Birmingham based Clarke Associates are a PR agency but have a nice little design portfolio. I have a sneaky suspicion that they might be having a massive update to their site soon so keep your eyes peeled!
I’ve spent a happy while on the personal section of Denis Carrier’s site and if he is to be believed (he says he looks like his work), he is drawn in simple lines, looks funny, uses letters as props and is frequently found to resemble an anthropomorphic book, pencil, or skateboard. But mostly Denis Carrier looks like a good idea well done. (Read more)
Amazingly-named set designers Lightning + Kinglyface, aka Anna Fulmine and Victoria Shahrokh have just unveiled their brand spanking new website and my goodness it’s a thing of some beauty. The dynamic duo have a wonderfully atmospheric style, creating thoughtful, intriguing and frequently unsettling pieces (a stretched canvas of “human skin” anyone?) for a whole host of top-notch clients. Their new site not only looks good, but manages to do justice to their craft, which can sometimes get lost in translation online. (Read more)
www.lightningandkinglyface.co.uk
This week saw the opening of The Crisis Commission at Somerset House, with a spectacular roster of artists including Antony Gormley, Tracey Emin, Sir Anthony Caro and Jonathan Yeo coming together to raise funds and awareness in the ongoing fight against homelessness. We spoke to one one of the stellar names taking part, Gillian Wearing, about the project and what she is exhibiting… (Read more)
www.somersethouse.org/ukcrisis
Stockholm based agency, Dalston, has updated their site with some great new work.
Back in 2007, the creators of the motorcycle magazine DicE included a 16 page skate magazine called BosH in the middle of it. The magazine features images that spanned the early days of skating, and also interviews with skate legends like Steve Olson and Duane Peters. BosH only lasted 3 years, but it seems to me like it was one of the best skate publications produced in a while. I really love the cover designs and the use of minimal photography, and the type is perfect.
This isn’t what you think it is. I’ll ruin it now and tell you that Christopher Jonassen has been doing some experimental image-making with frying pans, photographing where desiccated food stuffs have corroded their bottoms, leaving traces not visually dissimilar the craters and scares on a planet. Some brief post-production removes handles and suspends them in a space-like abyss and poof! the illusion is complete. “Uncanny Frying Objects.” Sorry. (Read more)
The title says it all really. Hours of visual porn if your a Factory fanboy.
Willie’s Cacao taking ‘the adventure of real chocolate’ to a wider audience
Willie’s Cacao, the only premium chocolate maker in the UK making cacao from ‘bean to bar’, is planning to take ‘the adventure of real chocolate’ to a wider audience.
They are launching seven new products in a new more accessible size, and most notably, branching out into milk and white chocolate. At the same time, BrandOpus have redesigned the range to strengthen the brand identity and simplify communication. Willie Harcourt-Cooze first introduced people to the delights of the world’s great cacaos, in his Channel 4 TV documentaries and with his Chef’s 100% Cacao cylinders. Now he is making his delectable single estate eating chocolate available in a new, single 50g square.
“I want everyone to experience some of the awakening I did,” says Willie. “Like fine wines, cacaos have stunningly individual flavours and few things give me more pleasure than watching someone gasping with delight as this realisation dawns.”
This smaller size follows the 2011 success of the 50g Fruitful range, with its perfect combinations of cacaos and inclusions like Ginger Lime. Now milk and white chocolate lovers too can join the adventures in taste. Milk of the Gods is made with 44% Rio Caribe, its complex notes of coffee and nuts dancing with the milk. The light, creamy El Blanco is a first because unlike most white chocolates, sugar is its smallest not largest ingredient, and it is made with unrefined cocoa butter so maintaining the distinct notes from the cacao.
BrandOpus developed a new confident and consistent identity for Willie’s Cacao, with the individual personalities of each product evoked through the use of colour and distinctive typography. The result is a simplified pack that achieves greater standout on shelf and is easier to navigate. The new design hits the shelf in Waitrose and top end independents in February.
Digital collage-maker David Bayus has gone through quite a dramatic change in style of late, but is nonetheless still producing fantastic work. Well-known in his native San Francisco for his hectic, meticulously planned mixed-media collages, Bayus uses traditional techniques to convey contemporary themes and concepts. His show last year probably had the best title you could think of for an exhibition, so if you made it down to Bad Casserole, consider yourself lucky. (Read more)