Mark Denver Industrial

Stumbled across Mark Denver Vintage Industrial, a shop in Fitzroy.  An absolute gold mine if you have a few thousand dollars spare. Items for sale included taxidermy stag wall mounts, working van der graaf, old school evaporator and condenser, cast iron birdcage and various scientific miscellany. If only I had a mansion I could turn the vintage step ladder into shelving for my pantry.

 Van Der Graaf fun

Shop interior (note stag heads)

arbitrary shot of window from my sub-standard phone

The Lives Of Others, QLD

Every now and again I accidentally encounter an intimate insight into the life of another. During my stay in Bundaberg, QLD I had nothing to do but join the local library, there, I loaned Paul Auster's 'Book of Illusions' and on getting halfway through found a fellow borrowers library receipt. The receipt listed the array of items that said borrower had chosen and amongst two Auster Novels it read;

1. Good Cooking: The new essential Guide
2. Small Spaces: Maximising Limited Spaces For Living
3. Breakfast
4. Theo & Co: The Search For The Perfect Pizza.

and the cherry on the cake...

5. Beekeeping For Dummies.

I wonder under what circumstances 'Erica M. Abotomey' would be able to partake in Beekeeping whilst maximising her humble abode and at the same time drastically improving her cooking skills, not forgetting her commitment to the perfect pizza, and in the meantime still managing to read two hefty novels, all before 9 Jul 2011.

MDS Designinit Aftershow

After the Manchester Design Symposium, a bunch of fired up designers headed over the The Deaf Institute for a networking event organised by Designinit. The highlight of this was undoubtedly winding down with a group of fellow D&ADers on the terrace, and getting talking to Angela Gilroy, who happened to work at Dalton Maag, she kindly gave us their promotional catalogue and an ubuntu poster.

It was really interesting talking to Angie and we learnt that if we were to complete a placement at Dalton Mag it would be Angie we would be staying with, so it was her we needed to talk to. She simply said that a passionate email was sufficient and it wouldn't hurt for it to be typeset in Ubuntu.

Later Angie brought out Bruno Maag to talk to us which was encouraging as she must have found us interesting. Bruno was just ask lively off the stage as on and was easy to have a joke with. John Walters followed him out and we began talking to him also, which was really great. Bruno specified that the most likely place to get to know people was here, in the pub and I agree, people are much more relaxed in this situation and much more open to chat and socialise when out of their busy work environment.

As a result I follow up emailed Angie and although I am going to Australia in June and so wouldnt be able to commit to a two month placement she offered me the chance to come and visit Dalton Maag's new studio anytime. And who knows if we keep in touch with John Walters, he might be able to review our degree show in Eye?

this is an exact representation of what bruno looked like on the night

Björn Soneson

I found this when browsing for inspirational book formats for my current project

BLAST

I have been looking at this in relation to my current collaboration with Alice Smith and The Idler, as well my Beat Generation project.

BLAST was the short-lived literary magazine of the Vorticist movement in Britain. There were two editions published the on 2 July 1914 and the second a year later on 15 July 1915. Written primarily by Wyndham Lewis, with bright pink cover art referred to by Ezra Pound as the "great MAGENTA cover'd opusculus", the magazine is emblematic of the modern art movement in England, and is recognised as a seminal text of 20th-century modernism. I love the typography style, it is so bold brash and can't help but seem opinionated, even before you read the content there appears something confrontational and anarchic about it. The endless resource that is the reserve stock of MMU library brought me to frail papery goodness of this beautiful relic.

Johnny Hardstaff

I have just completed a two day workshop along with half of my course with inspirational designer/director/person, Johnny Hardstaff. Johnny has worked with some very impressive clients including Sony, Orange and Toyota and its no surprise because I get the impression that Johnny could sell an idea to anyone, not that he is short of them either, he has sketchbooks overflowing with unexplored ideas and it is clear that he lives and breathes his practice.

For the workshop we had to try to make the 'feeling of intoxication' appealing to a consumer, forgetting the negative stigma of alcohol and presenting it in a contemporary, innovative and fresh way. The client was Smirnoff. There were some amazing concepts and ideas flying around the room and over the course of the two days I felt utterly empowered by the enthusiasm and passion that Johnny has. I felt that I got to explore a large range of concepts in a short time. A great idea can be thought up in a moment, and what you do with that idea is when the magic happens. It was a privilege to get to work with someone like johnny and hopefully I will get to again in the future.

Gold!

These pictures are amazing...this blog just keeps on giving

iGod

I was set the brief to Re-Brand Gpd by TDR's Creative Director, Ian Anderson.

Aim:

To refresh the brand 'God' in an attempt to restore peoples existing interest in God, however small/large this may be.

Reasons why people have lost interest in God:

Mundane

Old Fashioned

Inconvenient

Traditional

Obligation

Reasons people like God:

Friendship

community

reassurance

advice

Target audience:

People who already believe in God, but perhaps don't actively worship or participate in religion because of their lifestyle and/or negative connotations of religion

Strategy:

-I thought about other ‘more fashionable’ religions i.e Kabballah, and researched what resources can be used to their full potential to spread the word of God. I asked myself how could 'God' fit into the lifestyles of people too busy to worship or go to church. I came up with the idea of a Halo band, which would allow people to feel a sense of belonging, similar to the red Kabballah bands, or festivals bands: a statement of their religion .

The device is fitted with bluetooth and similar to an oyster card the band can be touched onto terminals to enable to wearer to download sermons from their local church, or national/global sermons.

Sermons can be listened to directly form the device or the band can link to iPhone, iPad, laptop, PC, Mac etc so that the user can listen in their free time and also keep a backlog of sermons as they would with downloaded music.

Would this destroy the ‘sense of community' that religion offers?

The band can also be used to share information between people, by touching wrists, the touching of wrists gives off more positive connotations of ‘me and God are mates’ rather than the previous negative connotations of praying i.e subservient. The band would promote a sense of religious community not just ‘in the church’ but all the time between people who meet and interact with each other in day to day life.

If this was a campaign in real life, the most popular and widely distributed brand to carry it out would be apple- therefore I came up with the concept, iGod

Final Poster, submitted to Grafik magazine

Damien Hirst, PHARMACY Restaurant + Bar

Designers and restaurants. Something I have been pondering in my consideration of the ISTD brief: Muttod Quad, my task? To design a typographic restaurant. I am undecided as to whether this brief is a branding venture, an interior design challenge, research into 'Alphabetti Spaghetti' or a way to use a specific topic, in this case, Gastronomy and explore it typographically.

I am leaning towards the latter. A branding task may be appropriate if asked to re-design a restaurant, but this notion of a typographic restaurant, suggests the need for more than understated elegance and culinary clichés. Perhaps clichés will be embraced, exaggerated, exploited or avoided completely. Does the restaurant have to physically exist, could it be a fantasy land, magical, surreal? What would a typographic waiter look like? how would the walls be decorated?Lampshades, cutlery, candles, menus, bar signs etc etc....the possibilities are endless.

As a starting point I have been looking at Damien Hirst's Pharmacy Restaurant + Bar, Hirst has taken the theme of pharmaceuticals and applied it to a restaurant environment. The venue appears clinical, sanitary, stark, yet there is something intriguing an complex about display cabinets of over the counter drugs, signage in turquoise neon and chairs of waiting room standard, a complete parody of a pharmacy. The whole experience seems as though it would be quite jarring and possibly unenjoyable, but at least you can say 'I went to Damien Hirst's Pharmacy' I have no idea if the food tastes good, but is that what the 'Designer's Restaurant' is about. Who cares what the food tastes like as long as it's making history? Hirst's restaurant opened in Notting Hill, London in 1997. After breaching the Medicines Act, 1968, which restricts the use of "pharmacy". The restaurant's name was subsequently changed to "Army Chap", and then "Achy Ramp": anagrams of "Pharmacy". The restaurant itself closed in September 2003. Hirst, who had only loaned the restaurant the artwork on display on the premises, went on to pocket over £11 million when the items were auctioned at Sotheby's

i love giraffes

Some cute postcards I found in Munich.

D.A. Dinwoody.

I found this postcard in the back of an old copy of 'Little Women' from 1947. I also found this prayer book owned by the same woman.

1940s Comic.

I found these on a CD of 3000 images that i bout for £1. There is some gold on here.

The Wheatsheaf.

I found this book for £1. It is a bound version of the 1930s magazine 'The Wheatsheaf' "A co-operative magazine for the home" Here is an article about common myths in fairytales. Apparently Cinderella didn't wear glass slippers, but slippers of sable. This was a mis-translation from french to english. "Pantoufles en vair" is french for 'fur slipper's, however 'en verre' changes the meaning to 'glass,' hence how the mistake occured. Nor did puss have boots. And as for Dick Whittington's cat, who supposedly led him to his fortune, well there is more than one kind of cat, 'Achat' is an old term for trading, and it was almost certainly trading that led Dick Whittington to his fortune. Alternatively his 'cat could have stemmed from a certain type of ship used to ferry coal, which was known as a 'cat' The kind of cat to carry coal, rather than catch rats.

Aspen.

1. "...Writing was dead, movies were dead. Everybody sat like an unpeeled orange. But the music was so beautiful."

2. Phil Spector being made out to be some kind of aberration when he put out the best record ever made, "You've Lost that Lovin Feeling. We all made love to the music. And the word love was used and used and used in all the music. Over used, again and again, because that's where it was at... " 3. ....Have you ever listened to "You've Lost That Lovin Feeling, " where the girls are saying oohhhh and suddenly, naturally, just right, come in with "Baby, " against Bill Medley's building vocal line. Repetition. Every head in America must know the last three drum choruses of "Dawn" by the Four Seasons. Paradiddles. Repetition." Quotes from 'A view from the Bandstand' - John Cale (The Velvet Underground) From Issue 3 of Aspen Magazine. Designed by Andy Warhol and David Dalton. Published December 1966 by Roaring Fork Press, NYC. Link to Aspen Website; http://www.ubu.com/aspen/aspen3/index.html

Zonatape.

Experimenting...

Audrey Niffenegger Signing.

Artist and author of bestselling book 'The Time Traveler's Wife, ' Audrey Niffenegger, promotes her new book 'Her Fearful Symmetry' at Waterstones, Deansgate. The talk begins with a chapter reading from the new book and then a question and answer session. Niffenegger appears with red hair and round glasses, and greets small crowd. Niffenegger struck me as witty, extremely intelligent and a self-named non realist.In an American accent and no mic, her first words are "Wow, when I came into this room earlier it seemed so huge, and now it's filled with people its like we're all sitting in eachother's laps...so maybe we'll try that later" Questions about 'The Time Traveler's wife' were put to Niffenegger more frequently than the new book, but she was happy to answer them all...I won't go into the answers ,as for anyone who hasn;t read the book, these will appear very confusing..My adice- Read the book, it WILL change your life.

As an artist she began making prints in 1978 under the tutelage of William Wimmer. Miss Niffenegger trained as a visual artist at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and received her MFA from Northwestern University’s Department of Art Theory and Practice in 1991. She has exhibited her artist’s books, prints, paintings, drawings and comics at Printworks Gallery in Chicago since 1987.

Her first books were printed and bound by hand in editions of ten. Two of these have since been commercially published by Harry N. Abrams: The Adventuress and The Three Incestuous Sisters.

The Corinthians;A Kodachrome Slideshow.

"Kodachrome has gone and with it the colour palette of the mid-20th century. The clacking carousel slideshows that so brightly projected our earliest memories have made way for a new age of digital photography. But in The Corinthians, a photo book by Ed Jones and Timothy Prus, more than 200 Kodachrome photographs have been brought together as a lasting reminder of the film stock of the last century." I saw this book and found it...'intriguing'..potential source for new project..

Vintage Posters.

Just bought a CD containing over 3000 prints of vintage posters including categories; food, drink, women, fashion, beauty, tobacco, cars etc etc...GOLD!

DDR Berlin.

Notizblock

One of many pieces of 'found ephemera' from Berlin.