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What do a peg, a plant pot, a statuette and a daddy long legs all have in common, short of the fact that Sasha Kurmaz has picked them out and subjected them to the unwavering gaze of his lens? Well, not much actually, but I feel like that should suffice. Sasha’s subjects vary from the bodies of the people around him and the broad landscapes they inhabit to the corner of a room you’d never noticed before, and his perpetual quest to make the ordinary extraordinary with his youthful and irreverent surreality seems to be going very much to plan.
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It hardly comes as a surprise that we’re posting about this book; after all it’s Marion Fayolle, one of our favourite French illustrators, and her new title has been lovingly published by NoBrow. What’s not to like? Anyway, this truly is something special – most spreads are made up of one-page, two-part panel-less stories of couples dancing, swinging, hunting, being in love and sculpting. A lot of the time the stories end in a sweet sadness that you can totally relate to, but can’t quite tell why.
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Photographers Kila & Rusharc began their collaboration while studying at the University of Westminster, forming a bond over a shared set of ideals and a disparate set of skills which made them perfectly suited to working in tandem.
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Every once in a while an ad campaign comes along which manages to convey a really powerful message in a beautifully simple way. That certainly applies to this project by Publicis Singapore for the country’s Samaritans and their suicide prevention work. Under the strap line "The signs are there if you read them, " creative director Erik Vervroegen and his team created this series of graffitied ambigrams which read either as simple platitudes or desperate cries for help depending which way round you read them. At a time when the usual debates around the annual ad junket to Cannes are in full flow, it’s nice to be reminded of the potentially life-changing – in this case life-saving – power of a great idea.
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Ah, to be in Palm Springs, where the houses look like they’re wearing sun-hats and the grass is, quite literally, greener. Dolly Faibyshev’s photographic series documenting the gaudier side of California stays true to her enjoyment of capturing the garish artificiality of American culture, complete with pretend cactus mailboxes and plastic orbs-a-plenty. Her subject matter ranges from dog shows in Las Vegas to Texas rodeos, but all of Dolly’s work subverts the idea of the American dream through her playfully satirical lens.
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Peter Rhodes’ charming illustration is underpinned by something darker; his comic strips for example might at first glance seem somewhat naive, but if you look closer the social commentary at play quietly beckons you in. We especially like his deck of playing cards; each suit is based on a different region of the world and there is a theme to each number – from hats, food and houses to religious buildings, sport and spiritual objects. Suddenly the game SNAP doesn’t sound like just a dreary wet-playtime activity, eh?
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For the new issue of our Printed Pages magazine, longtime friend of the site Ryan Hopkinson worked with set designer Sarah Parker to create a brilliant series of still-lifes based on synaesthesia, a condition where senses become mixed up and people see or taste certain words and numbers. In truth it was a miracle that Ryan managed to squeeze us in, so in-demand is he for both film and photography work. With a raft of new updates, we sat down with Ryan to talk to him in a bit more detail…
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Some lovely book design here from Brooklyn-based designer Linda Huang, whose love for the hand-drawn breathes fresh air into the titles she works on, making them incredibly desirable. The book that really won us over was her work for The Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, which she made by spreading thick lines of ink vertically down the cover to create stripes that are at once leafy and plant-like, while still resembling juicy spines of books. Very nice! Linda currently designs at the wonderful publishers Knopf and Pantheon Books and is also freelancing in her spare time.
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There’s nothing like brilliant animation to stir up the music video scene every once in a whole, and the new Arctic Monkeys song, Do I Wanna Know? hits the mark and then some. Directed by David Wilson with animation agency Blinkink, the video begins with a straight white line which vibrates which each thick chord that ripples through it, and grows to a full colour animation complete with racing cars, booty-shaking flag-wielding ladies and and a fish or two. In short, this is the whole shebang. Don’t believe me? Watch it above and find out for yourself!
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For a man with no formal design education, Richard Sapper has managed to make an indelible mark on the face of global industrial design. Since the 1950s his innovative approach to product design has led to some of the most forward-thinking, technically complex and strikingly-beautiful objects of use. From his early days at Daimler Benz to latter years at IBM, Sapper’s vision of the industrial world has come to be more or less our own; from the kettles we boil our water in, to the units from which we send emails.
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Ahhh the fresh-faced graduates of 2012…well, not so fresh-faced anymore. A year out there in the Siberian wasteland that is south east London is enough to put you off being creative for life. These guys seem to be ok though, in fact they’re more than ok, they’re doing better than all of us! Here’s Josh, Grace and Andrew on what they’ve been up to since being an It’s Nice That Graduate 2012 and remember there’s just a few days left to apply to be one of this year’s class.
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As far as health and safety measures go in the UK, we’re pretty strict. We always keeping a bucket of water/sand by us when we want to casually light up a sparkler, and know from a young age that playing with matches is tantamount to murder. In Mexico, things are a bit less tamed, as you can see here in this magnificent series of photographs taken by Thomas Prior on his recent trip to Tultepec. Each year the citizens gather together to celebrate the city’s main export – fireworks – by having the equivalent of the Spanish tomato festival but with pyrotechnics. Makes our annual bonfire nights look a bit naff doesn’t it?
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Established in 1739, the Foundling Hospital was the first institution set up to take in unwanted and abandoned babies, which it did for 250 years before officially becoming a charity to help vulnerable children. The original site is now a museum of artefacts and artworks about the charity’s role in the community.
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BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM! What was that sound? That was the door of full-time education slamming firmly behind you. Cold outside isn’t it? But don’t worry guys, although your end-of-year shows are imminent, happening, or already over, and your universities are getting ready to shut up shop for the summer, we still care about you. At least for the next couple of weeks. So if you’ve got a project that you want the world to know about, you need reassurance that everything’s going to be alright, or even if you just want to win some books, send in your projects (by Monday June 24) and let us crown you Student Of The Month.
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This week artist and curator Gaynor O’Flynn reports back from the Venice Biennale and argues that it’s time for a fair trade policy for artists. As ever you can add your thoughts using the thread below.
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There’s a suspension of reality that always seems to take place in airports –in a situation where everything is dedicated to transience, to impermanence the normal rules don’t seem to apply. That is, I believe, why so many people will have a pint before their plane no matter what time they’re travelling. This amazing new animation by Eoin Duffy encapsulates this weird otherworld perfectly; a quietly discombobulating few minutes following a lone traveller through his journey. Very, very impressive stuff.
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Have you ever arrived in a completely new place and felt oddly like you’d been there before? Because it’s exactly that weird déjà vu that Christopher Eyles looks to toy with. Through his arduously assembled photomontages, he creates stunning tropical rainforests and jungles which, familiar though they may seem, are in fact products of his own fantastical imagination. His island paradises often come complete with secluded sky-blue pools, overhanging luscious foliage and and dreamy mountain ranges as far as the eye can see.
