Nothing like a nice bit of concrete
Another skate related item. Here's the beginning of a collaboration with Bristol's BMX indie mag Body English. The designs above are for a fundraising project to rebuild the ageing concrete BMX/Skate park in St. George. Built in 1984 this ever popular park has seen better days and is in need of an update. The larger letterforms are hand drawn then worked up digitaly.
A good pool is an empty pool
Recently I got back on my board to do the type of skating I've wanted to do for a very long time. Skateboarding was born in Los Angeles and skating pools is about as old as skateboarding itself. This is because American swimming pools are mostly kidney bean shaped bowls. Perfect for surfers back in the day who skated on flat days (Tony Alva above) who found the concrete transition not dissimilar to a wave.
Above is the Simparch bowl. A wooden construction based on the American swimming pool. After a lengthy tour, the bowl found it's final home in Blackpool (how appropriate!). It's a long drop into the deep end at about 8 foot deep as I found out when I took a big tumble from the lip, missed the transition and slammed into the middle, but serious fun and worth every knock. It's also a thing of beauty. It sits raised on steel supports exposing the underside which is itself a work of art.
It's that time of year...
Here's an advert I've just finished. Anyone in and around Preston who fancies a bit of festive spirit might very well find it here. These guys run a tight ship so you won't be disappointed.
New HighVoltage poster
The return of HighVoltage to Manchesters live music scene! New poster design for Novembers lineup at the Deaf Institute. Will be a good night if you're in the vicinity with the Strays all the way from NYC.
Just one thing...
I've been onedering what to do with this for ages. This is a collaboration with a good friend of mine Patrick Hacket, a very talented writer. I gave him the task of writing a short piece themed on the number one. These are his words and very touching they are too. I have plans for a website and postcards to spread this about because I think everyone needs reminding from time to time. Click here for it's temporary page.
Project news...
I'm happy to report that Graniph Tee's have just confirmed my second t-shirt design. I'll post more about it when everything is finalised. My last one seems to have sold pretty well. Now I have even more reason to get my lilly white bum over to Tokyo!!
Also excited to be working on new branding for the Kendal based event organisers Calling Out. In addition to the company branding I will also be be producing design across all media for their entire event roster this coming year (no small task) which includes a brand new, major two day festival on the North West coast...details of which I'm not yet at liberty to disclose, but watch this space.
As seen on TV
The other day I watched Trexx and Flipside, a new Hip Hop sitcom on BBC Three. To be honest I was only really half watching it, but my eyes nearly popped out my head when I noticed my 'Vote for ZION' poster I produced for the Zion Arts Centre on the wall in the background! It's actually the second time I've seen it on TV, as on Northwest Tonight there was a feature on the shortlisted organisations for the Peoples Millions and there were a whole bunch of kids all holding up a poster each, which was brilliant. But this second sighting was much better being all so random...whoop!
I think I'm turning Japanese
A little further down the page you'll read that I entered a competition where I rather grandly summed up the universe in a few words. I thought it was great, but the panel didn't and I didn't place. Nevermind I thought, it was fun anyway. About three months later the sponsers of the competition, Tokyo based Graniph, got in touch to say well actually we thought it was great too and we'd like to put your artwork on one of our t-shirts. Great! I said. So here's volume one of what promises to be a series of designer tee's.
Winner!!!
Having been heavily involved with HighVoltage (record label, music mag and club night) pretty much from the outset for the last four and a half years, I am very happy to say that we have just won the music category of the Best in Manchester awards 08!
4 years of brand building, page layouts, posters, adverts and hard graft acknowledged! Whoop!There will be a comprehensive exhibition of HighVoltage materials coming up at the Urbis in Manchester. Watch this space.
Light up!!
Here's a bright idea from the Graffiti Research Lab. A Throwie consists of a lithium battery, a 10mm diffused LED and a magnet taped together. Go outside and throw 'em up on a metal surface. They look great in numbers and glow for around 2 weeks. Probably best to go retrieve them after though. Here's a link to a 'how to' on a great website which is full of good ideas to make and do.
Bennett Robot Works
Fantastic robot sculptures from Gordon Bennett in NYC. I'd like one to do the washing up... more»
Universe
I've just entered a design competition hosted by idn magazine, to celebrate 15 years in publication. They must have sat around a table and thought, "what's the biggest brief we can come up with?". Lo and behold here's what they did...
'The "Universe" is the summation of all particles and energy that exist. It is
the space-time in which all events occur. Just like the design community, it
transcends all boundaries and value, to embrace each and every one of our force
with the same spirit.
Express visually (by graphics, drawings, illustrations, photography, typography...)
what this particular word means to you.'
Buy none, get one free
I like free stuff. I'm not talking the buy one get one free stuff, because it's not really free. It just goes to show how much of a mark up there is when there's still profit to be made from selling two at the same price. I mean really free stuff. It gives me a warm fuzzy glow from the spirit of sharing.
I've been aware of Freeness for some time but only while pulling a late one last night did I finally get round to delving a little deeper. It's a music portal for new & unsigned musicians to get their music heard and a window for people to connect with these artists. I clicked 'browse music' last night and over the course of about 5 hours I did not hear one mediocre track. There's an eclectic mix of hip hop, soul, acoustic guitar, singer songs, electro bleeps and all things in-between. This is the UK underground and it's strong! Interspersed with the music are audio seminars from industry people talking about what it is to be creative and how to get ahead. A highlight of this is 'Corey Mwamba - Inspiration Information Part Five', do a search and and find it. He speaks so well about what creativity is, it's a really good listen. Enough of me rambling go check it out.
LICHTFAKTOR
Painting with light is no new thing but Lichtfactor has taken it to a whole new level. Follow the link to the portfolio page where there's 5 sections to see. The picts are great but it's the videos at the bottom of each section where you'll find the real action. It's well worth a look-see...
Lichtfactor
A giant step for mankind...
It's gotta be real good for me to plug something. But if you like
your hip hop, breaks, soul/Jazz, funk and all things in between from
round the world then I insist you check out Giant Step. www.giantstep.net
The Giant Step juke box has among other things over 180 hours of Giles Peterson's Worldwide Show (my absolute favorite radio show and well worth a listen), shows from Unabombers, Mr Scruff,
Eric Paredes..... need I push this any further??? You'll find it on the left hand side of their homepage.
It's all about the music!
So what's with the images at the top of the homepage??
I grew up in Hong Kong. Pretty much all of my formulative years were
based there. It's a place that has had a great deal of influence on my
life and in some respects, my work. It certainly gave me an
international perspective on things. As cities go it's physically quite
small but in every other respects it's huge. Often it was the details
that caught my eye the most. Lots of things are small in HK due to
space limitations and often these small things produce brilliant
repetition of colour and pattern on a bigger scale.
The
images in the top of the homepage are a set taken on my last trip
there. Check them out; there's 16 in total and if you either refresh or
click 'home' they are produced at random. What I'm aiming to show with
these photos is the very kind of detail I'm talking about. You won't find any grandiose cityscape's, just Hong Kong at street level.
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All work © Soap/Andy Cake 2008