We’ve been all over the country this month – at one point nipping up to Leeds where we presented a whole pile of waffle to students from the three universities at an event called ‘don’t be an idiom‘, a curious mix of caravans, haybails, wax eyeballs and other often experimental pieces of design and illustration. It was great to meet so many of the guys up there and the moment we got everyone dancing to a song of our own composition (garageband, boom) in the middle of our lecture was both bizarre and exhilarating in equal measure.
We are constantly being excited by the creativity and comradeship of the northern bunch – it sometimes seems like everyone knows everyone, regardless of which college they’re at. As a thank you to them (and you) here’s the song we all danced to. Bangin’.
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In this promo for Crytek’s new FPS ‘Crysis 2‘, a bunch of shady looking chaps got in a van and illegally projected the game onto various landmarks around London and Paris. The result? Loads of people got to try the game and by the looks of it they nearly got arrested. Rock and Roll man, rock and roll.
Forget Richard Curtis and that bad guy off Mission Impossible 3, this boat is the real deal. Permanently moored in East London, Lightship95 is a recording studio like no other. Check out this short doc (above) featuring Manc rockers Mazes by Vice magazine, the first in a series of 3 films under the banner of ‘found’, in which the boat studio is put through its paces.
It’s a cracking tune anyway, but I particularly enjoyed this (unofficial) video of AWOLNATION‘s sail performed live and interspersed with some cool looking homeless types by Austin (Texas) based videographer Fuller… Exploitation ftw.
We’ve recently been featuring a lot of stunning computer generated videos and showreels, so it’s nice to see that Russel Crowe’s creaking crotch sounds are still generated by a muscular man massaging a pile of leather. Look out for the skillfully repurposed boxing gloves and burger flipper.
David O’reilly, the Irish-born prodigal animator Jesus*, has just released the full version of his award-winning short film ‘The External World‘ onto the interweb for our viewing pleasure (it’s just above, yeah there.) Please I beg of you, if you do nothing else this weekend, whack this on full screen, put some pants on, pour some ice cold milk on your crunchy nut cornflakes**, sit back and enjoy. It’s truly a work of genius(/madness? there’s a fine line).
*other prophets are available
**or your hung-over snack of choice.
Danny MacAskill‘s rise from Edinburgh bike mechanic to the golden boy of the trials circuit over the last year or two has been extraordinary but the film MacAskill Conquers looks like more than just a cycling video. Suck it London fixie freaks*.
Howdy, so we’ve been keeping a slight radio silence over the last week or two, but don’t think we’ve been resting on our laurels, oh no. In fact we went … up north. I know. Like, further than Watford even. In a mad few days with D&AD we visited Newcastle and Leeds, holding portfolio crits, workshops and the odd lecture (like above yeah?).
We met some cracking students from unis spanning the breadth and length of the North (and bits of Scotland), even learning what an interactive media course gets up to (there’s some mind-boggling work coming out of Northumbria this year) and witnessing a guy spit his gum on another person’s iPad (mid Angry Birds), pick it up, pop it back in his gob and wander off down the train. Waste not want not.
We’ll follow this post with a couple of the students we met whose work shone, but rest assured the state of design education in the North is very much alive and kicking (and it’s WELL CHEAP!).
Little White Lies is one of London design agency and independent publisher The Church of London‘s several titles and the mag from which the agency was born. In this video they show the process of developing the Black Swan issue, one in a long line of beautiful pieces of design (I can’t think of another title with such consistently striking and touchable covers). Looks like a lot of fun too.
Wowzers. Lovely stuff from those talented bastards at The Mill. They have loads more work that’s not even in this reel too including this promo for series 5 of Skins and the BBC radio idents (Zane Lowe and a big button) – with literally hundreds of lovely case studies on it their website is well worth a look.
Everyone’s talking about China. It is fascinating to see how their culture is evolving. The video above is about the growing skate culture in Shanghai. There’s some nice skate fooootage and a decent soundtrack, but it really gets interesting when you find out about the skaters’ struggle to overcome pressures from home and traditional values so that they can express themselves and pursue their passion.
The second film is the one that they show at Tate Modern to accompany Ai Weiwei’s Sunflower Seeds (highly recommended – there til May). The decaying, impoverished town and traditional methods used to mould and paint the porcelain seeds show a very different side to China compared with the futuristic cityscape and rebellion of the skaters. Also, the recent demolition of Weiwei’s studio shows that things aren’t all free and easy in Shanghai.
Look at this! A sweet new video for London folksters Keston Cobblers Club‘s latest track Giraffe Junkie’ has just hit and it’s making grown men weep across the land.
There was once a giraffe who wanted to be a horse. He wanted a swishy tail and clackity feet and for his mane to wangle in the wind when he galloped over the hills. So, one sunny day he flew his rocket to the Planet Horse, to sip tea with his equine friends…but the horses were not so horsepitable. in fact, they despised the giraffe, with his silly long neck and wonky spots.
During a recent project creating ‘Bourne Identity style’ fantasy interfaces, this video was a true inspiration.Every transition, wipe, pixellate/sharpen, swipe, zoom, loading digit and fake OS imaginable is present. The film stars just don’t know how good they’ve got it.
