Type Trumps

A recent graduate of Cumbria University, Rick Banks, has created a set of Top Trumps style cards where classic typefaces are the subject matter - hence the name, Type Trumps. Each card is designed to make the most of the particular font it features, and typophiles will happily find such faces as Frankfurter, Times, Helvetica, Johnston Underground, Neu Alphabet in the pack. Type Trumps players can battle it out using such statistics as year of design, the amount of weights, cost etc to win their opponent’s cards. Banks has given each typeface a “rating” score, a “legibility” score and even a “special power”…

Castle House

Green towers are popping up everywhere, boasting laundry lists of green features, and wind turbines seem to be a smart energy option for any tower over 20 stories. Castle House, a new residential tower project designed by Hamiltons of London and located at Elephant and Castle in South London, not only advertises itself as an eco-machine, but will generate its own power on site through a series of wind turbines and a heat and power plant.


When complete, The Castle House will have 310 apartments and retail units on the ground level. With completion projected for 2009, the residential project is targeting an “excellent” rating under the British EcoHomes certification system. I love the concept behind this project and the idea that such a large-scale urban tower could create such amounts of energy for itself. While windpower has amazing potential, we’re curious to see how this plays out in a dense urban setting and to see if the design gets compromised down the line. Either way, the proposal is very promising.

Tim Knowles

Tim Knowles creates drawings independent of his own hand, using elaborate apparatus or time consuming practices. Interested in the process of drawing Knowles invents experimental and playful procedures to introduce chance and unpredictability into his work.


Often he will employ and expose mans relationship to nature, in an ongoing series which will feature in the exhibition, Knowles attaches pens to the tips of branches of various trees; placing paper in front of them he allows the chance movement of the wind to dictate the composition of the final drawing. The artist surrenders final control of the work, questioning the authority of the artist whilst allowing the fundamental and primordial characteristics associated with drawing to be communicated.” What a beautiful way to create random art without using computers.

Urbis: CutUp Collective

The artwork produced by the CutUp Collective was exhibited at Urbis. I really liked the idea and execution. Looking at the images close up really does it justice. They recreate the billboards into a completely different newly ordered images.



CutUp are arguably the most inventive art activists in the UK. The pair rip down billboard ads, cut them into roughly even rectangles and collage them together to form artworks which they then paste back onto billboard spaces. The results are abstract, lifelike and a brilliant reinvention of in-your-face advertising.

Urbis: Slinkachu

Whilst visiting Urbis I discovered the work of a group called Slinkachu. They are working on a piece of contemporary art called Little People - a tiny street art project. Slinkachu use tiny hand painted characters, which are left in appropriate places to be discovered by observant onlookers. The project began as just photo's, but now they sell the images as prints. Take a look at the following to see more of their work: http://little-people.blogspot.com/

Urbis: Hacienda Nightclub

I visited the Urbis museum in Manchester to look at the Hacienda exhibit and learn more about the ledgendary music scene. Urbis is an exhibition centre focusing on city life. Urbis' exhibition programme explores the culture and dynamism of cities around the world, covering photography, design, architecture, music, contemporary art and much more.

The nightclub was owned by Factory Records and New Order. It consisted of a stage, dance area with bar, a cafe, DJ balcony and a cocktail bar. Host DJ's included Mike Pickering, Graeme Park and Dave Haslam.


There were some epic live acts who played they, including Madonna, New Order, The Smiths, Happy Mondays, Oasis, James, and Blur. In the 1990's drugs and gangs took over and became a constant problem. And Following a drug-related death and various shootings the club was closed in 1997. The movie 24 Hour Party People with Steve Coogan tells the story of the Hacienda.



The exhibition was a clever recreation of the style of the nightclub. It had many original pieces of artwork created for the club including the design that shaped its identity.

The soon to be tallest tower in Asia

The new york based architecture firm Asymptote Architecture, led by Hani Rashid and Lise Anne Couture, was awarded in January the contract for the Millennium Tower World Business Centre (wbcb) in Busan, Korea. the design of three tapared towers extending from the base was unanimously chosen by judges of the international competition organised
by the Busan International Architectural Culture Festival (biacf). It is to become the tallest tower in asia at 520m.

Asymptote's three-towered design for the World Business Center Busan is a newly minted approach where the notion of singularity and autonomy gives way to a strong juxtaposition of form and voids. Simultaneously a single entity, the towers are also read as three distinct forms set against Busan's dramatic natural backdrop of sea and mountains. The base of the tower artfully negotiates the site at the entrance level while from the top of the midsection the three slender towers rise above the skylobby level and gracefully taper upwards around a spectacular central void. Through its formal and sculptural qualities this unique architectural expression is a powerful symbol of 21st century Busan and a beacon for it's trajectory into the future and onto the global stage.

The soon to be tallest tower in Asia is extremely unique and could almost be referred to as three separate towers. The sharp lines of the design are enchanting and make the structure look out of this world. This tower shows what is to expect as future landmark skyscrapers.

Website Design

I found this clever website created by Stephane Guillot to display his biography and portfolio. He has designed it not to be formal or stylish but to be playful. The website is very interactive with small cartoon icons to choose between. The concept is similar to the computer game Sims in the way you control Stephane's character.

The viewer can easily navigate the way through the website, and each link is represented by a item in Stephane's bedroom. The style and simplicity of the web design shows Mr Guillots creative skills. For all of us interested in producing a website to showcase our work, here is a great way of doing it. Have a closer look for yourselves at: http://www.stephaneguillot.com/

Judge Dredd

I have to admit to being surprised when I watched the film Judge Dredd recently: it really wasn't as bad as I had thought it would be.

I haven't seen any of the comic books, so I'll review this as a stand-alone film. It does acknowledge its comic book antecedents in the opening shots, however, which makes a refreshing change. And the city backdrop seems to have been deliberately designed to look 'cartoonish', and is quite effective.

Sylvester Stallone plays the eponymous Judge. We see him Judging for a while, then the stock Evil Villain gets him framed for murder, and he is himself Judged, and sentenced. But as heroes do... he escapes, and saves the day.

The action is fast paced and fun, if very brainless. The reason it is better than I expected is because everything manages to stay cheesy, or camp, or tongue-in-cheek, without moving over into moronic, or embarrassing, or just plain bad.

Pablo Valbuena's Augmented Sculpture

This project is focused on the temporary quality of space, investigating space-time not only as a three dimensional environment, but as space in transformation. For this purpose two layers are produced that explore different aspects of the space-time reality. On the one hand the physical layer, which controls the real space and shapes the volumetric base that serves as support for the next level. The second level is a virtual projected layer that allows controlling the transformation and sequentiality of space-time. The blending of both levels gives the impression of physical geometry suitable of being transformed. The overlapping produces an euclidean three-dimensional space augmented by a transformable layer that I can control, resulting in the capacity through the installation of altering multiple dimensions of space-time. These ideas come to life in an abstract and geometric envelope, enhanced with synesthetic audio elements and establishing a dialogue with the observer.

http://www.pablovalbuena.com/augmsculpt_condeduque_web.mov

Transparent Room by Michael Pinsky

Michael Pinsky takes the combined roles of urban planner, activist, researcher, resident and artist. Using the mediums of video, performance, mapping and programming, Pinsky responds site-specifically to physical and sociological space. Context is crucial, providing both the content and the platform for his work One of his recent projects is the Transparent Room, which toured the Leeds City Art Gallery.

Transparent Room suspends the viewer in a virtual space - here you see through the walls and the ceiling to the sky, hidden rooms, the street outside. The room that you enter no longer exists, its confining walls replaced by projections of the city, its time accelerated as clouds speed by, cars and people in the street outside racing through their lives. As the time passes, the views become details, then textures and finally just single colours of the objects when seen from this detailed perspective. The images abstract as they are magnified. You may start by seeing just moving colours or you may observe your own city. Information will break down or assemble all around you.

Digital Art

I have been exploring digital art recently to practice photoshop, and to create a design for a poster. I have seen many impressive pieces. It has inspired me to learn how to generate such artwork.


The availability and popularity of photograph manipulation software has spawned a vast and creative library of highly modified images, many bearing little or no hint of the original image. Using electronic versions of brushes, filters and enlargers, these "Neographers" produce images unattainable through conventional photographic tools. In addition, digital artists may manipulate scanned drawings, paintings, collages or lithographs, as well as using any of the above-mentioned techniques in combination. Artists also use many other sources of information and programs to create their work.

3D graphics are created via the process of designing complex imagery from geometric shapes, polygons or NURBS curves to create realistic 3 dimensional shapes, objects and scenes for use in various media such as film, television, print, rapid prototyping and the special visual effects. There are many software programs for doing this.

Have a look at some of the amazing digital artwork on: http://digitalart.org/

New Interactive Ideas

I am a big fan of interactive designs. Producing ideas that not only communicate but interact with the target market is a very effective and memorable concept. Here is a good example of new ways of reaching out to the market. Marc Ecko wants to promote his roots and love for graffiti. Digital citylights are created that consists of an LCD and a bluetooth interface. People will get the possibility to access the citylight via bluetooth with their cell phones and spray their own graffiti with the cursor of their phone.

The Design Green Project

The Design Green Award is the first of its kind to honor and reward designers' creativity, from around the world, for their excellence in the disciplines of branding, print, packaging, environments, fashion, photography, art, and design green.

All designers who participate in this unique competition will be part of the solution to the Global Warming Crisis by replacing one of their old light bulbs with a compact fluorescent light bulb provided by The Design Green Project. Additionally, there will be a tree planted in their name and 50% of all proceeds will be donated to the StopGlobalWarming.org fund, just for entering.

2007 Platinum Winner

The primary idea behind the design concept was to showcase their conceptual skills within the pharmaceutical advertising industry. With that in mind, they decided to house the self-promotion within a familiar medical platform – a traditional aluminum medical case file. With the sandblasted logo on the front, the case worked not only as a presentation envelope, but presented the client with a unique keepsake that served as a long-term term branding piece.

The brochure itself was playfully encased within a medical folder, and provided analysis and conceptual cures for the client's promotional needs. The inserted X-ray gave our clients an even closer examination of their advertising needs, as well as a recommendation of the specialists who could provide them with their design cure.

Psychedelic art

Psychedelic art gained widespread popularity around the psychedelic music of the 60s and 70s by such musicians as Jimi Hendrix, the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Velvet Underground, The Doors, Tangerine Dream and Pink Floyd. It was often seen in concert posters, album covers, advertising, and comic books.

Psychedelic art has now become popular as the visual component of trance, techno and progressive dance music. It is often scene in visuals, flyers and posters at psychedelic parties, nightclubs and other music events.




The pictures are created digitally and built up rather like an architectural structure. They start with the creation and exploration of a fractal, which then becomes the foundation and background of the picture. But what is a fractal? It is a mathematical representation of chaos - well not exactly - it is more like a computer generated tree that just keeps branching out again and again into infinity.

Cornetto Global Redesign

Wall’s Cornetto has unveiled a global redesign of its packaging, created by consultancy Vibrandt.

The new range, which will be launched across Europe throughout the year, covers both the in-home and out-of home Cornetto ranges.

Vibrandt was tasked with creating a ‘strong visual synergy across the various ranges, while expressing the ultimate indulgence of the eating experience in line with the new Unilever “vitality” mission.’
As part of the design, all cones feature photography of the ingredients, such as chocolates or strawberries, and swirls of cream, which continues on the lid in an attempt to ‘aid consumer navigation’.

The design will appear on each Cornetto range, including Classic, Exciting Bites, Cornetto Royal, Cornetto Passion, Choco Disc and Cornetto Miniature.

The consultancy was appointed to the business at the end of last year without a pitch, following previous work with the brand.

Conservative Party New Logo Design

The Conservative Party is changing its tree logo from green to blue, less than a year after its launch.

The identity redesign retains the scribbled tree shape, but it is now sky blue and features a cloud and a ray of sunlight.

The £40 000 scribbled tree logo was created by London design group Perfect Day to replace the flaming ‘freedom’ torch identity, which was introduced in 1977.


The new logo invited criticism when it was unveiled in September 2006, being compared to a child’s drawing, broccoli, and a coin scratch on a lottery card.

Party officials said last year that the tree represented ‘strength, endurance, renewal and growth’, and emphasised the party’s Green credentials.

Onlookers are speculating that the change in hue is calculated to appease the Party’s right-wing members, coming at a time when party leader David Cameron’s authority has been under attack. A party spokesperson responded by saying that the Tory logo was always intended to be flexible, to ‘display any number of background images’.

At the party’s spring conference, the logo was covered with blossom, while at the autumn conference in October it was given a yellowish tinge.



Personally I think the new design is a huge improvement on the green one. But as for the scribbled tree element, it makes it look like a scratch card.

I would of thought a modern adaptation of the torch logo would have been the way to go.

Gadgets of the Future

Take a look at what could be hitting the shops in the not too distant future. New technologies and fashions are likely to impact the way in which graphic designers convey their message. Below are a group of concepts that may influence the medium we choose in order to further complement our own ideas.

Origami DVD Player:


This Origami DVD Player concept uses a fully-flexible display technology (e-paper) to ensure maximum portability. When not in use, the screen folds up neatly back into the case. From the image, it looks to sport integrated speakers as well. Imagine the Wow factor if this was a promotional item posted thorugh a door! The foldout screen could show any number of things, from a simple image to a full video advert.

Rollup your Display:


Displays always have been the restricting factor in miniaturization of gadgets. We like our portable media device to be as small as possible but the display to be as big as possible. One of the solutions for this problem has been displays that can be rolled up. Imagine the space saving adverts that could be produced. High resolution advertising displays rolled up like a scroll would be very cool. Again, many possibilities.

As technology becomes more advanced, designers can utilize these amazing media opportunities. Instead of producing large billboard posters, designers can develop interactive ones, moving ones, anything they may desire. Take a look at some of those Sci-fi movies. Actually the media we're used to may become obsolete with posters just not being thrilling
enough.