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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.
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As if having the redesigned Aperture magazine promoting their discipline wasn’t enough of a thrill, photographers the world over can now relax, safe in the knowledge they’re being thoroughly represented by two beautifully-designed, tastefully-curated magazines (sure there’s more, but that doesn’t fit the angle of my introduction). Now in its fifth edition, Aint-Bad magazine takes a different thematic approach for each issue and cherrypicks some of the finest young practitioners into a luxurious showcase.
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Christopher Kane showed his spring/summer 2014 collection this week at London Collections: Mens, and by golly was it good. Influenced by 3D body mapping techniques, the designer took graphic prints of faces (and, ahem, some body parts) and blew them up in vibrant neon colours across shirts, hoodies and shorts to create yet another signature to be spotted on dedicated followers of fashion the world over. As for us, we’re just going to do a print-out of one of those fancy X-ray machines at the airport and staple it to our T-shirts (not really).
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We love Nat Russell over here at It’s Nice That. If you haven’t seen it before, Nat’s body of work is made up of fantastical paintings, prints and illustrations that are pretty hilarious on the surface, but are actually infused with a really strong sense of loyalty and love that is so rare in so many people’s work. It’s fascinating to have a peek into his shelves, and to see the corrrelation between his literary habits and the work that he creates. Welcome to Nat Russell’s incredibly dedicated fan-base, you’re going to like it here.
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Photographer Mohammadreza Mirzaei has a keen eye for spontaneous imagery. The Iranian MFA student is currently studying at the University of Pennsylvania and creating the kind of dreamy nightscapes and geometrically-focused street photography that only a natural talent could conjure with their lens. When he’s not creating fine art photographs he busies himself with the promotion of other Iranian photographers (an undoubtedly under-represented demographic) through his monthly magazine, Dide, a publication that’s definitely going to have an influence over some of the photography we feature over the coming months.
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In the ongoing battle to redefine and reimagine the act and art of publishing for the 21st Century comes this project from the fine fellows over at Artomatic. CONTAINER is a thematic collection of objects produced specially by the contributors to that particular “issue.” For the first one, based around the idea of “hot and cold,” the likes of Nic Roope, James Bridle, Daniel Eatock and Accept & Proceed have created a weird and wonderful selection of treats from takeaway forks to pine wood burners. Not only are the objects themselves really special, the project challenges our notion of publications and our increasing expectations of what is becoming a luxury rather than a staple of our everyday lives.
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Amid the pantheon of brilliant characters from The Simpsons, Troy McLure has a special place in my heart. From his love of Selma to his slightly disturbing obsession with fish, his presence enlivens any episode but of course he’s best known for his ridiculous CV. Now one Christopher Coleman has collected a bunch of them together to make this supercut which is guaranteed to perk up your day. Just imagine the writers sitting around trying to come up with these!
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You know when you make a telescope out of a rolled-up phone bill and look through it to find a whole different, smaller world? Well Luke Casey’s gone and made a really terrific project out of that very idea, but instead of using a boring A4 sheet of paper, he’s utilised ships’ portholes as his frame.
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The spring issue of Printed Pages was such a blast to produce we thought hey, you know what? Let’s ruddy well do it all over again. And so like that bit in The Lion King where the monkey holds up the newborn Simba for the animal kingdom to see for the first time, we dangle the summer issue of Printed Pages over a rocky outcrop for your delectation.
