Art about Digital

I have been coming across few artists/designers lately who are using the internet/search engines/social media data as subjects for their work and I find this really interesting.

Julius Popp - has created a few pieces based on live interenet searches and the words that we type into search engines. Below is a waterfall, called Bit fall, where the words appear only for a second in the falling water, but it's pretty amazing I would have loved to see it for real! There's a video here of the artist talking about his work where you can see the piece in action.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AICq53U3dl8

This is the first piece I came across called Web Bit.code. It is a similar idea, the piece is a large mechanically operated ‘screen’ consisting of identical rotating black and white tracks made up of the 1s and 0s of basic binary digital code. Controlled by a specially designed software, the tracks will rotate individually, pausing at regular intervals to display the most frequently used key words taken from recent web feeds of current news sites. It's on display in the V&A in a new show Decode:digital design installations which opens this month. Think it might be time for a trip back to London!

''UXUS followed up the Home Reflections presentation with “Interaction”, an installation celebrating H&M Home’s transition from an online and catalogue retailer, to a physical showroom where one can indulge all the senses, especially touch. With the dominance of digital systems in our world, we explore the possibility of discovering through direct interaction. A large wooden display unit presents a series of pulleys and levers that are attached to various products. An action causes a reaction, pull and push, discovering through the physical exploration of an analog search engine. The display sits within 34m2.''

About UXUS

''Founded in Amsterdam in 2003, UXUS is an independent award wining design consultancy specializing in strategic design solutions for Retail, Communication, Hospitality, Architecture and Interiors. UXUS creates “Brand Poetry”, fusing together art and design, and creating new brand experiences for its clients worldwide. We define “Brand Poetry” as an artistic solution for commercial needs. Artistic solutions target emotions; emotions connect people in a meaningful way. Design gives function, art gives meaning, poetry expresses the essence.''

I am blown away by this piece of work I love it so much. It is so inspiring that a design can really be anything you want it to be - it is problem solving, and these problems are always changing. Bringing H&M back to the store and away from the internet is an interesting idea in itself and they have approached it in a fresh and unique way!

Randomers

Here's some more, not really related but lovely never the less, things that I found on my library day. I read every issue of Flux, Creative Review and ID, a lot D&AD annuals and numerous other books about graphic design and advertising. I'm not sure what directly influenced me, but I came away with a lot of new ideas so it was a day well spent!

Bad Typography is everywhere/good typography is invisible

A campaign by JWT Singapore for WWF. i'm not sure how well you can see this but the tagline is 'it's your turn now', this has inspired me a lot for my personal project.

Another one by JWT, India. Campaign for Levi's low rise jeans... Love it, this is exactly the kind of stuff I adore - its so simple, bold and clever, no over doing it, no trying to hard, just here's a clever way of showing you our product.

Garbarz and Patner, Hamburg, never heard of them before but I like this ad it reminds me of Jessica Haggy's work.

random book cover, don't know who designed it.

poster by Paul Sahr - exercises in futility

random again

Posters by Big Ant International - very nice! won a gold pencil for design apparently.

I like the style of these posters for sunsilk, very different from the normal glossy hair ads it would certainly cut through the shiny, fake, photoshopped women plastered all over most magazines for me!

Some nice posters for the museum of childhood in London.

Research: Personal project

I spent the whole day in the library on Monday desperately trying to get some inspiration for my personal project. As I am very poor (and environmentally conscious ;) ) I thought it would be a much better idea to put stuff like this on here so I don't waste ink paper and money printing it out. I'm not substituting my sketchbook, there's still plenty of work in there but I despise cutting and sticking and typing is quicker than writing so this way I get the best of both worlds. I put so much stuff on here I am sure no reads it, but really it's just for me - it's a good way to store all the images I find so they're not clogging up my memory and I can organise them and look back at them easily. Plus I hope when it comes to the journal it will seriously cut down the amount of work I have to do! =)

This stuff is some previous political campaigns I found - judge for yourself!

These are some nice posters for an exhibition that was on at the British Library about voting. It's interesting that they've gone for a pretty harsh angle - I think this was probably great for an exhibition, attracting people who are interested to go and look, but I don't think such a directly negative approach would stop most young people in the street. I am a firm believer that the best campaigns let the reader come to the negative conclusion in their own mind and time and allow them to choose to act, just planting the seed, rather than shoving shock, angry, parent like messages down their throats. Add a little bit of wit or cleverness and you've got the perfect campaign in my mind!

Interesting!

This is the Conservatives new motif at the moment. Not much to say really, it's pretty generic and generally awful.

The conservatives certainly like to kick up a controversial fuss don't they! this is truly terrible, do people actually take notice of these things? Scare tactics to get people to vote is pretty low in my opinion.

At least this ad suggests they're trying to try something new and there is some style behind the idea.

This is probably one of the most recognised political adverts of all time... it's a great play on words, but it still doesn't say anything about the conservatives and you wouldn't get away with that overlapping these days! Or then again, maybe you would on political advertising!

Lacking inspiration

Trying to get back into work after a little too much Christmas spirit is proving very tricky!

I have gone through the motions of the research but now I just can't get an idea... I think I want to do something that highlights the different perspectives that people can see the same thing from - hence the work i've been looking at below.

The brief specificly says that the postcard is to be politically neutral, so it got me thinking that there are so many different views and opinions, and they are all valid, what the design needs to do is awaken the passion to stand up for your opinion, and remind us that you can make a difference.

I hat it when you know exactly what you want something to be like, but you haven't figured out how to do it yet!!

The new YCN annual...

After D&AD announced they couldn't afford to give the annuals away this year it seems maybe YCN are a bit strapped of cash too...

They've printed most of the book in this hideous blue tint, with photographs so small you can barely see them. They haven't showcased any student work properly except for tiny little thumbnails which is a real shame. They've used most of the book to showcase their own work, which is fair enough, but seriously I can't tell the difference between last year and this year. And frankly if I see one more bit of 3D sans serif type photographed or doritoes brief I might explode.

For me there has always been quite a large margin between the student work they showcase, some stuff is baad and some stuff is amazing. This year I didn't find that much to inspire me, but then it was hard to get past the blue. The ones I particularly liked are below. I do wonder how some of the work ever gets chosen...

Luckily you can find the student work in full on the website!

Overall, the annual was pretty rubbish this year!

Cloud Atlas

I finally got round to reading this book which I think has been on my shelf for about 4 years. Since I went on holiday in 6th form and forgot to take a book, I bought two from the airport, chosen just because I liked the covers, then tried to start both and hated them. Coincidentally, the other book was 'A million little pieces' by James Frey, and when I've finally read them they have both turned out to be two of my favourite ever books!

I tried to start this book about 3 times, had no idea really what it was about, the blurb doesn't give much away, but as the first chapter is set in the 1800's, it was pretty heavy reading and I kept giving it up. This time I managed to persevere and realised that the book is made of 6 mini stories, 6 lives which span from Victorian times through the 21st century and right into a post apocalyptic future, and then back again so the book ends where it begins. We start with Adam Ewing's diary travelling on a ship through the pacific with missionaries, to Robert Frobisher's entertaining letters to his gay lover - a composer scrounging of an elderly musician in early 1900's Brugges, to journalist Luisa Rey on the brink of discovering a nuclear scandal in 80's America and in constant fear for her life. Then a publisher trapped in a an old people's home near Hull, to a cloned slave on the run for her life in the near future, and back to pacific islands way into the future when civilisation as we know it has ended with Zachry's tale for a big climax. Then the book works it's way back through each story until we end up finishing Ewing's diary.

Each character is linked in some way, yet each story is so different, the characters, storylines and language, you can hardly believe it's the same author writing. Each story ends on such a cliff hanger and leaves you desperate for more, but then you move onto the next one and get hooked all over again. This book was not only an exciting and thrilling rollercoaster ride but original and an extremely clever social commentary that would give Orwell and Wells a run for their money!