Hasta La Ideas

Last year we ran an extract from the excellent Sign Painters book in the magazine, and now the accompanying documentary film is about to get its first preview in the US. If the trailer is anything to go by, it’s going to be a lovely piece of work…

Since 2010, Faythe Levine and Sam Macon’s project has been to document the work of artists who have put brush and paint to storefronts, murals, banners, barn signs, billboards, and even street signs across America, but who have seen their skilled trade “overrun by the techno-fueled promise of quicker and cheaper,” say the filmmakers.

“The resulting proliferation of computer-designed, die-cut vinyl lettering and inkjet printers has ushered a creeping sameness into our landscape,” they continue. “Fortunately, there is a growing trend to seek out traditional sign painters and a renaissance in the trade.”

Sign Painters is, say Levine and Macon, the first anecdotal history of the craft and features interview with two dozen sign painters working throughout the US, from the new vanguard working solo to the collaborative shops New Bohemia Signs in San Francisco and Colossal Media’s Sky High Murals in New York.

Two screenings in the US have been confirmed so far. They are: March 30 at the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC. More info here; and June 7 and 8 at the Rio Theatre, 1660 East Broadway, Commercial Drive, Vancouver, Canada.

As for the UK, Levine recommends keeping an eye on the Sign Painters blog, below, and their Twitter feed at @signpainterdoc. We will also post news on CR blog on any dates as they are announced. For now, enjoy the trailer above.

The Sign Painters book was published by Princeton Architectural Press in November 2012 features a foreword by legendary artist (and former sign painter) Ed Ruscha. More at signpaintermovie.blogspot.co.uk.

CR in print
The March issue of CR magazine celebrates 150 years of the London Underground. In it we introduce a new book by Mark Ovenden, which is the first study of all aspects of the tube’s design evolution; we ask Harry Beck authority, Ken Garland, what he makes of a new tube map concept by Mark Noad; we investigate the enduring appeal of Edward Johnston’s eponymous typeface; Michael Evamy reports on the design story of world-famous roundel; we look at the London Transport Museum’s new exhibition of 150 key posters from its archive; we explore the rich history of platform art, and also the Underground’s communications and advertising, past and present. Plus, we talk to London Transport Museum’s head of trading about TfL’s approach to brand licensing and merchandising. In Crit, Rick Poynor reviews Branding Terror, a book about terrorist logos, while Paul Belford looks at how a 1980 ad managed to do away with everything bar a product demo. Finally, Daniel Benneworth-Grey reflects on the merits on working home alone. Buy your copy here.

Please note, CR now has a limited presence on the newsstand at WH Smith high street stores (although it can still be found in WH Smith travel branches at train stations and airports). If you cannot find a copy of CR in your town, your WH Smith store or a local independent newsagent can order it for you. You can search for your nearest stockist here. Alternatively, call us on 020 7970 4878, or buy a copy direct from us. Based outside the UK? Simply call +44(0)207 970 4878 to find your nearest stockist. Better yet, subscribe to CR for a year here and save yourself almost 30% on the printed magazine.

CR for the iPad
Read in-depth features and analysis plus exclusive iPad-only content in the Creative Review iPad App. Longer, more in-depth features than we run on the blog, portfolios of great, full-screen images and hi-res video. If the blog is about news, comment and debate, the iPad is about inspiration, viewing and reading. As well as providing exclusive, iPad-only content, the app will also update with new content throughout each month.

Electro-house music producer Deadmau5 and singer songwriter Imogen Heap invited fans to animate the video to their collaborative single Telemiscommunications.

The duo launched an open competition late last year, asking for submissions to animate a set storyline – a business man at an airport trying to have a meaningful mobile phone conversation with a loved one. The brief included a sketch for the length of the video showing the position of the character on screen including a 3D plane, as well as the colour palette for each section and some direction on mood.

The idea for the competition came about due to time constraints – a number of animators with the freedom to ceate their own film within the film would provide a quicker route to an aminated video, explains project director Colin Gordon. “This also worked for Imogen as she’s very keen on getting fans involved in creating her music, and uses crowd-sourcing ideas a lot.”

The final video was created by 19 animators, who were paid $50 per second of their work, and includes a number of animation styles, from stop-motion to detailed illustration.

Opening section created by Irish visual artist and film-maker Eoghan Kidney

By California-based animator and painter Eric Spivey

Work by illustrator and animator Kat Michaelidis

Still from London-based illustrator and animator Ewen Farr’s section

Section from Montreal-based cartoonist Paloma Dawkins

According to Gordon the set colour palette helped a lot with pulling the differing animation styles together – “it allowed for the otherwise jarring styles to blend with each other quite nicely”.

Selecting the final contributors was tricky, he adds. “We had to think about how the piece would work as a whole and not necessarily who we thought was the best animator, so it was about getting a good mix of styles and techniques as much as anything.”

For more information about the animators between each section, visit the competition website here.

Credits
Video creative direction: Imogen Heap and Colin Gordon
Project coordinator — Colin Gordon
Editor: Alexander Goodman
Animators: Eoghan Kidney, Jake Zhang, Alex Aguilar-Rudametkin, Eric Spivey, Marc Fleps, Kat Michaelides, Sitji Chou, Mayra Hernández Ríos, Ewen Farr, Eric Funk, Rory Waudby-Tolley, Dru Henderson, Oana Nechifor, Paloma Dawkins, Djoh Djoh (Joe DeMarie), Alexandre Siqueira, Stella Salumaa, Chris Butcher, Ty Coyle

CR in print
The March issue of CR magazine celebrates 150 years of the London Underground. In it we introduce a new book by Mark Ovenden, which is the first study of all aspects of the tube’s design evolution; we ask Harry Beck authority, Ken Garland, what he makes of a new tube map concept by Mark Noad; we investigate the enduring appeal of Edward Johnston’s eponymous typeface; Michael Evamy reports on the design story of world-famous roundel; we look at the London Transport Museum’s new exhibition of 150 key posters from its archive; we explore the rich history of platform art, and also the Underground’s communications and advertising, past and present. Plus, we talk to London Transport Museum’s head of trading about TfL’s approach to brand licensing and merchandising. In Crit, Rick Poynor reviews Branding Terror, a book about terrorist logos, while Paul Belford looks at how a 1980 ad managed to do away with everything bar a product demo. Finally, Daniel Benneworth-Grey reflects on the merits on working home alone. Buy your copy here.

Please note, CR now has a limited presence on the newsstand at WH Smith high street stores (although it can still be found in WH Smith travel branches at train stations and airports). If you cannot find a copy of CR in your town, your WH Smith store or a local independent newsagent can order it for you. You can search for your nearest stockist here. Alternatively, call us on 020 7970 4878, or buy a copy direct from us. Based outside the UK? Simply call +44(0)207 970 4878 to find your nearest stockist. Better yet, subscribe to CR for a year here and save yourself almost 30% on the printed magazine.

CR for the iPad
Read in-depth features and analysis plus exclusive iPad-only content in the Creative Review iPad App. Longer, more in-depth features than we run on the blog, portfolios of great, full-screen images and hi-res video. If the blog is about news, comment and debate, the iPad is about inspiration, viewing and reading. As well as providing exclusive, iPad-only content, the app will also update with new content throughout each month.

Labels from the Central Hotel in Nantes, France (circa 1930s) and the Joia Hotel in Sao Paulo (circa 1964). © Louis Vuitton Archives

Remember when travel involved more than clutching bar-coded scraps and wheeling an ugly black case through “concourses”? Neither do we, but just imagine scenes from Titanic (pre-iceberg) and The Talented Mr. Ripley (without the murder)–all crisp kerchiefs, exotic matchbooks, and hotel labels slapped onto sturdy packing cases. Return to the golden age in the gilt-edged pages of World Tour, out this month from Abrams.

Chilean-born, Paris-based travel writer Francisca Matteoli (pictured) draws upon the vintage hotel labels collected by trunkmaker and traveler Gaston-Louis Vuitton (whose grand-père founded the leathergoods juggernaut) as fodder for a 21-city global adventure illustrated by oodles of illustrations, photos, vintage postcards, and more than 900 labels that live on as graphic souvenirs of getaways from Athens to Zermatt. “I realized that a small piece of paper like a simple label can tell a million stories,” says Matteoli. “Stories of woman and men, travelers, adventurers, gangsters, elegant people…and also of history, architecture, art, countries.” She made time between voyages to answer our seven questions about culling down the collection of labels, some personal favorites, and her own choice of luggage.

How did you come to write World Tour?
I was having lunch with Julien Guerrier, editorial director at Louis Vuitton, and I told him about my Chilean great grandfather and my family who always lived in hotels, and about our life in Chile and France…He then told me that Louis Vuitton had a magnificent collection of hotel labels and that we could connect our stories. He knew I liked writing stories, and we thought that it would be a very original way to talk about travel. That is how it all began.

How did you go about narrowing down/selecting the labels to feature in the book?
We wanted mythical hotels that are representative of the golden age of travel, that have a real visual quality–many of the labels are works of art. This allowed me to write not only about labels, but also about life, historical events, and people, because travel is connected with everything in life. We wanted a book that was both a pleasure to look at, and a pleasure to read.

What are some of your favorite labels from the collection of Gaston-Louis Vuitton?
The ones that bring back personal memories. The one of the Hotel Meurice in Paris–so refined, so art déco, because my grandparents liked walking down the rue de Rivoli when they came to Paris, as do the tourists today. The one of the Hotel du Louvre, where I lived with my family when we arrived from Chile. The Savoy Hotel in London–the label is very creative, very modern for its time–because my mother, who is Scottish, used to go to the Savoy when she was young. The Hotel Gloria in Rio de Janeiro, because I lived in Rio, love Rio, and this label is not only historical but also extremely stylish. The Waldorf Astoria in New York, where I have beautiful memories, so chic and a fine example of the architecture of the 50s.
continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Artwork for the front cover of the London Underground at 150 issue

For the cover of our London Underground special issue, we asked illustrator Robert Samuel Hanson to reference one of the tube network’s more esoteric posters and to envisage London in 150 years time. The full artwork is also set to be made into a print, available free with UK-based subscriptions to CR…

The March/London Underground at 150 issue cover

This is All in the Air by Montague B Black, 1926

CR approached Hanson with the idea of working from Montague B Black’s 1926 poster for the Underground; a vision of what London might look like in 2026. Black’s poster, This is All in the Air, suggested that Londoners of 1920s could enjoy the “solid comfort” of the Underground, while in 100 years’ time, well, just look at the crowded skies! Madness.

So as the tube is celebrating its 150th anniversary this year (and hence our special issue) we put it to Hanson that he imagine the city in another 150 years and, like Black, evoke the tube’s role within it. (Black’s poster is currently on show in the London Transport Museum’s Poster Art 150 exhibition.)

Hanson’s detailed cityscape includes references to the continuing – or relentless – success of the Rolling Stones, the rise of Pyongyang as a potential holiday destination, and to CR potentially carrying its own fleet of flying delivery buses, presumably as print still thrives. There are more river ferries on the Thames (itself cleaner and more welcoming to dolphins); while Boris’s Bike’s have also been redesigned for the 22nd century.

As in Black’s effort, Hanson’s vision puts buses in the air (see the fantastic North London Air Hub, above) while the Underground remains resolutely subterranean, albeit it with new fancy viewing compartments.

And we can also annouce that a print of Robert’s artwork is available, free, with all one, two and three-year subscriptions to CR (only in the UK). Printed A3 on 230gsm ultra smooth fine art paper by Print-Process, the print is available now – and readers can find out more about subscriptions here. Here’s what the print will look like:

Artwork for the back cover of the London Underground at 150 issue (and a close up of the left-hand side of the print)

CR in print
The March issue of CR magazine celebrates 150 years of the London Underground. In it we introduce a new book by Mark Ovenden, which is the first study of all aspects of the tube’s design evolution; we ask Harry Beck authority, Ken Garland, what he makes of a new tube map concept by Mark Noad; we investigate the enduring appeal of Edward Johnston’s eponymous typeface; Michael Evamy reports on the design story of world-famous roundel; we look at the London Transport Museum’s new exhibition of 150 key posters from its archive; we explore the rich history of platform art, and also the Underground’s communications and advertising, past and present. Plus, we talk to London Transport Museum’s head of trading about TfL’s approach to brand licensing and merchandising. In Crit, Rick Poynor reviews Branding Terror, a book about terrorist logos, while Paul Belford looks at how a 1980 ad managed to do away with everything bar a product demo. Finally, Daniel Benneworth-Grey reflects on the merits on working home alone. Buy your copy here.

Please note, CR now has a limited presence on the newsstand at WH Smith high street stores (although it can still be found in WH Smith travel branches at train stations and airports). If you cannot find a copy of CR in your town, your WH Smith store or a local independent newsagent can order it for you. You can search for your nearest stockist here. Alternatively, call us on 020 7970 4878, or buy a copy direct from us. Based outside the UK? Simply call +44(0)207 970 4878 to find your nearest stockist. Better yet, subscribe to CR for a year here and save yourself almost 30% on the printed magazine.

CR for the iPad
Read in-depth features and analysis plus exclusive iPad-only content in the Creative Review iPad App. Longer, more in-depth features than we run on the blog, portfolios of great, full-screen images and hi-res video. If the blog is about news, comment and debate, the iPad is about inspiration, viewing and reading. As well as providing exclusive, iPad-only content, the app will also update with new content throughout each month.

On Friday, the good folk at The Vinyl Factory dropped round a copy of the limited edition, screenprinted double LP version of artist Dinos Chapman‘s debut album, Luftbobler. Designed by Fuel, it’s really rather nice…

Fuel has collaborated with the artist duo Jake and Dinos Chapman on numerous occasions, designing books and catalogues for them, and it was at the opening of the duo’s show, End of Fun, at The State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg last year that the opportunity for Fuel to design a record sleeve for Dinos arose.

“Dinos asked me if we’d like to do the design for his album last year when we were in St Petersburg for the opening of End of Fun,” recalls Fuel’s Damon Murray. “We were given a tour around the mueum by a friend of mine who is a curator there, and couldn’t fail to be impressed by Malevich’s Suprematist paintings. Dinos thought it would be nice if the album design was along those lines.”

The gatefold sleeve of the limited (to 300 copies) edition format is screenprinted on to clothbound heavy board. Each edition is signed and numbered by the artist on the inside of the gatefold (as shown below) and the package includes two 180gram vinyl discs that contain the album’s 13 tracks. It also contains a bonus one-sided vinyl disc with a bonus track.

“The [album’s] music is a rich layering of sound focussed through the prism of [Dinos’] computer and the shapes in the design felt like a natural representation of this, conveying a purity and idealism,” says Murray of the design approach.

“By choosing to screenprint onto heavy card we retained a tactile quality that the original Malevich paintings have, and were also able to bring the values we apply to our book design and publishing to a vinyl record.

“Perhaps the trickiest part of the design was the front cover logo,” reveals Murray. “This was also the element we had to come up with first, for promotional reasons. We wanted to use shape elements, as opposed to a specific typeface, but still ensure it was readable and not obviously referring to a defined era of sound or art.

“It also had to work alongside the etching Dinos was producing to be tipped in on the cover. Once we’d settled on this design we used the ‘rules’ present in the logo to establish guidelines for the remaining elements.”

“Our intention was for the rest of the type (track listings and credits) to be similarly non-referential. To achieve this we chose a ubiquitous utilitarian typeface (Ariel) and reversed it out of the colour shapes so the viewer is reading the (negative) colour more than the font itself.”

“The starting point for the labels on the records themselves (A,B,C,D) was the same typeface, abstracted into a pure shape adaptations of each letter (B shown, above). Once this language had been established we were able to adapt it for use on the rest of the formats: regular vinyl, cd, iTunes, as well as advertising, invites and dressing for the launch party.”

Also included in the limited edition gatefold vinyl package (£200, available from vfeditions.com) but not shown here are four plate copper etching artworks by Chapman, hand coloured on 300gsm Somerset Velvet white paper.

fuel-design.com.

CR in print
The March issue of CR magazine celebrates 150 years of the London Underground. In it we introduce a new book by Mark Ovenden, which is the first study of all aspects of the tube’s design evolution; we ask Harry Beck authority, Ken Garland, what he makes of a new tube map concept by Mark Noad; we investigate the enduring appeal of Edward Johnston’s eponymous typeface; Michael Evamy reports on the design story of world-famous roundel; we look at the London Transport Museum’s new exhibition of 150 key posters from its archive; we explore the rich history of platform art, and also the Underground’s communications and advertising, past and present. Plus, we talk to London Transport Museum’s head of trading about TfL’s approach to brand licensing and merchandising. In Crit, Rick Poynor reviews Branding Terror, a book about terrorist logos, while Paul Belford looks at how a 1980 ad managed to do away with everything bar a product demo. Finally, Daniel Benneworth-Grey reflects on the merits on working home alone. Buy your copy here.

Please note, CR now has a limited presence on the newsstand at WH Smith high street stores (although it can still be found in WH Smith travel branches at train stations and airports). If you cannot find a copy of CR in your town, your WH Smith store or a local independent newsagent can order it for you. You can search for your nearest stockist here. Alternatively, call us on 020 7970 4878, or buy a copy direct from us. Based outside the UK? Simply call +44(0)207 970 4878 to find your nearest stockist. Better yet, subscribe to CR for a year here and save yourself almost 30% on the printed magazine.

CR for the iPad
Read in-depth features and analysis plus exclusive iPad-only content in the Creative Review iPad App. Longer, more in-depth features than we run on the blog, portfolios of great, full-screen images and hi-res video. If the blog is about news, comment and debate, the iPad is about inspiration, viewing and reading. As well as providing exclusive, iPad-only content, the app will also update with new content throughout each month.