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We see A LOT of photography portfolios here at It’s Nice That and while most display a good deal of technical skill, there’s often a lack of personality on show. Step forward then 22-year-old Cape Town creative Paul Ward, who’s portfolio not only shows off his deft composition and use of colour but also a playful, cheeky sensibility that sideswipes at an artf-orm that too often takes itself far too seriously. “Who is Paul Ward?” asks his website URL – he’s a one-to watch is the inescapable answer. (Read more)

Informing the Hayward Gallery of his expectations for his new show, David Shrigley said: “The responses I would like are laughter, intrigued confusion and disquiet” – in no particular order. Mordant, absurd, utterly meaningless, profound and hilarious, all at once and all the time, his latest solo exhibition, and accompanying catalogue Brain Activity, is exactly what you’d expect from Shrigley – in the best way possible. (Read more)

Ms Man has been a top photographer in her native China since her early twenties when she started shooting for Vision magazine. We in the west have been a bit slow on the uptake, but it’s great to see this gal’s serious talent put front and centre in this month’s i-D. The magazine, in light of China’s recent Dragon-tastic new year, have snapped her up to produce 12 covers celebrating the diversity of Chinese beauty. In a world rife with glossy spreads it’s harder than it looks to make a picture stand out – but Man’s flair for high-impact imagery is everything we love about fashion photography; bold, luxurious, and unapologetically beautiful. (Read more)

Our final talk will round off the Words, Words, Words series by delving into varying forms of creative expression and storytelling. We’ve invited along poet, musician and sportswriter Musa Okwonga, Holly Gramazio games designer for Hide&Seek and Tim Clare creator of The Poetry Takeaway to talk about the performative nature of words. (Read more)

The fifth annual Designs of the Year exhibition opens today with nearly 90 nominees crammed into the top floor of London’s Design Museum. There’s the usual array of headline-stealing objects and more unusual fare to be found throughout the seven categories, with the winners set to be announced in April. You can find our in-depth coverage of the long lists featuring some of our favourites here but here’s a breakdown of some of the stats involved in the quest for design glory. (Read more)

As with any design festival, there’s a lot of interest in who caries off the various prizes up-for-grabs, and over in Stockholm it’s the bi-annual DesigNu award that captured our imagination. There’s a winner selected in each category – fashion, decorative arts, industrial design, graphic design and furniture design – before an overall victor is crowned, with this year’s gong going to the lifesaving Solvatten clean water device. It uses the sun’s rays to heat and treat the water – a brilliant solution to a massive problem (Read more)

Once a group of Brighton University graduates with “degrees in illustration and no grand plan” Peepshow has grown to become one of the best-loved creative collectives working today. Their gorgeous new book does not intend to tell that story, rather by focussing on the individual members and their work is encapsulates the spirit and the talent that underpins it. We spoke to four of the members – Miles Donovan, Chrissie MacDonald, Luke Best and Andrew Rae – plus designer Emmi Salonen to find out how you distill more than a decade of work into a single tome. (Read more)

It seems that Sara Kaaman and Martin Falk, who make up Stockholm-based design practice Studio SM, learnt the traditional rules of graphic design just so they could throw them out the window. By working frequently with numerous cultural institutions – who appear to give the pair the licence of complete freedom – Studio SM’s output has become a colourful own-brand of print design, both original and a little bit crazy. Note specifically their Posters for Russia project, an awareness-building scheme for what must be considered a very good cause. (Read more)

Burnori Sas sure knows how to rock a moustache and belt out a tune – his latest track is a lovelorn howl to one “Rosa” that tells a tale of desire and failed weddings. It could all tend towards the melodramatic if it weren’t for some stellar art direction from Tycho Creative Studio. Their latest video for the Italian pop-star is an explosive combo of thumping guitar and Wes Anderson-style non-sequiturs (priests? marching bands? drummers on forklifts?). Founders Giacamo Triglia and Mirella Nania have based their studio in the southern Italian city of Cosenza, and appear to have their hands in everything from music videos to short films to web design.

Bright and communicative, the collaborative design efforts of Krispin Heé and Katharina Reidy (Coboi) features bold, isolated infographic devices, logo-like detailing, simple text and great use of colour that percolates throughout a body of work with a consistent variety. Particularly into these flyer series for Sabina Seiler (pictured) that use the visual notations like illustrations.

Slippery, sticky bar of soap. In a dish or on a rope,
You clean my hands but make a mess, I guess that’s why the pump works best.
But then along came this man Dave, the classic bar he wants so save,
It’s easy, natural, package free – break off a piece for you and me.
Dave re-invents so many things, like edible pens and bricks for buildings.
Clever and crafty, his work’s a delight – so have a look here, then go see his site! (Read more)

At first glance I assumed Nicer Graphics was a collective, it is in fact just one man, Sven Neitzel, who is responsible for this portfolio of fun, colour-infused graphic design. Using his website as more a method of showcasing his approach to design as a whole, he actually now works at Thonik, one of the leading Dutch graphic design studios. If you check out their work as well, you’ll see that he’s the perfect man for the job. (Read more)

This intriguing, unnerving series by Spanish photographer Anna Huix features revolves around the annual Falles celebrations in honour of St Joseph which take place in and around Valencia. Anna is fascinated by the way in which “traditions survive in a globalised and hyper communicated world” and why these nostalgic but extremely costly customs endure to this day. Photographing the young falleras, Anna has created a brilliantly penetrating piece of work – on the emotional pull of traditions, the conflicts of female adolescence and the social tension between progress and the past. (Read more)

Glithero (a.k.a. Sarah van Gameren and Tim Simpson) are currently making my hands tingle. You know that feeling – maybe you’re watching someone knead some dough, or drag a paintbrush across a canvas, or pat a soft little rabbit on the head – it’s that unquenchable urge to reach out and get involved. Not only do these two Camden-based designers/craftspeople/all-round-innovators create phenomenally beautiful furniture, products and installations, much of the work is accompanied by excellent process films, which makes that whole “reach out and grab it” issue all the more pressing. Engrossing and inspirational. (Read more)

Mutli-talented Katrin Greiling will present at several different venues during the Stockholm Design Week, but it’s this Bidoun Sofa Series that we’re most keen on. Inspired by middle eastern textiles and using old mattress pads – thin and compact for the necessities of nomadic life – she’s built a series of interchangeable building blocks capable of creating some remarkably plush sofas. Designed to retain their portable nature, it’s a typically inventive project from this unconventional designer. Very cool. (Read more)

Gracia Lam’s work is quiet and unassuming, and that’s why it will catch you off guard. You’ll be leafing through her portfolio, taking in the beautiful colours, admiring her mastery of composition and likeable characterisations and then it hits you – these are really, unbelievably good. She’s the kind of illustrator who can take a simple briefing and add surprising depth, distilling abstract thoughts into concrete moments of lingering beauty. Take On the Theme of Absence for example, a feeling of vacancy and loss is evoked, rather than told – no small visual feat, which Gracia has executed with grace. (Read more)

Rarely does a documentary come more beautiful and gloriously silver-lined as Alma Har’el’s sensational film Bombay Beach that came exploding into our cinemas last week. Everyone’s going on about the soundtrack (Bob Dylan, Beirut – I know) but that’s only the tip of the iceberg, as Har’el’s delicately inquisitive film takes us into the broken promise of one very particular American Dream. (Read more)

I came across the mini-spectacularity of Ben Wilson’s jewell-like paintings on chewing gum mere days ago, though I’m a little slow on the uptake (he’s been doing them for nine years). This weekend saw Ben open a new show, Gum Art, at Trinity Buoy Wharf and a specially created art-trail of paintings that feature tiny scenes inspired by his surroundings, requests from the public, random patterns and people. He was arrested a number of times over the years, public support put that to rest and he continues to catch passers by’s eyes with his totally unique pieces. (Read more)

Of all the uses for jelly, surely this careful tinting and casting about lamps is one of the more creative. But for Le Creative Sweatshop – aka Julien Morin and Mathieu Missiaen – the casual re-appropriation of everyday foodstuffs (and a healthy amount of polyurethane) is the norm when creating their own style of sublimely strange still-lifes. In a day when pedestrian product shots just won’t cut it, these are your go-to guys. Photographed by Fabrice Fouillet. (Read more)

So here are some photos from last week’s apocalypse…just kidding! It’s actually the work of gifted collage artist Pablo Genovés, who’s created en-masse a series of theatrical clashes between culture and nature, any of which could work as stills from some B-grade horror film ( “A Not So Lucky Night at the Opera”, perhaps?). Rococo interiors dunked in a churning deluge – Pablo’s got some seriously kooky ideas up his sleeves. He aims to wrap his work in “an atmosphere of lie and falsehood,” and while they may not be believable they certainly are wonderful. (Read more)

Every Londoner knows that it’s quicker to walk from Covent Garden to Leicester Square than to tube it and yet, collectively, we rely on maps and devices that give us “abstracted projections of the real world’s spatial arrangement.” What interactive designers Bertrand Clerc and Benedikt Groß have accomplished is to realign our distorted idea of distance by fixing the topology of London to the rationalised map designed by Harry Beck. Metrography is an explorable, fascinating subversion of our acceptance for such things, no matter how unnavigable it is. (Read more)

The drawings of Josh Atlas fill my head with jingles and my mouth with the taste of pudding. But these delectable sketches are merely the appetiser to some seriously quirky sculptures – made from a mash-up of donuts, children’s paddling pools and rainbow sprinkles, all topped off with a lick of chocolate frosting (click through to see them). James finds dessert downright inspirational – he cites the crux of his artistic practice as “the moment when logic is tossed aside for the sake of gratification.” Well Josh, we think you and you’re confectionary creations are downright divine. (Read more)

Starting today and ending on Friday 10, all the lots in Örnsbergsauktuinen (an auction of studio-produced objects by Swedish and international designers), will be exhibited in Stockholm, including a rather great armchair by Clemence Seilles. Part of her Authentic Sources Furniture series, the chair has a skin of processed “natural” textures – surface adhesives like Turkish marble and oak wood – which represent a craft which is not employed, a source which does not exist and an effect that is nearly abstract. For this and all the other pieces up-for-grabs from the likes of Fredrik Paulsen (the organiser), check out the catalogue. (Read more)

The eyes of the design world turn to Scandinavia this week, to Sweden to be precise, for the Stockholm Design Week festivities. Sir Terence Conran recently said that Scandinavia has “design in its DNA” in a way many other regions don’t, and so it will be intriguing to see what trends and themes emerge over the course of the next few days. Everyday at lunchtime we’ll be swinging our spotlight onto something quirky, interesting or unusual that’s caught our eye. So, let the fun commence, Sweden style!

So last night the Superbowl happened, sending the USA into paroxysms of sporting superlatives and left most of the rest of us slightly baffled – us Brits woke up to Twitter timelines full of patriots, giants and Madonna, like some strange proto-Christian fairytale. But the game itself is only part of the whole Superbowl shebang, with brands shelling out on average $3.5 million for 30 seconds of airtime. Here’s our look at nine of the best ads which interspersed the on-field action… (Read more)

What could be better than a boy and a girl making fantastically beautiful prints and books together? Not much, apart from if they were in love. Oops! They are. Golden Cosmos are probably most recognisable by the image they produced for NoBrow, of the two of them riding in tandem with a dog on the back (a true depiction apparently, apart from the tandem).Their pieces are colourful and naive, and clearly influenced by their hometown, Berlin. (Read more)

Stop Press! The fantastic Black Cab Sessions have reached their one hundredth video! It’s a corker, and a credit to a fantastic series. Does that voice really come from that man?!

Last year, to quiet applause rather than rattling fanfare, Samuel Bänziger and Olivier Hug founded Bänziger Hug – an appropriately named design studio whose body of work, like the pair’s admirers, grows steadily and with purpose. Combining clarity with welcome moments of typographic expression, the Swiss duo design books, identities and websites, nodding at the importance of the object as a physical experience while simultaneously acknowledging the huge potential of design online. It’s subjective, of course, but with modest subtlety Bänziger Hug just might be displaying all of the facets needed to create great graphic design. (Read more)

We were blown away by the ineffable goodness of Jeff Mermelstein’s work when we first came across it. A prolific photojournalist, Jeff’s innate curiosity and inspirational debt to the great street photographers has created a body of work with fascinating and fleetingly intimate currents. This week he has chosen his top five photography tomes for our Bookshelf feature – all stone cold classics, narrated in Jeff’s singular voice – however, it does look like all his books appear to be in storage… (Read more)