Hasta La Ideas

This is the view that awaits the likes of Paula Scher and Michael Bierut from Pentagram, Kyle Cooper, Stefan Sagmeister, Seymour Chwast, Erik Kessels, Friends With You, Johnny Kelly, Matt Clark from UVA, Eike Konig of Hort, and Shepard Fairey – all of whom are set to deliver talks at this year’s OFFSET festival in Dublin…

Once again the conference will take place over three days from March 9-11 in the 2,000-capacity Grand Canal Theatre in Dublin’s docklands where a hugely impressive line up of international designers and image makers will take to the stage and discuss their work.

For a full list of speakers and to see the just-announced schedule of events, visit iloveoffset.com/schedule

As well as full three-day conference tickets. therehere are a limited number of day tickets (150 available each day). To find out more visit iloveoffset.com.

CR in Print

If you only read CR online, you’re missing out. From the meaning of beans to the power of love, the February issue of Creative Review features our 20 favourite slogans of all time and the stories behind them.

What makes a great slogan? We investigate the enduring power of these clever little phrases in our special slogans issue, dedicated to our choices for the top 20 slogans.

If you would like to buy this issue and are based in the UK, you can search for your nearest stockist here. Based outside the UK? Simply call +44(0)207 292 3703 to find your nearest stockist. Better yet, subscribe to CR for a year here and save yourself almost 30% on the printed magazine.

Last year illustrator James Jarvis endeavoured to produce a linocut print every week (each in an edition of seven) of his nameless spherical character, posting each one on a dedicated blog. Now artist proofs of all 52 prints will be exhibited at Beach in London and offered for sale for £40 each…

The series depicts said sphere, sometimes with similarly shaped friend, engaged in a number of activites. Sometimes it is playing as a child might, and sometimes it is performing a more mundane adult task such as painting a wall or putting a picture up. In some composition we see the sphere running, walking, or even being kicked (below). In other images, it simply looking a bit surprised or startled.

Despite the fact that Jarvis’ sphere is probably his most stylistically simplistic character creation, and that he’s using just one colour and one of the most basic of print mediums, he demonstrates an impressive ability to bring life, emotion and movement to each print. Lovely stuff, this.

Fifty-two Spheres runs from this Thursday February 9 through to February 26 in the downstairs gallery space at Beach, 20 Cheshire Street, London E2 6EH.

View the 52 Spheres project online at 52spheres.blogspot.com

To check out Jarvis’ latest sphere-related project, check out Spherical Dialogues.

CR in Print

If you only read CR online, you’re missing out. From the meaning of beans to the power of love, the February issue of Creative Review features our 20 favourite slogans of all time and the stories behind them.

What makes a great slogan? We investigate the enduring power of these clever little phrases in our special slogans issue, dedicated to our choices for the top 20 slogans.

If you would like to buy this issue and are based in the UK, you can search for your nearest stockist here. Based outside the UK? Simply call +44(0)207 292 3703 to find your nearest stockist. Better yet, subscribe to CR for a year here and save yourself almost 30% on the printed magazine.

On January 31 five up-and-coming animators were given the chance to have their work run on the digital display at the top of London’s BT Tower thanks to somewhereto_ , a nationwide 2012 Olympics legacy project to help young people in sport, culture and the arts

Somewhereto_ funds ‘ideas and local talent to inspire creativity across the UK’. Its mission is to help young people realise their ideas by providing them with the resources and spaces to do so. The project, which is run by ‘youth engagement agency’ Livity in partnership with Channel 4, ran a contest asking for submissions from young animators for work to appear on what is Europe’s largest digital display. The five young animators chosen were Dean Wright and Emma Wilson, Joe Collins, Lawrence Simpson and Will Adams (more here).

CR in Print

If you only read CR online, you’re missing out. From the meaning of beans to the power of love, the February issue of Creative Review features our 20 favourite slogans of all time and the stories behind them.

What makes a great slogan? We investigate the enduring power of these clever little phrases in our special slogans issue, dedicated to our choices for the top 20 slogans.

If you would like to buy this issue and are based in the UK,you can search for your nearest stockist here. Based outside the UK? Simply call +44(0)207 292 3703 to find your nearest stockist. Better yet, subscribe to CR for a year here and save yourself almost 30% on the printed magazine.

To mark its 50th anniversary, this weekend’s Sunday Times Magazine cover will feature an image of an installation of over 100 magazines hanging on wires to form the number 50. The image, conceived and art directed by The Sunday Times Magazine’s art director Alyson Waller, was created by CG specialist Taylor James…

“I didn’t have much notice – not much more than a week,” Waller tells us. “The editor asked if I could think of something for the 50th Anniversary cover,” she continues. “Of course the most important thing to get across is that it’s 50 years old, an incredible amount of time for a magazine to run. It’s a bit obvious, but having the number 50 was important. The editor then mentioned that we were going to do an exhibition to celebrate the 50th anniversary and that’s when I started thinking about creating some kind of installation that could appear in a gallery. There wasn’t enough time to create an actual installation so I approached Taylor James to see if they could create a virtual one.”

“The challenge with this project was to create a sense of scale and power,” says Dave Wortley, lead 3D artist at Taylor James who worked on the image.” We wanted to make sure it would look like an installation in a large gallery and not a scaled model. Each magazine is unique in shape and form and there are over 100 covers from 50 years of the Sunday Times Magazine in the image, so we used a bit of scripting to avoid repeats on the front row and make the rest appear random.”

Waller at The Sunday Times Magazine was able to provide Taylor James with digital files of photographed covers from the magazine’s archives, with some issues having to be re-photographed especially. Then dozens of emails were exchanged between the art director and Taylor James as the image started to take shape.

“It was a challenge to complete this project in the timeframe,” adds Wortley, “with a lot of our attention given at the early concepting stage. We created a model of the magazine made to scale and then each [virtual] magazine is threaded onto a wire. If you look closely enough you can even see the staples in the fold of the magazines!”

The anniversary edition of the magazine will be in the newspper and online this Sunday February 5 and will feature the 50 greatest front covers from over the 50 years.

To further celebrate the ripe old age of 50, The Sunday Times is marking its half century with a free exhibition at London’s Saatchi Gallery, (running until February 18) showcasing the cover image and also some of the features and world class photography which has defined it over the years.

Photographers featured include Dan McCullin, David bailey, Eve Arnold, Richard Avedon, Eugene Richards, Sam Taylor-Wood, Terry O’Neil, Chris Floyd and Stuart Franklin. More info at saatchi-gallery.co.uk

See more of Taylor James’ work at taylorjames.com

CR in Print

If you only read CR online, you’re missing out. From the meaning of beans to the power of love, the February issue of Creative Review features our 20 favourite slogans of all time and the stories behind them.

What makes a great slogan? We investigate the enduring power of these clever little phrases in our special slogans issue, dedicated to our choices for the top 20 slogans.

If you would like to buy this issue and are based in the UK, you can search for your nearest stockist here. Based outside the UK? Simply call +44(0)207 292 3703 to find your nearest stockist. Better yet, subscribe to CR for a year here and save yourself almost 30% on the printed magazine.

Chrissie Macdonald‘s window display, part of It’s Nice That’s curatorial project for Selfridges’ in-store initiative, Words

Selfridges windows on London’s Oxford Street are currently showing a crop of illustration and design talent with work by Nuha Razik, Becky Sloan, William Richard Green – plus a series curated by It’s Nice That – on display…

Andrew Meredith has once again photographed the window designs, some of which form part of Selfridges’ Words Words Words initiative. The project sees the launch of the new Selfridges Library in the Ultralounge section of the store, which features highlights from the archives of various publishers.

It’s Nice That has collaborated on a huge installation, the Word-A-Coaster, with interactive designers Stewdio (the wooden fortune-telling roller-coaster takes up four of the shop’s windows); while artists Ben Long, Chrissie MacDonald and Gilles Miller have also installed work – interpreting the word “words” in each case – under INT’s curation.

Other windows feature work by a host of different creatives taking part in Selfridges’ Bright Young Things series, so there’s some excellent work to be viewed from the street over the next few weeks. Here’s our pick of the some of the best work on show at the moment:

Detail of Chrissie Macdonald window for It’s Nice That

Futuremap’s window, part of the Bright Young Things series

Ben Long‘s window for It’s Nice That

It’s Nice That‘s own installation, the Word-A-Coaster

Nuha Razik‘s window, part of the Bright Young Things series (the shadows are painted)

Archie McLeish‘s window, part of the Bright Young Things series

William Richard Green‘s window, part of the Bright Young Things series

Giles Miller‘s window for It’s Nice That

Becky Sloan’s window, part of the Bright Young Things series

Thanks to Andrew Meredith for the photographs.

CR in Print

If you only read CR online, you’re missing out. From the meaning of beans to the power of love, the February issue of Creative Review features our 20 favourite slogans of all time and the stories behind them.

What makes a great slogan? We investigate the enduring power of these clever little phrases in our special slogans issue, dedicated to our choices for the top 20 slogans.

If you would like to buy this issue and are based in the UK, you can search for your nearest stockist here. Based outside the UK? Simply call +44(0)207 292 3703 to find your nearest stockist. Better yet, subscribe to CR for a year here and save yourself almost 30% on the printed magazine.