David Airey, graphic designer » Art

From the reader #7

David Airey — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 09:28:42 +0000

Land art. Worth a look. On Kuriositas.

The importance of a good crop. A nice visual demonstration of photo manipulation, and how you can use cropping to improve your photos. On ISO50.

“Instead of doing two jobs at 50%, or four jobs at 25%, just do one job at 100%.”

Do one job properly. Dave Trott on why specialising is the way to go. On Dave Trott’s blog.

Beautiful colour in this 60-second ad for Lurpak Butter (embedded below). Via Creative Review.

Typographic chocolate holiday gifts. Lunch time yet? Via inspire me now.

Uncloaking a slumlord conspiracy with social network analysis. Via Social Design Notes.

The TED imperatives apply to a much wider scope than TED alone. On Seth’s Blog.

If you’re looking for a little design inspiration, have a browse in the work section of Milton Glaser’s new website. Site design outsourced to Ludlow Kingsley.

Mike Dempsey asked, “Who are you designing for? a. Your client. b. Other designers. c. Yourself.” Richard of Ace Jet 170 replied, “None of the above. The customer, of course.”

Eric Karjaluoto kicks-off his 2012 blogging efforts in upbeat fashion by sharing 10 of his favourite “big agency claims, promises, and bits of rhetoric… All of which manage to sound so very impressive, while meaning so astoundingly little.” Read more Bullshit.

Here’s a great video (below) of Herb Lubalin discussing the client requests that occurred when he designed the PBS logo. Via Brand New.

I’ll finish with a solid quote from iA’s Oliver Reichenstein.

“Don’t let anyone tell you that you don’t have the brain or time or will to learn and think and understand whatever the problem is. That’s what the political and corporate charlatans want you to believe: They want you to be as ignorant as possible.”

Previously: From the reader #6

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From the reader #6

David Airey — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 10:18:39 +0000

How lettering is made for public display (sign-making). On Eye blog, via Khoi Vinh.

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Moses bridge at Fort de Roovere

David Airey — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 14:09:04 +0000

This sunken bridge at Netherlands’ Fort de Roovere has been getting a lot of press recently.

“The West Brabant Water Line is a defense-line consisting of a series of fortresses and cities with inundation areas in the south-west of the Netherlands. It dates from the 17th century but fell into disrepair in the 19th century. When the water line was finally restored, an access bridge across the the moat of one of the fortresses, Fort de Roovere, was needed. This fort now has a new, recreational function and lies on several routes for cycling and hiking.

“It is, of course, highly improper to build bridges across the moats of defense works, especially on the side of the fortress the enemy was expected to appear on. That’s why we designed an invisible bridge. Its construction is entirely made of wood, waterproofed with EPDM foil. The bridge lies like a trench in the fortress and the moat, shaped to blend in with the outlines of the landscape.

“The bridge can’t be seen from a distance because the ground and the water come all the way up to its edge. When you get closer, the fortress opens up to you through a narrow trench. You can then walk up to its gates like Moses on the water.”

Quoted from ArchDaily.

Great. Love it. But, and as much as I hate criticism of design that I find intriguing, I can’t help wondering how often this happens.

Fort de Roovere image credit

Architects: Ro&Ad Architects
Location: Halsteren, The Netherlands
Client: Municipality of Bergen op Zoom

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The King of Legoland

David Airey — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 15:02:42 +0000

Two minutes rammed full of childhood memories.

A little nostalgia to wind-down the working week.

Another World. Remember that?

Video by web designer, animator, illustrator, and photographer Micaël Reynaud. Music by Hunting Charlie’s Band(e) Samuel Vielliard. Via @TomActman.

Animated gifs available here and here.

Have a great weekend.

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Focus on art: Dalton Ghetti

David Airey — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 14:18:48 +0000

The intricate magic of pencil lead sculptor Dalton Ghetti. He’s been featured on a lot of blogs and website, as I found out with a quick Google search, but having just seen his work for the first time today, I thought it worth sharing.

“At school I would carve a friend’s name into the wood of a pencil and then give it to them as a present. Later, when I got into sculpture, I would make these huge pieces from things like wood, but decided I wanted to challenge myself by trying to make things as small as possible.”
— DALTON GHETTI

More of an insight on Vimeo: Pencil artist Dalton Ghetti (embedded below).

In 2002 Dalton Ghetti began working on a memorial project for 9/11 where each person who died is represented by a tiny graphite teardrop about the size of a grain of rice. The Connecticut-based sculptor has been carving one teardrop per day, and when he finishes he’ll glue the drops to a white background to form a larger teardrop.

Dalton Ghetti, on Facebook
Finding the Art in a Pencil Tip, on NYTimes.com

If you liked this, you might also like these artists: Sipho Mabona, Peter Callesen, Julian Beever.

Via @myttonwilliams.

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some prints

David Airey — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 08:42:18 +0000

www.someprints.com sells prints by the Manchester-based accident of various shapes and colours Graphic Nothing. Graphic Nothing is the pen/mouse name of Gary Andrew Clarke.

He was born and raised in a 1970s Leicester (middle of England, middle of nowhere). Early ambitions to become either an entomologist (insects), paleontologist (fossils), space ship model maker or astronomer never quite happened.

So he studied graphic design in Leicester and Manchester (BA Hons, that sort of thing).

During the 1990s and 2000s he worked in the Manchester music industry, performing graphic design and web design. He won a few web awards — for Portishead & Twisted Nerve Records.

He lives in Manchester, or rather Stockport. He likes biscuits.

He also kindly offered a free A2 print of your choosing to four lucky readers.

Paste a link in the comment thread to a photo of “your desk now” and I’ll randomly draw four winners on Friday (updating this post and sending you a ‘winner’ email). I might also publish your photos with a link to your website in an upcoming blog post.

—

Update: Friday 29 July
Happy to announce Karinya, Luis Nunes, William Btight, and Samantha as the lucky four. You’ve each been sent an email with instructions for collecting your free print.

—

Lovely prints, Gary.

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Exit Through The Gift Shop

David Airey — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 12:50:22 +0000

I don’t care much for the majority of street art, but there are some pieces that just capture the imagination, with Banksy an inspiration to many.

“I still paint graffiti because I genuinely think the side of a canal is a more interesting place to have art than a museum. And the fact of the matter is, if you exhibit in a gallery you have to compete against Rembrandt, but if you paint down an alley you only have to compete against a dustbin. I guess it’s the art equivalent of hanging around with fat people to make yourself look thin.”

Banksy quoted from a piece in The Times.

Here’s a five-minute trailer from Exit Through The Gift Shop — A Banksy Film.

I’d quite like to watch the full documentary.

More samples of work on the Banksy website.

Via NFG.

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Focus on art: Sipho Mabona

David Airey — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 23:02:38 +0000

Sipho Mabona, a young artist currently residing in Switzerland, was commissioned by ad agency Nordpol+ Hamburg to design and create the origami models for this stunning five-minute video.

The corporate movie tells the story of the Japanese sports brand ASICS. It won a Grand Prix at the Eurobest, gold at the New York festival, gold at the London International Awards, silver at the Clio in Miami and two-times bronze at ADC Germany.

Sipho has a wonderful Flickr set of origami designs — worth a look — and here are just a few of my favourites.

The “Baby Fugu” is inflatable, seen in motion here on Vimeo.

Reminiscent of Peter Callesen’s fragile magic.

Visit Mabona Origami for more.

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The alphabet, but not as we know it…

David Airey — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 23:13:47 +0000

The alphabet in light writing, found on Nir Tober’s Flickr page. If light writing is your thing, check out this previous post of mine, with some light writing YouTube videos.

The hairy Futura typeface, found on Behance, courtesy of Reset Blog.

Human crafted typeface, found on Hijack Your Life and courtesy of Brand Flakes for Breakfast.

Type in the sky alphabet, from looking up through the gaps in buildings, found on Slanted and courtesy of Noisy Decent Graphics.

Eine’s East End of London shopfront shutter letters, found on Dave Gorman’s Flickr pages.

Sign language alphabet, created from match books (larger version of the sign language alphabet). Found on C71123, after a lot of “folding, gluing, and holding until dry.”

The Alphabet Photo Gallery by Abba Richman at pbase.com. A four month project with fantastic results.

Inspired by Abba Richman’s collection, prior to this, Thomas Fredriksen created his own alphabet photo collection on pbase.com.

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Escher in LEGO

David Airey — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 08:51:11 +0000

Andrew Lipson has a talent. He merges his LEGO skills with some of my favourite works of art. You can view larger images of Escher’s ‘Waterfall’ by clicking on the image (above), where Andrew also gives a little insight into the LEGO creation.

“The waterfall itself was about an evening’s work. I started by writing some C code to model a gradually widening parabolic arch with random variations for the spray (hacked from the code I use for my mathematical Lego sculptures) and then gradually modified it by hand until I liked the look of the result.”
— ANDREW LIPSON

Good thing Andrew knows what he’s talking about.

Above is Escher’s ‘Ascending and Descending’ piece. Click on the image for larger photos and more info on the project.

“No camera tricks, but the picture has to be taken from exactly the right place, and the final photograph was slightly distorted to emphasise the perspective effect.”
— ANDREW LIPSON

This is the second time I’ve featured Andrew’s LEGO. The previous blog post, showing Escher’s ‘Relativity’ lithograph, can be seen here: Escher loves LEGO? Much respect to Andrew Lipson for his devotion to LEGO.

David Airey, graphic designer » Art

From the reader #7

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From the reader #6

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Moses bridge at Fort de Roovere

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The King of Legoland

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Focus on art: Dalton Ghetti

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some prints

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Exit Through The Gift Shop

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Focus on art: Sipho Mabona

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The alphabet, but not as we know it…

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Escher in LEGO

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