I’d never have guessed that inspiration for a creative/design blog could have come out of a car showroom, but so it did. Whilst I was browsing around an Audi showroom last weekend, a salesman presented me with some sales literature about the launch of the new Audi A1, for which Damien Hirst has designed the bodywork for a one-off custom model.
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Posts Tagged ‘Design’
Damien Hirst: Spinning Into Control
Monday, November 22nd, 2010Top 20 Worst Album Covers
Tuesday, November 16th, 2010
When was the last time you bought a CD? I wouldn’t be surprised if it was quite a while ago, as these days iTunes seems to be the most popular choice in our busy, download-heavy lives. That’s certainly the place I tend to head to first for most of my music needs – instant or otherwise. But when I was in Oxford Street this morning, whiling away some time in HMV, it occurred to me that maybe I was missing out on some of the music-purchasing experience by buying albums as MP3s. How? By not having a CD booklet to idly leaf through.
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SoFo: Stockholm’s Design Capital (and my Top Ten everyday design finds)
Tuesday, October 26th, 2010
SoFo – a design capital within a design capital. Without having to stray too far from the indie-chic, café-laden street of Götgatan, SoFo (SOuth of FOlkungagatan) is where Stockholm houses the coolest, trendiest design shops in Sweden. These include DesignTorget, 10 Swedish Designers, Konsthantverkarna, Tjallamalla and Bolia. A lot of them have price tags to match and it’s entirely possible to get lost in a sea of zeros and thoughts of “HOW much?!” So, seeing as we aren’t quite out of the recession yet, during my weekend in Stockholm, I decided to bring you the Top Ten everyday innovative household gadgets from DesignTorget – the store which promotes the work of Swedish design scene up-and-comers. Nothing you’ll find in Ikea (I think) and nothing that will break the bank toooo badly in a country where a glass of mediocre wine with your dinner will set you back 8 quid. Behold…
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You’re Fired! Apprentices and product design really don’t mix
Tuesday, October 19th, 2010
I’m not big on reality television, I have to say. I was mildly intrigued by the very first series of Big Brother for maybe one episode, till I quickly realised that it was little more than a voyeuristic freak show. And I did quite like Pop Idol (the first ‘Will Young’ series) because, at that point, it was an entirely new experience to watch through one’s fingers people with such astounding and misguided self-belief that they possessed exceptional talent when they actually had less than none. Now, of course, people watch X Factor for that sole purpose and it’s all a bit of a circus – often literally. Strictly Come Dancing? Not interested. And don’t even get me started on I’m A Celebrity. Think about it – if that show had never happened, Peter Andre and Katie Price would never have got together and evening viewing on ITV2 would consequently be that much more pleasant without such dross as What Katie Did Next. But one reality show does grip me: The Apprentice.
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London Design Festival: Paul Cocksedge’s Drop
Monday, September 27th, 2010
Designer Paul Cocksedge’s Drop is not what one immediately thinks of as an interactive exhibit. A 3-metre high piece of metal with a magnetic surface, Drop is an enormous coin “which has fallen to Earth from a giant’s palm”, landing bang outside London’s Royal Festival Hall. The idea is that members of the public help to complete the design by sticking their own pennies to the surface. When I visited the exhibit on Saturday, there was quite a jostle of people all experimenting with creating their own designs on the coin’s surface.
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Should designers draw more?
Friday, August 20th, 2010
Legendary graphic designer Milton Glaser once said, “Computers are to design as microwaves are to cooking.” Now while one or two designers might want to argue that point, is it possible that we rely on the computer too much these days? Are the core skills of the designer slowly beginning to evaporate? In short, is it time to dust down the old sketchbook?
The Anti Design Festival – are you a design anarchist?
Wednesday, August 4th, 2010
A controversial, new festival will be hitting the streets of Shoreditch this September. The Anti design Festival has been masterminded to revolt against The London Design Festival by showcasing a range of works by designers who have been previously thrown on the scrapheap.Their aim is to “shift the focus from bums-on-seats to brain food” and to move from “taste and style to experimentation and risk”. The festival will incorporate exhibitions, installations, workshops, performances and talks in art, design, product, film, sound fashion, performance, print and interactive.
Is that a pair of boobs on my macchiato? How Starbucks came up with the rudest logo on the highstreet.
Wednesday, July 28th, 2010
The Starbucks logo; something most of us absentmindedly encounter on a daily basis but have you ever stopped to peer at the mermaid logo which is emblazed across your morning latte? It’s caused a fair amount of controversy since the brand launched in the 1970’s owing to its somewhat racy connotations…
Going underground
Thursday, June 10th, 2010
400 miles of track (only 150 of which are actually underground), 180 million passengers a year and one 300 foot moving walkway – in engineering terms alone, the London Underground system is a staggering achievement.
Everyone’s a critic. Aren’t they?
Thursday, August 12th, 2010Edith Wharton
If there’s one word to be heard in every creative studio in the country, at least once a day, it’s ‘subjective’.
Whether it’s a debate about the benefits of monochrome photography versus colour imagery, long headlines as opposed to snappy straplines, pack shots or lifestyle visuals, blue backgrounds or red tints – you’ll find someone in favour and another against. So it would appear the value of creative work is subjective and opinions are like bumholes – everyone has one.
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