FormFiftyFive™

Cursed Pirate Swab by Jordan Andrew Carter

Just spotted this cool series of playing cards put together by UK based art magazine, Ammo. The Poop Deck Project is a nautical themed set of illustrated playing cards featuring the work of 52 artists.

It’s cool that, unlike normal playing cards the suits in this pack include the Pirate Crew, Cursed Pirates, Royal Navy Officers and Mythical Sea Creatures. Each suit has it’s own colour scheme and icons.

Check out the website for artist profiles, card artwork and the option to purchase packs of cards or individual character prints.

Here are just a few of my favorites.

Opx, London, UK

We caught up with Nick Couch, creator of Open Studio Club and ex-Creative Director at Figtree to pick his brains about the increasing flux in our industry, the impact of freelance, and what it all means for the future of graphic design.

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Intense short animation by Studio AKA’s Eamonn O’Neill.

Philographics is a project that uses graphic design to elucidate philosophical concepts. A series of 95 cards, each one explaining a philosophy ‘ism’, using simple colors and shapes, it’ll also be made into hard back book. The project is currently on Kickstarter where it’s done very well and has just a couple of days to go.

According to designer Genis Carreras, Philographics aims to explain complex ideas in the simplest way possible. “I started the project 2 years ago with the intention to merge the world of philosophy and graphic design… In the beginning it was a set 24 posters, explaining philosophical theories like Dualism, Free Will, Existentialism or Idealism using only shapes and colour. But so many important ‘isms’ were left out that I decided to add more designs to the collection.”

Check out the Kickstarter page here and get behind the project, or see many of the designs on Genis’ website here.

Introducing the launch of a new studio: Fieldwork a creative partnership of designers Loz Ives and Andy Gott.

There is already a smorgasbord of design treats to sample on their handsome new website, looking forward to seeing it grow. All the best lads.

Absolutely love this short animation about a game of football that turns deadly as an uninvited player joins in. Directed by Sam Taylor and Bjorn Aschim for The Line, the film took over two years to make. This is a real labor of love, apparently working evenings, weekends and days off with no budget and a lot of help from friends to make it happen.

Full credits here.

This is a film about a design and cultural phenomenon; the Designers Republic™ (tDR), one of the most influential graphic design studios of the last two decades.

If you’re a tDR fan, you might be interested in this – production company LCM Digital are attempting to raise kickstarter funding for “an ambitious, observational study of tDR™ and its continued global influence over the 25 years since its conception”. Through interviews with Ian Anderson as well as previous employees, industry professionals, clients and a local and international network of fans and aficionados, the film sets to reveal the myth and the reality of tDR™.

For further information, and to contribute to the documentory, please see LCMDigital’s kickstarter page.

A nice set of work from freelancer Pascal Barry, with strong typographic bias. I particularly like his Cephalonia font, inspired by Greek engravings. He’s also the creator of iconoci — a set of simple royalty-free icons.

Oxford and Brighton based Oak have a nice range of work on their new site, including branding/identity, editorial and lots of lovely art direction.

Really enjoyed looking through the work of prolific Belgian painter/illustrator Oli B.

Great mixture of mediums, especially the LMBRJK Studio sculptural collaboration – always good to see illustrators breaking out of what’s expected from them.

David Hieatt talks about his new company Hiut Denim. Photograph ©Davy Jones 2013.

At the beginning of May we attended London’s latest design conference POINT. Boasting some big names from the design world including, Erik Spiekermann, Morag Myerscough, Jonathan Barnbrook and video interviews from Alan Fletcher and Milton Glaser the bar was already being set pretty high. POINT took place over two days at Royal Institute of British Architects in London’s west end, the choice of venue (with it’s wooden panelled theatre walls, grand entrance stair cases and architectural-orientated bookshops) and list of speakers set an intellectual and academic tone to the conference.

With just one theatre for all the speakers there was a lot of speakers to get through in both days. For the most part this meant short 30 minute talks in order to stick to a tight formal schedule which kept talks concise and focused. Unfortunately this didn’t leave much time for questions both from the live audience or via Twitter. As both days progressed speakers towards the end of the day were given hour long slots which, for the like of Morag Myerscough and Matt Webb gave the audience a much deeper insight into their work.

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For anyone who’s in Tokyo before 2nd June we recommend checking out 21_21 Design’s audio-visual exhibition Design Ah!. Run by the same people behind NHK’s educational program of the same name, Design Ah! is curated by the super-talented Taku Satoh, Yugo Nakamura and Keigo ‘Cornelius’ Oyamada.

The exhibition aims to encourage us all to think about design in our everyday life and to foster young design minds that can make sense of the data overload around us. Visitors can experience design through all sorts of cool audio-visual exhibits.

One of our favourites “Ah! in motion” by tha ltd gets you to dance around and watch how the ‘ah’ phonetic symbol that’s projected on to the wall in front of you changes shape to follow your movement.

It’s a fun exhibition put together with lots of creativity.

Adrienne Pitts is an award-winning art director, designer and photographer from sunny New Zealand – currently the AD for jamie mag in London. As you might expect from such a talented photographer she also has an excellent Instagram presence, and enlightening tumblr.

Illustrator Jack Hudson and 3D image-making duo Lord Whitney have teamed up to produce a body of work inspired by the most vibrant, iconic, and downright weird record covers in history.

Jack and Lord Whitney have created an entire back catalogue of LP cover designs for a series of fictitious musical artists. But they’ve taken the concept a step further and commissioned established musicians to create original songs inspired by these artworks. They include Pulled Apart by Horses, Sky Larkin, Department M and more.

Check out Mock’N'Roll Vol 1 on Bandcamp.

The exhibition is on at Leeds Gallery until 7th May  and you can check out their tumblr for some behind the scenes antics.

The trio are looking to take the show to London – anyone interested in collaborating should get in touch using one of the links above.

Swedish branding and design studio Forsman & Bodenfors has recently launched their new site with loads of great new work. Forsman and Bodenfors started off 2013 by winning Interactive Agency of the Year by Art Directors Club and has been ranked one of the best agencies in the world. Amongst their recent work is this brilliant campaign to aid the homeless people of Gothenburg.

Faktum is a monthly street newspaper in Gothenburg working with the socially vulnerable, together with Forsman & Bodenfors they created this social media campaign which goal was to raise awarness about homelessness in Sweden and to engage people to aid their cause.

“Gothenburg has about 3,400 homeless people. Most of them find a roof over their heads with a friend or at a refuge, but some sleep in the open air.We have chosen ten of the places where they might spend the night – and made it possible for you to book them. Just like any hotel.You can book one for yourself, or as a gift for somebody else. Either way the money goes to our work for homeless and socially vulnerable people.”

Each “room” has it’s own tourist like description:

“Feel the city’s pulse from dawn to dusk at Gullbergsvass. This delightful dwelling is just a stroll from the romantic Dreamer’s Quay: a source of inspiration to musicians and artists alike. And all under the noble eye of the Skansen Lion from his centuries old fortress.”

Head over to the campaign website if you feel like booking in http://en.faktumhotels.com/