated in Illustrator as the original artwork from 1968 no longer existed.

Blanka bought an original from a Swiss dealer then set about faithfully reproducing every line and every mistake (a process that we documented here) for his new edition, endorsed by Crouwel.

“It’s easy to forget how difficult it must have been to create a poster of this complexity without the use of modern day computer equipment,” says Blamire. “Here you can see the pen skips of the Rotring in the 1968 original version of the poster. Whilst we spent over 50 hours retouching this poster to restore it to a printable state, we also retained all of the imperfections in the hand-crafted original artwork.”

To benefit Comic Relief Blanka has donated an artist’s proof, signed by Crouwel to be auctioned on ebay.

You can bid for it here.

 

Heart for Japan by Delphine Perrot

Heart for Japan Worldwide Campaign by Delphine Perrot

Graphic artist Delphine Perrot has designed a logo to encourage people to donate money to help humanitarian relief in Japan.

Dezeen: Heart for Japan by Delphine Perrot

Perrot is encouraging people to use her Heart for Japan logo (top) and social network button (above) to direct people to a fundraising campaign at www.justgiving.com/itsnotmuch which is raising money for Shelterbox.

See our earlier stories on Tokujin Yoshioka’s call for help Architecture for Humanity’s After the Quake: Support Sendai appeal; and Wieden + Kennedy’s Help Japan Poster.

Here’s the message Perrot emailed to us:


I am a freelance globe trotter Designer & Artist. I would like to share with you a picture I designed. I reacted very quickly to the terrible situation in Japan.

I was in the Pacific and we got a red alert early in the morning. When I got back home, I came up with the idea and drew this sign spontaneously. Then I started to spread it to friends via internet and crossed my fingers this universal sign for love and support for Japan would find its way. It was like putting a bottle in the sea. I am very happy to have offered my picture to this emergency situation.

So feel free to use, share and spread my Heart for Japan logo for social network picture (pics attached little ‘badge’ for the digital communication) + Copyright me 🙂 © Design by Delphine Perrot.

Make a donation to help support the people of Japan recover from the devastation of the Tsunami by making a donation here:
http://www.justgiving.com/itsnotmuch. Fundraising campaign set up by Darren Leighfield.

I want to spread this universal heart as much as I can, and if you could hep it would be great in order to keep on spreading.

We are oping to raised £3000 pounds tomorrow > Target £10000 asap!

Some of you might have already do a donation to help the cause, if you didn’t yet: if all of our friends+friends of friends make only £2 each > we would get our target end of this week! Please spread actively the word and the link. Thanks a lot!

I would be happy if you could send my big drawn heart on your website and an help to link my others.

A Visual Compendium of Notable Haircuts in Popular Music

notable_haircuts.jpg

Over 100 pop musicians and their haircuts beautifully documented in a non-distracting way. Pop Chart Lab again produces a poster worthy of framing, and hanging on your wall.

Barry Gibb?
Check!

Prince!
You bet!

Aretha Franklin
Uh huh!

They’re all there. Check out the full poster after the jump.

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CR for CR: Build Moon artist proofs

All this week we are auctioning stuff for Comic Relief. Next up, two Build artist proofs of his poster celebrating the 40th anniversary of the moon landings

Designed by Build for the 40th anniversary of the moon landing and kindly donated by Blanka these are two artists’ proofs in glow-in-the-dark ink.

They are Blanka’s best-selling items ever. The original edition of 50 of Night (in black) sold out in under 24 hours. Day sold out 24 hours after that.

There are no more so if you wanted one and missed out when they were first available, now is your chance.

Bid on Night here

Day here

Print only – unframed, unsigned.

The Vinyl Factory Concept Store

The Vinyl Factory, creators of limited edition vinyl music and art packages for the likes of Grace Jones, Massive Attack, and Hot Chip amongst others, has opened a temporary pop-up store in the Front Room at St Martins Lane Hotel in London to showcase its wares…

The shop will be open for three months (until May 29), and will host exhibitions of new works, plus sell the previous editions produced by The Vinyl Factory since 2008. According to the press info, the intention is for the space to “become a homage to records and the relationship between music and art, celebrating the unique, the tangible and the rare in an age of rapid digital consumption”.

New projects in the Vinyl Factory pipeline include a limited edition box set of music for The Most Incredible Thing, the forthcoming Sadler’s Wells ballet scored by the Pet Shop Boys, as well an exclusive release of the new album from German producer Tensnake, featuring artwork by the acclaimed Dutch designers, Droog.

The Vinyl Factory pop-up store is open from 11am-7pm Tues-Sat, and 12-7pm on Sundays. More info is online at vfeditions.com.

Plumen lightbulb wins Design of the Year 2011

The Plumen low energy lightbulb, designed by Hulger and Sam Wilkinson, has won the 2011 Brit Insurance Design of the Year award…

Hulger and Wilkinson’s creation succeeds in bringing beautiful sculpted forms to the otherwise fairly humble low energy bulb. But it’s not just a pretty thing: the Plumen 001 apparently uses 80% less energy and lasts eight times longer than an incandescent bulb. As Deyan Sudjic, director of the Design Museum, put it: “It’s a bulb that doesn’t need a shade and so goes a long way to make up for the loss of the Edison original.”

The Plumen 001, along with the other shortlisted designs, is on show at the Brit Insurance Designs of the Year exhibition at the Design Museum until August 7 2011.

And here’s writer Will Self’s take on the winning work, included because, well, ‘judges comments’ simply don’t get much better than this: “I don’t think any of the judges feel this is the dernier cri in terms of what will be done with the low-energy light bulb, but if you’ll forgive the pun – they are definitely a light leading the way. 2011 was not a year to reward high-end design devised purely for conceptual reasons or added-value results. We felt these bulbs were neat, appealing and covetable in the right, affordable way. Light is, of course, primary to design, without it there can be very little, if any. The design of light sources is thus an elemental component of a design aesthetic.”

The Plumen is available to buy, here, and is £19.95 in the UK. More information at designmuseum.org and also plumen.com.

CR for CR: Paul Davis will draw your picture

Want to have your portrait done by world-famous illustrator Paul Davis? It’s the latest offer in our series of auctions to raise money for Comic Relief

All this week we are using the CR website to raise money for Comic Relief. We’ve already donated five subscriptions to CR (there will be five more tomorrow) and you can bid on a rare James Jarvis vinyl toy here.

Our next offer is very special indeed. The winner will get themselves along to Paul Davis‘s studio in London (we won’t pay your travel, sorry), have a chat with the man himself (there may be tea involved, Wagon Wheels and Choco Leibnitz have been mentioned, no guarantees), Davis will draw you and you get the picture. But, warns Davis, “Don’t expect a likeness – it’ll be more about the person than what he or she looks like. Let me at them…”

Bid on it here

We’ll be announcing more stuff all week.

CR for CR: rare James Jarvis vinyl toy

I’ve raided my loft for this James Jarvis World of Pain Policeman figure, the next item for sale in our week of fundraising for Comic Relief.

All this week we are auctioning stuff in aid of Comic Relief. I’ve given up my much-loved Policeman, still in his original packaging and given to me by the man Jarvis himself.

It’s available to bid on now on ebay here. 90% of the sale price goes to Comic Relief. If there’s anything else left over after costs that will go to them too.

*No paper was harmed during the making of this film by Italian Design Is Coming Home

*No paper was harmed during the making of this film. from Tommaso Minnetti on Vimeo.

Polyedra is celebrating the shared heritage (and auguring future collaboration) between Swiss and Italian graphic design with Italian Design Is Coming Home. The joint effort between 11 Swiss and 11 Italian designers will yield 22 art posters that will be exhibited in Zurich and Milan this year and ultimately compiled in a catalog by Actar.

They’ve also produced a short video (above) documenting the creation of the centerpiece of the project, a painstakingly crafted 2.5m paper model, by Alberto Parise and Giovanni Pasini.

There’s been a strong link in design between Switzerland and Italy (particularly Milan) going back to the 1940s. Max Huber, Carlo Vivarelli, Walter Ballmer were just a few of the legendary Swiss designers who crossed the Alps to help create the International Typographic School for which Italian (and Swiss) design became renowned.

Check out a historical sampling of mutually-inspired product and event posters (including Borsalino, Kardex and Olivetti) after the jump…

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Friday Photo: Ghosts of Christmas Cards Past


Courtesy Stephen Kling

Between 2003 and 2010, Stephen Kling (at left) created hundreds of covers for The Nation, the left-of-center weekly helmed by Katrina vanden Heuvel. On Wednesday or Thursday of any given week, he would be given a cover story, usually a sprawling ideas piece slugged “Headline TK.” His mission? To translate the story, whether a prescription for dealing with mendacious chief executives or an exposé on resurgent nationalism in Iraq, into a provacative-but-not-too-provocative visual—by Friday. He succeeded by thinking (and working) fast and drawing upon his arsenal of textures, flags, hands, drips, and smears. When stock photo libraries came up short, he grabbed his digital camera and got shooting.

Klinger recently created a website that displays highlights of his Nation covers and the stories behind them. A special section is devoted to cover designs that didn’t make the cut (Sarah Palin as a sled dog, a drop of blood on a Wall Streeter’s wingtip), but when we asked him to name his favorite Nation creation, he pointed not to a cover but to the Christmas card he created for the magazine in 2006. “It just happened one day, entirely unplanned, as I was goofing around with some hokey old photos—George W. Bush was in a dirndl, in Dick Cheney‘s arms,” Klinger told us. “I showed it to the circulation director of The Nation, who immediately decided to scrap the usual Christmas subscription premium and use it instead.” These days, between designing publications for pharmaceutical companies and pitching other magazines, Klinger is writing and filming a documentary about art direction. He’s also taking steps to avoid digital overload. “I’m rediscovering old-fashioned analog photography in my new darkroom.”

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