Feb 19

EJAF’s Love Is In My Blood campaign boxes

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Last week, dozens of celebrities received hand-illustrated boxes containing information about Love Is In My Blood, a new campaign by agency Mother to raise awareness for the work of the Elton John AIDS Foundation (EJAF)…

Love Is In My Blood is the first of a number of projects that Mother is working on for EJAF to help mark the charity’s 20th anniversary. Designed as a social media campaign, the idea was that on Valentines day last week, all the celebrities that were sent a box of information would prick their fingers and tweet a photo of themselves with a drop of blood on their finger along with the hashtag #loveisinmyblood and a link to the EJAF website to show their support.


Hand-embellished box by James Joyce, designed to be sent to Elton John

While Mother has estimated that the campaign has already reached some 76 million people through tweets and retweets since it launched last Thursday, we wanted to show you some of the lovingly hand-illustrated boxes that helped persuade their famous recipients to get involved with the campaign in the first place.


A Detroit cityscape with backward E signs adorns the box Joyce designed to send to Eminem

Mother briefed artists Adam Hayes, Damien Poulain, James Joyce, Melvin Galapon, Ryan Todd and Tane Williams to draw directly onto brown card boxes in away that referenced the intended recipient, the idea being that such an approach highlights the compassion that lies at the heart of the Love Is In My Blood campaign.

Each box contained instructions on what to do along with a printed silk scarf, either one by Brazilian street artist Mateus Bailon (as shown in the box above) or by South African artist Michael Taylor (his design, shown below).

“The brief was open but I opted for a limited colour palette of red and black,” says James Joyce of the seven boxes he created for the campaign. “Red for obvious reasons but also because those two colours work well with the natural board of the boxes and would unify the boxes as a whole.”


Ai Wei Wei’s box by James Joyce

“In terms of the visual ideas for the boxes, I chose to illustrate things that strongly relate to each artist,” Joyce continues, “a cityscape of Eminem’s hometown, Detroit, for example, glasses for Elton John, and Ming vases for Ai Wei Wei. It was important that the boxes had a fun feel to them.”


Box by James Joyce, can you guess who for?

“I sketched out some ideas on paper first and then drew the images directly onto the box with marker pens,” says Joyce. It was quite a free-form process in some cases, for instance just making up Eminem’s cityscape as I drew it loosely based on Detroit. Others were more rigid and pattern-like. With Elton John’s I had to do a bit of research into his eccentric specs as I wanted them to be authentic not just made up.”


Above and below: Another two of the boxes designed and hand-illustrated by James Joyce

Joyce signed all of the seven boxes he created for the campaign to give each one the feeling of a bespoke artwork in its own right. Fellow contributor to the project, Damien Poulain chose to initial all of his boxes, some of which are shown below:


Damien Poulain’s box for Stephen Fry


Damien Poulain’s box for Grace Jones


Above and below: two more boxes by Poulain

“We wanted the project to reflect the central idea of the campaign: that compassion and care will in the long run make as big a difference to the treatment of HIV and aids and science and research,” a spokesperson for Mother told us. “We wanted every part of the part of each pack to reflect that sense of care. That’s why they were all hand drawn and personalised for each recipient. Care and love are evident in every piece. They are functional but works of art in themselves”

Find out more about the campaign at ejaf.com.

CR in Print
The February issue of CR magazine features a major interview with graphic designer Ken Garland. Plus, we delve into the Heineken advertising archive, profile digital art and generative design studio Field, talk to APFEL and Linder about their collaboration on a major exhibition in Paris for the punk artist, and debate the merits of stock images versus commissioned photography. Plus, a major new book on women in graphic design, the University of California logo row and what it means for design, Paul Belford on a classic Chivas Regal ad and Jeremy Leslie on the latest trends in app design for magazines and more. 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.

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Feb 18

Dover Bookshop to close

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Photo: File Magazine//citylikeyou

Sad news from London’s Covent Garden – the Dover Bookshop, the walk-in image library specialising in royalty free pictures, is to close at the end of March. We spoke to bookshop manager, Tim Matthews, about the end of a 27-year run on Earlham Street…

Founded in 1986 by Mark Oddie, the Dover Bookshop is hard to miss with its bright yellow frontage and sign featuring a design donated by the artist Eduardo Paolozzi, a long-time fan of the shop. But missed it will be when, at the end of next month, it closes its doors for the last time.

It was originally established as a shop selling the Pictorial Archive range of titles from the US-based Dover publisher, and has since proven to be something of a haven for artists and designers. Its hundreds of books of copyright free imagery feature everything from Japanese border patterns to Victorian medical illustrations.

Julie Verhoeven, Paul Smith and even Vivienne Westwood have used Dover pictures in their work. Artist Stanley Donwood also made use of Dover imagery in the title graphic on the cover of Thom Yorke’s album, The Eraser (above).

Matthews cites “the recession suppressing budgets in agencies, studios, institutions” as having played a major role in the shop’s demise. The economic climate, he says, has also affected “discretionary purchases, gift and casual buyers, lunchtime trade and Christmas buying”. The fall-out from nearby Charing Cross Road as it declined as a focus for bookselling also affected the Dover site, while other local changes have seen the area around Earlham Street move from niche specialist shops to larger chains.

Dover’s own output has also declined in recent years, admits Matthews, with a limited range of new titles being published, but its biggest competitor is now the range of cheap (and free) images that can be sourced online.

In 2006, I interviewed Matthews for a feature on the shop and was soon aware of his unique position as someone keyed-in to the work of the local creative community. Matthews was (and is) well placed to see the ebb and flow of particular fascinations with imagery – back when we met in 2006, for example, heraldic imagery was apparently highly sought after.

For now, the Dover Bookshop is running a closing down sale, with 20% off all Dover titles in the shop or a 10% discount online (with free P&P). Best of luck to Tim and all his staff at the shop.

The Dover Bookshop is at 18 Earlham Street, London WC2H 9LG.

 

CR in Print
The February issue of CR magazine features a major interview with graphic designer Ken Garland. Plus, we delve into the Heineken advertising archive, profile digital art and generative design studio Field, talk to APFEL and Linder about their collaboration on a major exhibition in Paris for the punk artist, and debate the merits of stock images versus commissioned photography. Plus, a major new book on women in graphic design, the University of California logo row and what it means for design, Paul Belford on a classic Chivas Regal ad and Jeremy Leslie on the latest trends in app design for magazines and more. 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.

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Feb 15

Poster Art 150: the tube says it with a poster

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Say it Underground with a poster, Christopher Greaves, 1933

To mark the Underground’s 150th birthday, an exhibition at the London Transport Museum presents150 of the most significant posters created for the tube. Within this history of London Underground posters lies the history of the poster itself.

From the purely typographic examples of the late 19th century, through the first illustrated tube poster in 1908, through the golden age of the 20s and 30s to the modern techniques of advertising, London Underground’s output traces the development of visual communications in the modern world. The task of selecting 150 key examples of that output, out of some 3,000 illustrated posters in the archives, was given to a panel of eight experts including representatives of TFL, the Victoria & Albert Museum, artist Simon Patterson, whose Great Bear piece so cleverly reworked the iconic tube map, Paul Rennie of Central St Martins and designer Brian Webb.

The Museum created a longlist, printed out at A4 size in a ringbinder given to each panellist. It was agreed that the final 150 should attempt to represent the history of LU in its entirety and resist the temptation to let the 20s and 30s dominate. Many old favourites are there, but there are some surprises too.

 

 

Curator Anna Renton has organised the chosen works into six sections, themed around different aspects of LU and its operations. The first section in the show (Finding Your Way) is all about posters aimed at reassuring the travelling public that the tube is a safe, pleasant place. Here we find classics such as Alfred France’s The Way For All (above) in which a smiling, behatted young lady assures us that the tube is a respectable choice for the women of 1911, while in Horace Taylor’s Brightest London (below) a glamorous crowd (including the artist himself, on the middle escalator, in beard and top hat) happily uses the then-modern innovation of escalators.

 

 

And we see the first poster to be commissioned by the great Frank Pick, whose management did so much to establish London Transport at the forefront of great design. In it, a kindly policeman refers a nervous country couple to the tube map as the only guide they will need to the system.

 

No Need To Ask A P’liceman, the first illustrated poster commissioned by the Underground Group, John Hassall, 1908


Smoking cars were available on the tube until 1984, although not as sumptuous as in Frederick Charles Herrick’s The Lap Of Luxury from 1925


Early tube posters often cast the system in favourable comparison to alternative methods of transportation on the surface: It is warmer below and It is cooler below, Frederick Charles Herrick, 1926

 

Passengers are unable to resist the Lure Of The Underground, Alfred Leete,1927


Later sections deal with behaviour, such as standing on the right on escalators and not crowding entrances to platforms, the cultural delights that the tube allows access to, with the attractions of outlying suburbs which extensions to the network brought within easy reach of all Londoners, the tube’s role in keeping London moving and, finally, the pride in the city it helps engender. What comes through in the show is that, although the posters themselves were often truly beautiful, and many of them very abstract, they all had a specific communications task to perform: they were not just art for art’s sake.

 

So-called panel posters were cheaply-produced mini-posters which were pasted directly onto the windows of trains. Many were used to advertise sporting events, such as The Quickest Way To The Dogs by Alfred Leete, 1927

 

More posters were commissioned promoting the zoo than anyother subject, including this surreal effort Zoo Choice, by Michael Read, 1970


Man Ray’s twin posters from 1938, shown for the first time as a pair in the exhibition


The pair poster became more popular after world war two when Harold F Hutchison became publicity officer for London Transport. A copywriter by trade, Hutchison introduced pairs whereby one side would be predominantly image-based and the other used for long copy. These posters were particularly useful in outlying stations where passengers may have to wait longer for a train and so have more time to read. The poster pair shown is by James Fitton, 1948


The tube poster as propaganda: During the first world war, the Underground commissioned a series of propaganda posters which were displayed in army billets on the Western Front to remind soldiers of what they were fighting for. Fred Taylor, 1918. Note the sheep grazing on Hampstead Heath, something which only happened during wartime

 

Dora M Batty was one of the most prolific tube poster designers. Primarily a fashion illustrator, many of her posters are distinguished by the rendering of her subjects’ clothing as in There Is Still The Country from 1926

Each of the members of the selection panel for the exhibition were asked to pick a personal favourite. Brian Webb chose Edward McKnight Kauffer’s Winter Sales from 1921. Webb says that he would cheerfully have chosen nothing but Kauffer posters for the show, so much does he admire him, but that this particular work stood out for its abstract nature. Kauffer created more posters for London Transport (127) than any other designer

 

Waterside London, designed by Hans Unger in 1972, was the choice of Michael Walton, who is head of trading at the London Transport Museum


Oliver Green, research fellow at the London Transport Museum, chose Thanks To The Underground by Zero (Hans Schleger), from 1935


The show, though packed into quite a cramped space, really is spectacular. It’s only by seeing these original posters ‘in the flesh’ that you can fully appreciate what extraordinary pieces of design many of them are. And what fabulous tributes to the printer’s art – the likes of Curwen Press used these posters as a showcase for their own skills. The colours, even today, are extraordinarily rich – in a less image-saturated age, their impact when placed in dim tunnels and on smoky platforms must have been extraordinary.

 

Poster Art 150 – London Underground’s Greatest Designs is at the London Transport Museum until October 27, ltmuseum.co.uk. Visitors will be able to vote for their favourite poster in the Siemens Poster Vote

Al images courtesy London Transport Museum Collection.

The March print issue of Creative Review is dedicated to the visual communications of the London Underground, with features on the roundel, posters, the Johnston typeface, station graphics and much much more. Out February 20, available here

CR in Print
The February issue of CR magazine features a major interview with graphic designer Ken Garland. Plus, we delve into the Heineken advertising archive, profile digital art and generative design studio Field, talk to APFEL and Linder about their collaboration on a major exhibition in Paris for the punk artist, and debate the merits of stock images versus commissioned photography. Plus, a major new book on women in graphic design, the University of California logo row and what it means for design, Paul Belford on a classic Chivas Regal ad and Jeremy Leslie on the latest trends in app design for magazines and more. 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.

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Feb 13

Playtime at The Royal London’s Children Hospital

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Artist Chris O’Shea has collaborated with digital production company Nexus Interactive Arts to create Woodland Wiggle – an interactive game for children displayed on an enormous telly in a new indoor play area at The Royal London Hospital’s dedicated Children’s Hospital…

Officially called The Ann Riches Healing Space, the new indoor play area has been designed by architects Cottrell & Vermeulen and graphic designer Morag Myerscough and takes the form of an oversized living room filled with Alice In Wonderland-scale objects for children to explore and interact with.

“The architects [Cottrell & Vermeulen] had won a RIBA competition to design the space and had the concept of the large living room,” explains Myerscough of the project. “I was then brought in by Vital Arts [who commissioned the project] to introduce another layer of narrative in the space,” she continues.

“The living room was to appear as a familiar calm space but super sized and I introduced the playful disorder with giant characters, stories, puzzle seating, wooden tops and a wallpaper patterned with a menagerie of animals.”

 

“Once we we struck on the idea of the animals who better to ask than my Mum, Betty Fraser Myerscough, a textile artist, who went to work creating various animals and we took [toy-size versions, shown below] to the hospital to see how the patients would react and they loved them,” Myerscough continues.

“The main characters in the space are Eddie the Tiger and Twoo the Wise Owl. We did not stop there – Luke Morgan has written a story about all the friends who live in Cozy Wood and can hear it narrated under the story telling chair in the space.”

It is Betty Fraser Myerscough’s animal character creations which have been brought to life in the interactive game devised by O’Shea that plays out on the huge TV in the space. Myerscough’s characters were illustrated and animated by Felix Massie and can be interacted with onscreen by moving around in front of the screen.

Entitled Wiggle Wood, the installation allows children to enter into a storybook-style illustrated world, enabling them to paint, play music (with sound design and music by Brains & Hunch), and trigger sun, rain, snow and rainbows with animated animal characters across a number of woodland scenes.

“Working in close consultation with clinical teams at the hospital, and following a series of workshops with physiotherapists and occupational therapists, I was able to determine a range of movements that would give children the best health benefits which strongly influenced the format and design of the games created,” explains artist Chirs O’Shea of the project.

“The installation had to work with a wide range of abilities, from wheelchair users, visually impaired, to bed bound children, so simple movement filtering allows for triggering of music and paint with just a wave of the hands,” he continues. Here’s a look at the installation being put to good use:

Woodland Wiggle credits:

Artist Chris O’Shea

Producer Beccy McCray
Executive producer Luke Ritchie
Development producer Claire Spencer Cook

Production assistant Carmen de Wit
Illustrator and animator Felix Massie
Composer and sound designer Brains and Hunch

Documentation editor Dave Slade
Production Company Nexus Interactive Arts

Other features in the space include huge colourful spinning tops (they don’t spin, for obvious safety reasons) designed by Morag Myerscough, an interactive patterned projection underneath a huge lampshade, and two enormous animal characters designed by Myerscough senior – here’s Twoo awaiting departure from the factory it was made in:

Architects Cottrell & Vermeulen have also designed a garden area in the hospital but photos aren’t available at the time of posting this story – we’ll add images as soon as we have them.

Both the indoor and outdoor play areas were ommissioned by Vital Arts, the arts organisation for Barts Health NHS Trust. Funded entirely by charitable donations from underwriters OdysseyRe, construction group Skanska, and Barts and The London Charity.

CR in Print
The February issue of CR magazine features a major interview with graphic designer Ken Garland. Plus, we delve into the Heineken advertising archive, profile digital art and generative design studio Field, talk to APFEL and Linder about their collaboration on a major exhibition in Paris for the punk artist, and debate the merits of stock images versus commissioned photography. Plus, a major new book on women in graphic design, the University of California logo row and what it means for design, Paul Belford on a classic Chivas Regal ad and Jeremy Leslie on the latest trends in app design for magazines and more. 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.

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Feb 13

Name that character

Posted in: Uncategorized

Opening later this week at the London Transport Museum, Poster Art 150 – London Underground’s Greatest Designs picks 150 of the finest posters designed for the tube. So, for a little pre-show fun, we want to know how many advertising characters can you spot in the poster above?

Poster Art 150 opens on Friday February 15 (full preview to come). Eight experts selected posters from throughout the tube’s 150 years for the show, including this one, by Frederick Charles Herrick, from 1920. During the first world war, there had been restrictions on advertising on the tube network. In 1920, the Undergound relaunched its advertising campaign while events such as this White City exhibition were aimed at encouraging advertisers back into print.

In the poster, a host of popular advertising characters of the day assemble on a tube platform ready to travel to the show – but how many do you recognise?

There’s the Johnnie Walker Striding Man, for starters, and Bibendum, of course, but what about the others?

Let us know in the comments below – we’re really struggling with the blocky, yellow guy (lady?) in the background, right…

 

Image courtesy London Transport Museum Collection.

Poster Art 150 – London Underground’s Greatest Designs is at the London TRansport Museum, Covent Garden, London WC2 from February 15 until October. Visitors can vote for their favourite poster in the Siemens Poster Vote, details here

 

CR in Print
The February issue of CR magazine features a major interview with graphic designer Ken Garland. Plus, we delve into the Heineken advertising archive, profile digital art and generative design studio Field, talk to APFEL and Linder about their collaboration on a major exhibition in Paris for the punk artist, and debate the merits of stock images versus commissioned photography. Plus, a major new book on women in graphic design, the University of California logo row and what it means for design, Paul Belford on a classic Chivas Regal ad and Jeremy Leslie on the latest trends in app design for magazines and more. 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.

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Feb 13

Olly Moss’s Oscars poster features 85 Best Picture winners

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In the poster for this year’s Oscars ceremony, the famous statuette has been recast by illustrator Olly Moss to reference every Best Picture winner from the last 85 years

 

 

Moss says the brief (which came via Gallery 1988) was one of the hardest he has ever had. He had to come up with a suitable pose for each Best Picture-winner, from Wings to The Artist (cleverly depicted in black and white).

 

 

The poster is full of nice touches – the image above shows the roll call of winners from 1958 (Gigi) to 1985 (Out of Africa). For Billy Wilder’s The Apartment (1960, top row, third from left) Moss recalls Jack Lemmon’s habit of using a tennis racket to strain spaghetti, while the Artful Dodger represents Oliver! (far left, middle row).

The Apartment (1960) and Deer Hunter (1978) as depicted by Olly Moss

 

 

“It’s all just drawn with a Wacom in Photoshop,” Moss says. “I made standard templates for male/female/child and then drew the extra details over the top. The statuette template I made was based on the huge statue they wheel out for the ceremony every year. It’s a little more refined than the award so it withstood a bit more detail/ customisation.”

“Gallery 1988 ran the campaign. I’ve shown there and worked with them before on this sort of thing. They hired me to do this poster. The brief was tough – it was pretty open with the one caveat that I had to somehow reference all of, or most, of the Best Picture Winners from the past 85 years.”

How long did it all take? “A bloody long time!” Moss says “I was working 16 hour days for about three weeks solid. I was on schedule before my computer died in mid January, which ballsed things up a tad.”

Moss says the hardest film to come up with an idea for was 1947-winner Gentleman’s Agreement. “If you haven’t seen it, it’s a film about a man disguising himself as a Jew to experience/uncover prejudice. Quite a hard thing to sum up sensitively on a 2″ tall statue.”

Favourites? “Hurt Locker was fun to do. I also like the one for The Greatest Show on Earth because I’m a big Jimmy Stewart fan and will happily take any excuse to draw him.”

The Hurt Locker (2009) and Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

CR in Print
The February issue of CR magazine features a major interview with graphic designer Ken Garland. Plus, we delve into the Heineken advertising archive, profile digital art and generative design studio Field, talk to APFEL and Linder about their collaboration on a major exhibition in Paris for the punk artist, and debate the merits of stock images versus commissioned photography. Plus, a major new book on women in graphic design, the University of California logo row and what it means for design, Paul Belford on a classic Chivas Regal ad and Jeremy Leslie on the latest trends in app design for magazines and more. 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.

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Feb 12

Best record sleeve of the year (so far)

Posted in: Uncategorized

We’ve just clapped our eyes on some finished copies of the forthcoming Atoms For Peace album adorned with artwork by Stanley Donwood. They’re pretty special…

Set for release on February 25, Amok is the debut album from Thom Yorke’s Atoms For Peace band which features Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea on bass, Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich on guitar, keyboard and synth duty, and also Joey Waronker of Beck and R.E.M. on drums with instrumentalist Mauro Refosco on additional percussion.

The album, which is being released on XL Recordings will be available in no less than four different physical formats comprising two normal releases: a CD version packaged in a gatefold card sleeve (£10, front cover above), and a double LP version in a wide spine sleeve which will also include the album on a CD (£20, shown below)

And then there’s two special edition releases. They’re more expensive, but with good reason – they’re very beautiful things to behold thanks to the combination of wonderful artwork by Donwood, and beautifully realised packaging produced by Think Tank Media. First up is the limited edition CD packaged in a 12-panel, concertina folded, debossed and silver foil-blocked on reverse board edition (£12).

Plus there’s a limited edition double LP version (£30, cover shown top of this post) which comes in a triple gatefold, debossed and silver foil blocked on reverse board package which comes with a lyric sheet and blind debossed and foiled inner sleeves plus the album on CD. The following gif shows its contents:

Regular readers of CR blog will recognise the apocalyptic artwork (depicting a flooded and burning LA being bombarded by meteors) as we posted about it twice last year – first in April when Eliza posted here about the artwork’s original iteration as an 18-foot lino-printed panorama exhibited at LA’s Submliminal Projects

…and again when artist INSA’s project saw him paint Donwood’s Lost Angeles artwork on to the XL Records office in LA (four times)  to create an eye-popping piece of ‘gif-iti’ in December. Read Mark’s post about it here.

To find out more about Atoms For Peace or to pre-order a copy of the album, visit atomsforpeace.info. See more of Stanley Donwood’s work at slowlydownward.com.

CR in Print
The February issue of CR magazine features a major interview with graphic designer Ken Garland. Plus, we delve into the Heineken advertising archive, profile digital art and generative design studio Field, talk to APFEL and Linder about their collaboration on a major exhibition in Paris for the punk artist, and debate the merits of stock images versus commissioned photography. Plus, a major new book on women in graphic design, the University of California logo row and what it means for design, Paul Belford on a classic Chivas Regal ad and Jeremy Leslie on the latest trends in app design for magazines and more. 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.

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Feb 08

True North’s football hero stamps

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Manchester agency True North has created a set of Royal Mail stamps, illustrated by Andy Kinsman, that celebrate eleven carefully chosen heroes of the British game…

“We were commissioned by Dean Price, design manager at Royal Mail to produce a set of stamps to coincide with the 150th anniversary of the Football Association,” explains creative director Ady Bibby,” and which would celebrate the heroes of the British game. As a football mad agency, this really was a dream job.

“It became clear that we couldn’t suggest players simply based on the number of honours they achieved or the amount of goals they scored,” Bibby continues. “It was about their achievement on the pitch at both club and international level and also their place in the hearts of British football fans. The final list was decided by experts at the National Football Museum.

“We then scoured the archives to find images of the players in team photograph pose. We also wanted to reflect each player at their pomp. Some of the imagery was great quality, others images weren’t as good so we needed to commission an illustrator that could help us manipulate the ages of the players, and also ensure consistency across the painting. We commissioned Andy Kinsman who worked full-time on the painting (below) for six months.”

Credits
Creative director Ady Bibby, True North
Senior designer Adrian Newell, True North
Illustrator Andy Kinsman

More info on the set of stamps can be found at royalmail.com.

CR in Print
The February issue of CR magazine features a major interview with graphic designer Ken Garland. Plus, we delve into the Heineken advertising archive, profile digital art and generative design studio Field, talk to APFEL and Linder about their collaboration on a major exhibition in Paris for the punk artist, and debate the merits of stock images versus commissioned photography. Plus, a major new book on women in graphic design, the University of California logo row and what it means for design, Paul Belford on a classic Chivas Regal ad and Jeremy Leslie on the latest trends in app design for magazines and more. 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.

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Feb 08

Friday film fun from The Layzell Bros.

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Brothers Matt and Paul Layzell are signed to BlinkInk as animation directing duo The Layzell Bros. They’ve just created the first two films in an ongoing series of self-initiated animated silliness and, seeing as it’s Friday, here they are…

CHICKSwithCHEEKS.org from Blink on Vimeo.

Last of our kind from Blink on Vimeo.

The Layzell Bros. have created various idents for E4 and music videos for the band Mazes. Find out more about the pair and see their reel at blinkink.co.uk – and to stay tuned for further episodes in this new series of just-for-fun films, sign up to the BlinkInk mailing list at blinkink.co.uk/#!subscribe

CR in Print
The February issue of CR magazine features a major interview with graphic designer Ken Garland. Plus, we delve into the Heineken advertising archive, profile digital art and generative design studio Field, talk to APFEL and Linder about their collaboration on a major exhibition in Paris for the punk artist, and debate the merits of stock images versus commissioned photography. Plus, a major new book on women in graphic design, the University of California logo row and what it means for design, Paul Belford on a classic Chivas Regal ad and Jeremy Leslie on the latest trends in app design for magazines and more. 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.

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Feb 07

EBacc threat to design removed in Gove U-turn

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Campaigners for the creative industries have claimed victory as the Government abandons plans which may have sidelined art and design in secondary education, and confirms it is reforming the GCSE system to include design

Under the original proposals for the reform of secondary education it was feared that arts and design subjects would be sidelined by not being included in the core ‘pillars’ of the new new Ebacc qualification. Today Secretary of State for Education Michael Gove has announced that the Government will introduce a ‘new eight-subject measure of GCSEs, including English and maths, three subjects out of sciences, languages, history and geography and three other subjects, such as art, music or RE’. The latter could include DT and other creative subjects. (More detail at Design Week, here).

Joe Macleod, global design director at ustwo and coordinator of the #IncludeDesign campaign said: “This is fantastic news for the whole of the design industry and creative economy. That Michael Gove is now listening to the 100 creative industry and education leaders who handed in a letter to Number 10 last week raising their serious concerns is a great step forwards. As an industry this gives us an opportunity to work with education leaders and the government to help support the shared vision of a world-class syllabus that offers students a fully rounded education. Without these changes to the EBacc, we would have lost the designers, architects and creativies of the future, as their talents would have been constricted by schools being pushed to prioritise an unnecessarily narrow range of subjects that reflected the past and not the future. The creative industries are worth more than £60 billion a year to the UK economy and it would have been a catastrophe if creative subjects such as design & technology had been lost from schools at Key Stage 4. Now we need to see the same breadth included at A Level too.”

Deborah Annetts, chief executive of the Incorporated Society of Musicians and coordinator of the Bacc for the Future campaign has welcomed the anouncement as “good news for children and good news for education. We must learn from the last six months of consultation and ensure we work together to create high quality and rigorous GCSEs and A Levels with appropriate assessment fit for the 21st Century. Creative subjects such as art, music and design and technology need to stay at the heart of education so that we can develop talented youngsters to feed our creative industries and generate growth.

“The voices of the creative industries and education sectors have been listened to, and we welcome this. We will now be looking closely at the new proposed National Curriculum for music and work with the Government to ensure that we have a National Curriculum, GCSEs and A-levels fit for the future.”

The changes were also hailed by Liz Wilkins, senior marketing manager at Adobe Education UK: “We have always maintained that the omission of design and the wider arts in the Government’s planned GCSE reforms was a fundamental flaw in the Ebacc proposals,” she says. “The u-turn is a huge victory on the part of the creative industries, who have campaigned through initiatives such as #IncludeDesign and #baccforthefuture, for a revision of the plans, and will prevent future generations of students leaving school with a gaping hole in their secondary education.

“Our own research tells us that 77% of UK employers and university lecturers place a high value on creativity in school leavers, with 78% of people in the UK in agreement that creativity is key to driving economic growth. The UK is renowned for its creativity thanks to its successes in fashion, art, design, film, food and music, so providing all students with access to creative subjects is essential to our future economic success.

“A programme of study devoid of any arts tuition at all would threaten to stifle creativity further. And whilst there is still work to be done in ensuring young people leave school with the necessary skills that will make them an attractive hire for an employer, we’re in a much better position to achieve that today than we were yesterday.”

As part of the campaign to include design and creative subjects at the heart of secondary education, both Design Week editor Angus Montgomery and CR editor Patrick Burgoyne wrote open letters to Michael Gove. Many other leading figures in the creative community also made representations to Government. Both Joe Macleod and Deborah Annetts are to be particularly congratulated for their efforts in both formalising and organising opposition to the plans.

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