Archive for the ‘Art’ Category

Visionaire

Tuesday, May 24th, 2011

Now I’m not deeply into fashion myself. Nor would I ever normally read a fashion magazine. However, I will make an exception. The ultra-exclusive, tri-annual art / fashion magazine Visionaire. That’s if I could ever lay my hands on one…

Now when I say magazine, perhaps you’re thinking sheets of paper, bound together, most likely with some text and pictures printed on them. Not so Visionaire. This is so much more than a magazine. Each issue is a work of art with its own theme.

My first introduction to Visionaire was from my university lecturer who told us with great delight of how he managed to procure a much-sought-after ‘Love’ edition as a present for his wife on their wedding anniversary (husbands and boyfriends take note). Said issue (no.38) was created in collaboration with Tiffany & Co.contained, amongst many other treasures, flowers hand picked by Kylie Minogue and a silver heart designed by Elsa Peretti. All of the artwork and tokens of love were inserted by hand into 4,000 vintage hardback novels – truly one of a kind. The boxes (which varied in size to fit each individual book) are instantly recognisable in the signature Tiffany blue with a white satin ribbon.

Visionaire 55 - Love

Visionaire 38 - Love - Flowers collected by Kylie

For the Fashion Special Issue (no.18), the packaging was a deluxe monogrammed portfolio designed and produced specially for Visionaire by Louis Vuitton himself. Needless to say these “magazines” cost hundreds of pounds, even thousands for some of the more rare back issues. If you did happen to have a spare £1000 just lying around, you can pick up an issue 18 on ebay at the moment. Let me know if you do so I can come round and have a look at it.

Visionaire 18 - Fashion Special

One of my favourite issues is 55 or ‘Surprise’ which is made up of 11 individually designed pop-ups all contained in a beautiful box.

If you’d like to see what other weird and wonderful issues there are you can see them all here. The new issue Religion (no.60) is out next month and has been edited by Ricardo Tisci in collaboration with Givenchy.

Visionaire 60 - Religion - Cover

Visionaire 60 - Religion - Carine Roitfeld photographed by Karl Lagerfeld

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Coarse Toys

Wednesday, May 18th, 2011

This month Coarse Toys unveiled their long anticipated new set ‘Casting Shadows’. The company was started in 2003 by German artists Mark Landwehr and Sven Waschk. Their sculptures are hand crafted and finished at the Coarse workshops in Hamburg and Hong Kong. The figures ooze cool. Hard sculpted lines of muscle, all in perfect anatomic detail meet with smooth curves and a super-smooth shiny finish.

Now the toys themselves are pretty dark, but I rather like them and they’ve gained an iconic status within the art toy scene. In fact if you actually want to purchase a Coarse Toy you have to be quick off the mark because they’re only produced in very limited copies, sometimes as few as 100 pieces. Oh, and you’d also have to put aside at least £200.

However, what led me to discover them in the first place is the packaging. It’s sublime. My personal favourite is ‘false friends loser – hkg edition’ where the pair have been put to sleep between two cotton pillows. Every one is embroidered with the individual running number. They are then safely packed in a hand crafted wooden box with a monkey rabbit nose handle. Talk about attention to detail!

false friends loser - hkg edition

false friends loser - hkg edition

Casting Shadows

paw!

To see more coarse creations head over to their website.

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Typographical goodness from Áron Jancsó

Friday, May 13th, 2011

Today I’m going to share with you the work of Áron Jancsó, a freelance graphic designer from Budapest and self-proclaimed type addict.

“Building from scratch is how I like to work,” he says, “sometimes even designing every single letter of a poster. I prefer shapes and structures instead of effects. My style is a blend of modernism, street culture and calligraphy, but it is also very experimental, I’m always searching for new ways of creation.”

What I like about his work is the way he makes you focus on the details of the letter-forms, their shapes and how they interact with other letters and the white space around them. I love his clean, simple approach to design.

You can buy his commercial fonts Sensaway, Ogaki and Dubwise from Gestalten here and if you would like to see more of his work there’s a wealth of it on his Flickr profile.

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Posted in Art, Design, Typography | 3 Comments »

DeviantArt: the internet’s creative treasure trove

Wednesday, February 16th, 2011

DeviantArt describes itself as “the largest online social network for artists and art enthusiasts” and was created to “entertain, inspire, and empower the artist in all of us.” It attracts 35 million unique visitors per month and has over 13 million registered members who between them upload over 100,000 original pieces of artwork every day.

Personally, I love it. There’s a real wealth of stuff on here ranging from the smallest and quickest of sketches to the most detailed and intricate of paintings, in all mediums you could possibly imagine. The only downside to this site I’ve found so far is that it’s very easy to get so engrossed that you’ve spent several hours perusing all the arty goodness before you’ve even realized it. To that end, I’ve chosen a very small selection of personal favourites to show you. I’ve tried to bring together a wide variety of disciplines and styles and hope it might inspire you to go and take a peek at some of the wonderful talent on offer at DeviantArt. Enjoy.

‘Amused with detail’ by Offshore
Beautiful photograph and very much worth the full size view.

‘Creative Tempest Poster’ by Demen1
I’m not jealous, not at all.

‘Children’s Room’ by AleksCG
This is not a photo. Really.

‘Watercolour sketch’ by GreeGW
I love the details and the way the light has been captured in this.

‘Kheops’ by isdoO
“90% Illustrator + 10% Photoshop, in 10 hours, no stock.” Awesome.

‘Chocolate Packaging’ by lisashocket
I can’t read it, but it looks yummy, which is surely the point of any good piece of food packaging.

‘Afternoon Tea’ by Eternal_Love01
Mmmm…tea. That is all.

And finally, something cute and fuzzy to brighten up the rest of your day:

‘Be gutsy gosling’ by hoschie

Feel free to comment and let me know your thoughts or tell me about your own favourites, either from this list or from the rest of the site.

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Posted in Art, Cool stuff, Design, Illustration, Packaging, Photography | 3 Comments »

Apple products destroyed for the sake of art

Tuesday, November 23rd, 2010

This artistic collaboration between Michael Tompert and photographer Paul Fairchild in which Apple products such as the iPhone, iPad, Macbook and Ipods are shot, sledgehammered, blow tourched…bascially murdered!

Apparently the blurb says ‘The images are large scale yet microscopic, providing a canvas for contemplating our relationship with fetish, fashion, freedom and bondage’

I think what they are trying to say is that broken apple stuff looks cool as long as it’s not your own

Apparently the hardest thing to break was the iPad, Tombert reckons its virtually indestructible, and when it did finally cave in, it blew up in protest….

cool!!

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Posted in Art, Cool stuff, Photography | 3 Comments »

The fair, the fun, the ferrets, the fromage…

Tuesday, September 7th, 2010

Leaping dogs, ferrets, bouncy castles, jousting, crossbows and lots of cheese and pies. No it’s not the Together office party but a trip to the Country Fair held by our dear chums over at Chatsworth.

Some of us city-folk from the agency took ourselves there over the weekend for a slice of country life at it’s finest and had a thoroughly splendid time.

Better still we also got a sneaky early glimpse of some of the giant outdoor sculptures on show for the upcoming Sotheby’s Beyond Limits exhibition taking place throughout the autumn. (Scary, giant, underwater head, to give it its unofficial name, was a particular favourite. If you’re interested, its proper name is ‘Visitor’ by David Breur Weil.)

Thankfully, we’ve all returned with no crossbow or ferret related injuries to report, although there are one or two cheese hangovers due to some over-indulgence at the tasting stalls.

Take a peek at just some of the kind of countryside shenanigans we got to enjoy…

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Posted in Art, Exhibitions, Just for fun | Comments Off

cool crochet

Thursday, August 26th, 2010

I was shown this by some friends the other night and just had to share it (especially after Jen’s cool crochet yoda post) as it’s totally brilliant. It’s the lionheart project - one of the 12 commissions chosen to celebrate the London 2012 Olympics, developed, delivered and funded by the Arts Councils of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Artist Shauna Richardson is crocheting three giant lions which will travel around the East Midlands in a custom-built, mobile, glass case and the first one is done. If you go on the site you can see step by step how it was created and keep up with the progress of the project.

Shauna is known for her crochetdermy™ work which is absolute genius (if not a tiny bit creepy) and totally unique. Have dropped a couple of images in but if you’re searching for something different go and take a look at her stuff at www.shaunarichardson.com

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Posted in Art, Cool stuff | 2 Comments »