Hasta La Ideas

East London’s Concrete Hermit Gallery has been championing the work of contemporary illustrators and graphic designers since it opened in 2007. As well as putting on regular exhibitions in the shop / gallery, founder Chris Knight has been commissioning the likes of Ian Stevenson, Eboy, Jon Slade, Kate Moross and many more to create exclusive graphics to adorn Concrete Hermit T-shirts sold in the shop and through its website, and he has also published a string of illustration books with several up-and-coming image makers.

But Knight’s curatorial work at Concrete Hermit has not gone unnoticed – at the weekend a range of Concrete Hermit products and specially commissioned graphic T-shirts and art prints were made available exclusively through the shop in the Tate Modern. The artists commissioned for this series are Anthony Burrill, Ian Stevenson and Andrew Rae.

“I was approached by the product development team at Tate Modern who wanted to showcase the type of work we’ve been doing through our shirts and books at Concrete Hermit,” says Knight. “It’s a fantastic opportunity to bring the work of these artists to a wider audience. Hopefully the project will reward the Tate’s willingness to engage with contemporary illustration and design and be the first of many collaborations.”

Here are some pictures of the T-shirts, posters and illustration books by Burill, Stevenson and Rae…

Ian Stevenson

Antony Burrill

Andrew Rae

It’s often said that in order to have a vibrant culture, a city needs the presence of a creative community – so why not tempt that community to come to your city with the offer of a free bed for the night?

Creators Inn is a project initiated by Swedish fashion brand Elvine and design agency Next Century Modern. The idea is to give free short-term accommodation for creative individuals, the aim being to promote the local area and attract travelling creative types whose presence contributes to the cultural life of the city. Guests are offered wireless internet, towels, bathrobes, slippers and grooming products all free of charge. All you have to do is go online and explain why you deserve a free room. The project has been running in Gothenburg so far, but is about to expand into Stockholm.

Among those taking up the offer so far have been the blogger and songwriter Momus, as well as soul musician fomo, garage band The Vibrarians, Niklas Astrom guitarist in the band EF, fashion designer Sara Forsberg, artist Olaf Olsson, lesbian electro MC/JD duo Fagget Fairys, and Japanese artist Mako Ishizuka.

We asked Jesper Larsson, the man behind the Creators Inn project, to explain more:

CR: Could you give us an insight on what you look for in people who can stay at Creators Inn for free?
Jesper Larsson: We have a very wide definition of creators. The reason for coming to town is more important than the title on your business card. We try to support up and coming creators of different kinds, the ones that would normally end up on someone’s couch. To find them Creators Inn by Elvine works first and foremost with local independent organisers offering their guests a place to stay. But everyone is welcome to register and explain why they should be granted a stay. Foreign visitors are prioritised. But you need what we call a “valid reason” to stay at our Inn. A valid reason is some sort of creative activity, preferably together with local creators or something that incorporates the city in some way. For instance, meeting up with an old Swedish friend to go clubbing is not a valid reason to be granted a free stay.

CR: What made you want to set up a project like this?
JL: I had a lot of creative friends visiting me in Gothenburg and I wanted to increase the hospitality level. At the same time we – my design and communication agency Next Century Modern – had to come up with a marketing idea for our client Elvine. And since they are very Gothenburg-oriented and have a tagline that goes “Elvine is your friend”, we figured they would make the perfect partner in this project. And so they did. We started the project together and the rest is history.

CR: What is the next step for Creators Inn?
JL: We want to try out the project as a hotel-in-hotel venture (like the shop-in-shop phenomena), where Creators Inn will occupy one room at The Scandic Malmen Hotel in Stockholm, creating an original and creator friendly environment in the room. This edition will open August 1st. Creative people can apply for a free stay on our homepage: www.creatorsinn.com

CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) has been a buzzword in the corporate world for quite some time now. With Creators Inn by Elvine we tried to add some creativity to the equation, labelling what we do as CSR – Creative Social Responsibility. By offering visiting creators free accommodation, we hope to remind people of a lovely little thing called hospitality. And in addition to making the visiting creators happy and Gothenburg a more interesting city because of their presence, it’s actually a win-win-win-win-win-situation: The creators get free accommodation with a high standard and service level; the local independent event organisers don’t have to pay for their guest artists/creators; the city becomes more attractive for creators, and the visiting creators make the city more interesting for the inhabitants; the project creates natural meetings between local and visiting creators; and our partners get goodwill and great PR.

We like a nice bit of print as much as the next leading visual communications blog but, beautiful as they often are, paper company promotions can be a tad predictable. Which is why Blast’s campaign for Conqueror caught our eye

Blast commissioned illustrator Damien Weighill to create 300 drawings on eight different themes: Finance, Transport & Travel, Nature, Communication, Leisure & Entertainment, Work, Science & Technology and Ups & Downs. Those images are available as a free image resource for designers and art directors to download and use if they register at the ‘Endless Possibilities’ website (here).

In addition, Blast designed a 236-page book featuring all the illustrations which acts as both promotional piece and catalogue for the collection. It is divided into eight 32-page sections, one for each theme and each printed on a different Conqueror stock. Fifty thousand copies have been distributed around the world.

Four A2 posters, each featuring a different Weighill drawing, are being sent to design studios to support the campaign.

For another nice paper promotion featured on CR recently, check out SEA’s latest brochure for GF Smith with photography by John Ross in our Feed section here

We went down to the KK Outlet (in Hoxton Square, Shoreditch) to check out current exhibition, the KK Job Centre, which showcases the work of recent graduate collective Just Us. For the show, which runs till the 27 July, the KK Outlet has been kitted out to look like a job centre playing on the fact that all the graduates are seeking jobs. Some of the work exhibited highlights their fears leaving college (see above image).

Actually, Just Us competed with other graduates for the chance to showcase their work at the KK Outlet. “We wanted to do something concrete to support young graduates,” says Chris at KK Outlet. “It’s a difficult industry to break in to, and especially difficult for students straight out of college. Sometimes the industry can exploit that, so really, we just wanted to give a forum for graduates to present their work to people in the industry. It can be very expensive to hire a gallery in order to show work, and in the end, that’s what quite a few students do, especially round here in East London. Our proposition was simple; staging and promoting the exhibition was all free. We just wanted to see a proposal for an exhibition that was unique to our gallery, and that we liked.

“We ended up selecting Just Us, because they came up with a really interesting idea. They chose to present their work in the form of a job centre. We also really liked the fact that they had formed their own group, with contributors from several different institutions. Lastly, they had a really good understanding of the space. It’s quite small, and they really knew how to make it work well. “

We took some photos and had caught up with Mark Grant, Simon Zinn and William Hibberd – the trio behind Just Us.

Illustration by Jessie Douglas

Chit Chat by Sean Clarke explores the art of conversation

This sign was created by Joe Hinder

Illustrator Alice Gabb also creates stuffed toy

Graphic Design poster by Tom Lovell and Shaun Hughes.

Illustration by Jack Teagle

CR: How did Just Us come about?
JUST US: Just us came about after much discussion about how we could get something more from our experience at uni and how we could expose ourselves alongside other creatives in the same way that big universities like UCL and Brighton do. Coming from a relatively small college we saw the talents of previous years’ students go to waste at small graduate shows and then after talks with the graduates we found that the prospects after leaving university from our small college were almost non existent. We felt that there needed to be a place where students could showcase their work as part of a collective, and help them to network with other universities and collaborate.

CR: What made you want to set up Just Us?
JU: We wanted to bridge the gap between lesser known universities and greater exposure which would hopefully create further opportunities for us and the other members. We also wanted to create a place which would enable us to network with other creatives in the same situation as us, as well as create opportunities to collaborate with each other and share design related opportunities.

CR: How did you find/select all the artists involved?
JU: To start with we searched design blogs, Myspace profiles, Indexhibit sites as well as lots of other places to find art and design students. This was particularly hard as we hadn’t yet got a name for ourselves, so people didn’t know us and we didn’t know exactly how we could get the students that we needed to find to make Just us successful. In April we ran a project called “project 15” where we contacted fifteen creative courses across the UK, advertising the opportunities we were offering. This was really successful and it started a flow of students contacting us.

This year we plan to run a nationwide project in order to gather a new batch of student designers. We intend to contact every university with creative courses in the UK, showing them the opportunities we offer. We will then hand pick a number of student designers and illustrators to be showcased on the site with possibilities of exhibitions around the UK as well as creative collaborative opportunities.

CR: What positive outcomes have you had since starting up the company?
JU: The response from what started as a university project has been amazing.  We are really grateful for all the help that the members have put in as well as all of the press we have received. At the moment we are in talks about collaboration on a few exciting projects, which will come to the light soon. So far Just us has helped all of the members meet new creatives and get an insight to what is going on at other creative courses, as well as placement opportunities. At the moment we are doing a project with the design blog Kitsune Noir where a desktop wallpaper is featured every weekday each one from a different member of Just us.

Launched at the RCA’s recent Show 2, Monika is an anonymously produced magazine that aims to free its content from preconceived notions of authorship. “Anonymity in the arts isn’t anything new,” explains Monika’s editor, “but it’s due a return”…

Monika is an arts journal featuring essays, short stories and photography that “invites readers to decode identities, unravel mysteries and embrace the unfamilar”, according to the first issue’s editorial.

“The magazine idea grew out of the dissertation research I did at the RCA and the designer was on board at an early stage,” says Monika’s editor, whose work on the magazine was completed as part of the Communication Art & Design course.

Fellow RCA graduate Povilas Utovka is the one name we do know that worked on the magazine: he designed it and created the typography, which was on display at the CA&D show.

“The exciting thing is to have created a structured canvas that is moulded by our collaboration with contributors as well as through reader speculation and interpretation,” says the editor.

“Part of what intrigues us about the idea of anonymity is how very fragile and difficult it is to maintain, how we live in a contradictory society that is both sprawling and faceless – the metropolis, the internet – and identity-obsessed – ID cards, CCTV, celebrity.”

“Monika isn’t about eliminating identities, it’s about creating a delay in the reader’s discovery of them,” says the editor. “By familiarising themselves with patterns and styles within the magazine, through word of mouth, and through piecing together clues, readers can discover the contributor’s identities for themselves.” 

“The non-disclosure of names means that the content must hold its own without being supported or justified by a known contributor’s back catalogue, which presents a challenge for both editor and participant. Equally, the feedback that contributors receive for their input is unbiased and the lack of self-publicity means the content is work for works sake, so it does require guts to contribute to Monika.

“Monika believes that works should be judged on merit rather than name, and that celebrity culture within the arts (and elsewhere) sometimes misses the point: that quite often we fail to acknowledge the extent that collaboration has to play in the creation of works, and that people’s motivation to write or make images isn’t often to become the ‘next big thing’, but rather the desire to record and make sense of the world.

“But playfulness also comes into it, I guess a fair bit of what Monika is about comes from a desire to tease.”

Monika is published biannually and issue two will be released before Christmas this year.

Orders can be placed via monikamagazine.com and copies, which retail at £4.95, can also be bought at YCN, 72 Rivington Street, London EC2A 3AY.

A full list of stockists will be available on the Monika website soon. If you run a bookshop, library, or gallery and would like to stock the magazine, please get in touch with the editor on monika@monikamagazine.com or via the website.