Lisa’s spot on illustrated responses to films (such as Drive, War Horse and Rise of the Planet of the Apes) kept me extremely amused over lunch. The words are just as funny as the drawings, so please read them. I’m still making my way through her site, but other highlights so far include What Dogs Want and Rumors I’ve Heard About Anna Wintour.

Advertise here with BSA

Lots of crisp and clean new work across the board over on Marcus’ website. A few of my favourites (above and) below.

Advertise here with BSA

I saw these Monsieur Boudin cards for sale the other day and immediately wanted to know who they were by — turns out it’s California based studio Lab Partners. Really like their style and use of colour.

This may well be my last post of the month, so Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all!

Advertise here with BSA

Singapore, Spain and Argentina based interior and product design studio Outofstock have designed this rather welcoming, garden themed space for a Burger King restaurant in Singapore. I really like the small details like plant-pot lighting and camping inspired dinning tables. The kitchen chairs and casually placed posters give it a really relaxing feel. I know it’s still a Burger King, but it’s a step in the right direction.

More on the project, including information from Outofstock on dezeen.

Advertise here with BSA

I Really like Bernhard Lang’s aerial photography. In a short article on Phaidon’s Agenda site, he talks about finding ‘the perfect distance’ — I think this is what I enjoy most about his photos, they’re not the typical aerial shots, the kind of photos that look good just because you’re up so high.

Here’s the full text from Agenda:
Munich-based photographer Bernhard Lang’s photos of humanity at rest – skiing, sailing, swimming or just lying around – have an eerie remove to them. The viewer can’t actually tell if the photographer is 300 feet above or perhaps 3,000 feet. Lang says he’s obsessed with finding what he calls “the ideal distance – the point where humans and nature could live together in a perfect match.”

It’s an obsession that’s taken him on a two-year journey across the world from Siberia to the Sahara – mostly by light aircraft. His large format camera photos capture the chaos of mankind in a natural environment – the disorder of beach towels laid out on a lakeside; and the order and pattern created by snow-capped trees and lines of corn in a field. Whatever the personal concerns of his subjects far below, looking at them from so far above tends to render them literally insignificant.

Advertise here with BSA

This was a bit more relevant (for me anyway) a few months when I was originally going to post it as I saw it a day or two after going to a retro car show… anyway, as with most logos, it’s interesting to see how they’ve progressed and evolved, or in some cases, regressed over time. In this case, we have a series of major car logos, from Alfa Romeo to Volkswagan. I’m not sure how complete or factually accurate it is, but even without the dates, it’s quite fun — especially BMW’s ’70s and ’80s version.

In most cases, I prefer the older to the newer. Mercedes, BMW and Renault are below and the rest are here.

Advertise here with BSA

Apologies if you’ve seen this before (it is over a year old), but I felt I had to share it for those who haven’t. Dentsu London and BERG teamed up to create Making Future Magic — an interesting twist on the term ‘motion graphics’. It’s crazy but makes sense, technical but also somewhat old school. Sit back and enjoy.

Thanks to Rob for the link.

Advertise here with BSA

César Pesquera’s short film Circle One (which we featured back in May) is now available to watch anytime in HD on Vimeo. Take a look at the original post for more information and an interview with César.

At just under 21 minutes, it’s perfect lunchtime viewing.

Advertise here with BSA

Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive hit U.K. cinema screens on Friday 23rd September. I was lucky enough to see it several times over the weekend and can honestly say it’s one of, if not the most stylish film I’ve seen. It’s just downright cool! Ryan Gosling is cool as the unnamed Driver, Albert Brooks is cool as the West Coast mobster, Newton Thomas Sigel’s cinematography is cool, Hossein Amini’s screenplay is cool, the soundtrack is cool, and the pink Mistral-esque lettering… surprisingly cool. All this in a cool 100 minutes. Unsurprisingly, Refn was awarded Best Director at Cannes, where the film was also nominated for the Palme d’Or.

I never thought I’d describe a film as ‘cool’. Trying to be cool can often lead to something quite different. Perhaps Drive isn’t trying to be cool, perhaps it’s just a really good film made by people who really know what they’re doing and have invested a lot of time and effort into doing it. Everything is very uncomplicated, and apart from the Driver’s quiet moments, straight to the point. This rather brisk approach keeps a neat, relatively short story extremely entertaining, entrancing and easy to watch.

I highly recommend this to anyone with a little movie-based patience. Drive isn’t all-out action, it doesn’t need to be — as cheesy as it sounds, it says so much by saying so little.

I’m not going to make a habit of posting films on a design blog — however, I thought for this I could bend the rules a little. I believe anyone with a keen artistic eye will see Drive as a true masterpiece.

Official site
Cannes press kit
IMDb / Wikipedia

Advertise here with BSA

Some tasty CD packaging and slick (albeit, slightly retro?) website from young Swiss designer and art director, Loïc Dupasquier.

Thanks to Hamish for the link.

Advertise here with BSA