Music

REM: Imitation of Life

Posted by Alex Bec, Monday 24 May 2010

Sunday morning was a cracker; a hefty lie-in, more sunshine then we knew what to do with and the latest installment of BBC 6 Music radio show Adam Buxton’s Mixtape, in which one of our favourite comedians takes us through an hour and a half of sterling audio curation. This week Adam’s guest was the fantastic Garth Jennings from the equally impressive directing duo Hammer and Tongs. If you’re in the UK, his selections are well worth revisiting, but regardless of your geographical placement, you can enjoy Garth’s back catalogue of music videos, including this loop-tacular one for REM from a few years back…

Posted by Alex Bec

Alex is one of the directors of It’s Nice That who now oversees our sister creative agency INT Works. For several years he oversaw the Monday Morning Music Video feature until it came to an end in 2014.

ab@itsnicethat.com •

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Graphic Design
Very cool new Hot Chip album artwork will be unique for every single record

Emily Gosling • 26 February 2015

Hot Chip are one of those bands that have always had a fantastic visual sensibility. Illustrator Wallzo has been at the helm of it, bringing us glorious Michael Craig Martin-esque block colours and shapes to decapitated statues. Now, the band is moving into the world of bespoke printing, with the artwork for new album Why Make Sense by Nick Relph using an algorithm that means each copy’s design will be unique.
Photography
Istanbul’s impossibly colourful minimalist architecture, shot by Yener Torun

Maisie Skidmore • 23 February 2015

Yener Torun is a 32 year-old architect who has turned Istanbul into the geographical equivalent of Aladdin’s cave of wonders. Tucked away among the beautiful Ottoman and Byzantine architecture and the blue Bosphorus are a wealth of impossibly bright buildings dominated by geometric patterns, rainbow hues and funny architectural idiosyncrasies. And through his Instagram account, Yener has been slowly but steadily documenting it all.
Workwear
Designer/DJ/internet man Simon Whybray's workwear

Liv Siddall • 25 February 2015

He may not grace the covers of magazines or the red carpet, but designer Simon Whybray is more famous than you think. When you’re lurking about on the internet and being entertained by seriously cool and interesting stuff – do you ever stop and think, who the hell made this? Well, occasionally, it’s Simon. Designer by day, Tumblr scroller by night, Simon spends most of his time tucked up in his bedroom overlooking Old Street on his laptop. Sound lazy? It isn’t. He’s busy creating products, GIFs, designs, logos, club nights, clothing, memes, typefaces, music…you name it. Being on the internet all day has fed Simon’s brain like a drip, and subsequently he’s now asked by big brands to come in and teach them what the hell is going on out there in the real – well, online – world.
Graphic Design
Smoking new identity for a fish brand from Kurppa Hosk

James Cartwright • 25 February 2015

It’s not often I get to write about my two great loves in a single article, but sometimes the stars align and I’m covering smoked fish and graphic design all in the space of 300 words. Today I feel blessed! This strange combination of subjects has come together thanks to Swedish agency Kurppa Hosk undertaking a wholesale rebrand for Falkenbergs Lax, a small, family-owned smoked salmon specialist. Charged with turning the small-scale brand into an international major player in the fish industry, Kurrppa Hosk renamed it Korshags, and have came up with a sleek new visual identity to accompany the new name.
Graphic Design
Behind the scenes of The New York Times Magazine redesign

Rob Alderson • 19 February 2015

While magazine redesigns often receive a great deal of attention, few are likely to be more scrutinised than the new-look New York Times Magazine which debuts on Sunday. The Times is the leading newspaper in the US and its magazine is read by nearly four million people every week. When listed, the changes design director Gail Bichler and her new art director Matt Willey have implemented sound exhaustive – redrawn fonts, a redrawn logo, a new approach to lay-outs, a new-look version of the online magazine. Add to this a raft of new features and editorial changes (such as a new weekly poem, a column that rotates between four critics and a dispatch from the frontline of internet culture) and you’d be forgiven for thinking that the new magazine will be unrecognisable.

Graphic Design
Impressive portfolio from French design student Pauline Le Pape

Liv Siddall • 03 March 2015

Exciting new student alert! Meet Pauline, currently working on her advanced degree in type design at École Estienne in Paris – how glamorous does that sound? It’s rare to find a student with as much consistently fantastic work on their site, and for a while I didn’t actually twig that Pauline was still studying. She’s designed typefaces, had a bash at letter pressing for her business cards, and made some publications that, if I’m honest, I’d actually buy. The way she represented a bunch of Stéphane Monnot short stories is well-designed without overshadowing the writing, and that publication about the concept of an ornament just looks fantastic. Remember this name: Pauline Le Pape, she’s got big things ahead of her.
Bookshelf
COS heads of design on the books which influence and inspire them and their designs

Maisie Skidmore • 03 March 2015

How best to describe the enduring and ubiquitous influence of COS? The brand has become almost cult-like in its appeal since it was founded a mere eight years ago, creating designs which are somehow timeless and classic and simultaneously innovative.
Miscellaneous
The rude, weird findings of Craigslist's casual encounters, animated

Emily Gosling • 03 March 2015

“I’ve been thinking about this forever and want a woman’s touch”…"In shape, 29 y/o, six feet tall"…"I know it sounds crazy but it’s a fantasy of mine for a woman to"… These are the most SFW snippets we can publish from a rather nuts, very rude new project by Cartelle Interactive, the people that brought us the brilliant, trippy J Dilla Donuts tribute, Dilla Dimension.
Graphic Design
Luxury culinary branding from Peruvian designer Gabriela Maskrey

James Cartwright • 03 March 2015

In the two years since we first featured nomadic designer Gabriela Maskrey she’s taken on a lot of new projects and pushed her skills in all sorts of new directions. Originally she was all about editorial design – which it has to be said, she was great at – but she’s recently branched out into branding for Peruvian luxury food company La Pulperia. Her bold serif rendering of the company name coupled with historic imagery referencing Peru’s gastronomic culture combines to satisfying effect, and the addition of hand-drawn icons is a great touch too. All in all a great first foray away from the world of books and magazines.
Animation
Animated interview with Devo's Mark Mothersbaugh about his life in California

Liv Siddall • 03 March 2015

When you hear the words “branded content” you probably don’t get that excited, right? Well, times are changing. No longer do brands want to settle for something that isn’t going to whet the imagination of an audience, and so they’re recruiting fantastic creatives and partnering with cool platforms to make it actually worth everyone’s time. With this in mind, check out this pretty breathtaking animation created by Google Play in collaboration with Creative Sunday.
Advertising
New GEICO ad rewards you for not skipping through it on YouTube

Liv Siddall • 03 March 2015

When an insurance company challenges you to not skip through their latest ad on YouTube, your first reaction is likely to be “try me.” But you know what? They have actually pulled something pretty remarkable together for their latest advert. Well, I say remarkable, it’s pretty low-budget, but the idea behind it is great. Knowing that the majority of people wouldn’t watch an insurance ad on YouTube unless you were holding a gun to their head, they made their advert two seconds long. Then if like me you enjoy the first two seconds, you can stay for the whole thing. Best thing about this ad is how they didn’t even green screen the family, and you can see them wigging out and twitching as that dog goes all Beethoven on their dinner. Nice.
Web
We chat to Wired about its US site redesign

Emily Gosling • 03 March 2015

Discussing the “treacherous tide” of the “constantly surging ocean” of the web last year, we looked at the brilliant UK redesign of Wired, a project that wowed pretty much everyone. Now, the US Wired site has also upped its game in its first redesign since 2007, aiming to “create a clean and gratifying experience” through a clutter-free site. We had a chat with editor in chief Scott Dadich about designing a site for some very, very digital-savvy readers.
Illustration
Bright, nicely deadpan narratives from illustrator Jenn Liv

Billie Muraben • 03 March 2015

Toronto-based illustrator and cartoonist Jenn Liv is a whizz with colour. With sustained attention to detail, she illustrates often quite stereotypical moments but always with a twist. There’s a great battle between two knights on a cliff edge at sunset, just giving up; a romantic moment, flowers, a white dress, a gust of wind and the man just nonchalantly wandering off.
Illustration
Bizarre illustrated scenarios and cowboy tales in this new book

Maisie Skidmore • 03 March 2015

I think I might never have seen two illustrators as well paired as Faye Coral Johnson and Mike Redmond, the duo behind this charming new book Behind the Wild Heart. Faye’s work – sketchy, sweet and imperfect – seems to slot right in with Mike’s dynamic cartoony characters, and the two work together so often that it’s difficult to tell where one’s work ends and the other’s begins.
Graphic Design
A logo becomes a floorplan in great new Freytag Anderson work

Rob Alderson • 02 March 2015

Often the most interesting branding work hinges on a simple twist, and such is the case in this work by Freytag Anderson for Fraher architects. The Scottish studio’s concept revolves around the neat idea of the “F” in the logo doubling up as an architectural floorpan.

“The intersecting compartments or rooms create a simple graphic device for containing text, images and texture,” the designers say. “A vibrant red accent colour supports the minimal yet functional aesthetic.” Rolled out across stationery, a soon-to-be-launched website and internal presentation documents, it’s a really impressive idea executed to perfection.
Photography
A poetic series of the women of Las Vegas by Stefanie Moshammer (NSFW)

Liv Siddall • 02 March 2015

“Las Vegas is the strip club capital of the world,” says Stefanie Moshammer, an Austrian photographer whose recent project led her to the underbelly of Nevada’s shimmering city. Stefanie began work on a series called Vegas and She, in which she documents strippers, nightclubs, and various bits and bobs that represent Las Vegas culture: bright pink limos, dust trails, palm trees, and diving boards into sapphire pools.

Workwear
Workwear: Doodler Hattie Stewart talks about the clothes that make her happiest

Liv Siddall • 18 February 2015

Hattie Stewart never stops giggling. It’s infectious, she’s a hoot. Her current solo show at London’s KK Outlet is under way, with a whole bunch of her now notorious, collectible doodles on magazine covers and, more recently, leather jackets. A Kingston graduate, Hattie now works for the likes of Rookie, House of Holland, Pepsi, and whoever else wants a big old dose of colour and weird magic injected into their brand. Her working style is instantly recognisable, and you’d be right in thinking that the nature of her work ties in to what she wears day-to-day.
Opinion
Do you have to have read a book in order to design its cover?

Rob Alderson • 18 February 2015

Last week an interesting Twitter debate sprang up after a comment by graphic designer Andy Pressman who admitted that on a recent series he worked on it wasn’t always possible to read the books before designing the covers. So we decided to speak to a few other book cover designers and find out where they stand on this apparently quite divisive design issue; as ever you can add your thoughts using the comment thread below…
Photography
Surreal Photoshop and selfie skills from Izumi Miyazaki

Liv Siddall • 17 February 2015

Life can be pretty boring when you’re a teenager. Rather than turning to the gory allure of video games and SnapChat, 18-year-old Izumi Miyazaki decided to take matters into her own hands and make a series of selfies that make yours look absolutely rubbish. By utilising household items and foodstuffs as props, and sometimes going as far as building her own sets (see head in the clouds photos below) Izumi transports herself into far off lands, so far off that they’re on a different world entirely. Her fixed, deadpan stare throughout makes the project not just endearing but also worth much more than if she was just larking about. It’s art, man. FYI she also sells badges and other small merch items – get ’em while you can.
Graphic Design
Can typography help you date? Solve obesity? This book reckons so...

Emily Gosling • 17 February 2015

Over the past couple of years, I’ve eaten sans serif, I’ve made huge typographic swear words with an ex, I’ve wandered Dalston taking pictures of kebab shop exteriors and I’ve seen Bodoni predict my fortune. Hell, I’ve even tried typographic dating. Why? Because of Sarah Hyndman, the one woman tour-de-force behind the Type Tasting enterprise, which takes a fun approach to typography and how it affects us emotionally.
Bookshelf
Gratuitous Type creator and designer Elana Schlenker on her fave books!

Maisie Skidmore • 17 February 2015

Brooklyn-based graphic designer Elana Schlenker is not only the creator of “occasional pamphlet of typographic smut” Gratuituous Type, she’s also a freelancer with a magnificent array of colourful projects on her (frankly quite beautiful) website, a very good speaker, an exhibitor at exhibitions in Edinburgh and at London’s own KK Outlet. And she’s won a bunch of awards, too. Her aesthetic is pastel coloured without being sickly, innovative without feeling audacious and involves the kinds of books which just seem to make life nicer.

Film
Cross-dressing, guns and hirsute nudity in Skrillex' latest music video

James Cartwright • 27 February 2015

Fleur & Manu’s latest video for everyone’s favourite ex-goth Skrillex is a bit of a repetitive tale. It takes the form of a mulleted dropout failing to get a loan from his bank, and then having to relive the painful experience again and again, Groundhog Day-style until he loses his shit completely and the whole thing descends into a cross-dressing, semi-naked musical. There are some great hairy backs thrown into the mix too. With a synopsis like that how could you resist?
Film
Daniel Swan shows off experiments with light in new Django Django video

James Cartwright • 27 February 2015

Four years after first discovering Daniel Swan’s website he’s still not bothered to put any work on it. There’s just a 3D-rendered glittery keyring that bears his name and serves as his calling card. He’s a confident man! Still, when you’re producing work as good as Daniel, you can afford to be confident. Last time we had him up on the site he had collaborated with David Rudnick on an incredible desert apocalypse for RL Grime, and this latest offering for Django Django is no less impressive.
Film
We chat to the student duo behind “FYI, I’m a graphic designer”

Billie Muraben • 27 February 2015

In response to a “critical graphic design” brief from their tutor at Central Saint Martins, graphic design students Ellen Mercer and Lucy Streule spliced together a tonne of clips and heartfelt scenes where movie characters let each other know, “FYI I’m a graphic designer.”
Film
A video profile of the Oscar-winning sound man behind Whiplash

Rob Alderson • 23 February 2015

There’s always a frenzy of opinions around the Oscars, as Michael Hogan Tweeted this morning: “It’s all happening over on the #oscars hashtag, if you’re interested in people who can’t type properly quacking on about film awards.” But amid all the polarised bickering and the dress-sense-rating bitchiness, it’s nice to remember the sheer amount of skill and craft that went into all the nominated films. Crane.tv has produced an interesting series which focuses on the lesser-appreciated talents who make the movie industry what it is, the most impressive of which focuses on the Whiplash sound mixer Thomas Curley. He got the nod from the Academy this year and it’s super interesting to hear him talk about the challenges of working on a film which is all about drumming, and so sound is critically important to the overall artistic effect.
Film
Geoff McFetridge builds an ocean-going bike in great short film

Rob Alderson • 23 February 2015

We’re always interested in what Los Angeles-based artist and illustrator Geoff McFetridge has been up to. A video of him talking about making a bike sounded especially promising, but a video of him talking about making a “totally absurd” ocean-going bike? Swoon.
Music
Blur release new single (it's great) ahead of The Magic Whip album. WOW.

Emily Gosling • 19 February 2015

Good lord, I haven’t OMGd this hard since…possibly since anything this big and Blur-related happened last time, maybe with the release of Under the Westway, maybe when I sweatily, heart-in-mouthedly (be cool Gosling!) met Damon Albarn in a Foyles book shop. As anyone who’s been on any form of social media in the last hour will know, during a lovely long live Facebook chat with Zane Lowe this morning it was announced that Blur have recorded a new album, called The Magic Whip (their first full-length release in 12 years) revealing the very cool artwork in The Sun of all places this morning.
Film
Touching film about finding salvation in creativity, and Elgin Park

Emily Gosling • 19 February 2015

From LSD, Michael Paul Smith learned that he “didn’t have to go to foreign lands to meet foreign people.” This realisation informed what he went on to dedicate his life to – creating tiny, perfect model depictions of the 20th Century, mapped out in his miniature town Elgin Park.
Film
Meet the archeologist determined to build his own affordable space suit

Sponsored Article • 05 February 2015

Portland-based archaeologist Cameron Smith has a dream; a dream that has little to do with his chosen career path. Unable to join NASA because of his poor eyesight, Cameron’s dedicated the past few years of his life to engineering an affordable space suit that’ll enable the wearer to venture outside Earth’s atmosphere for the tiny sum of $5,000. He and his crack team of amateurs and enthusiasts are working tirelessly to get their project off the ground and into the cosmos. Why, you ask? Because they’re rebels – simple as!
Film
A brilliant profile of the fashion world's go-to satirical filmmaker Matthew Frost

Rob Alderson • 04 February 2015

“My name is Matthew Frost and I make hilarious short films about famous people mostly.” So begins this excellent video profile of the brilliant British filmmaker but we’d go even further – his name’s Matthew Frost and he makes hilarious short films about famous people better than anyone else out there (from Kirsten Dunst and Lizzie Caplan to Jessica Chastain and Cate Blanchett).
Music
Inez and Vinoodh's video for new Rihanna And Kanye West And Paul McCartney song

Liv Siddall • 03 February 2015

Maybe it’s because I spent all day Saturday watching Beatles documentaries, or maybe it’s because I’m feeling emotional and loving after a big lunch, but this is great. If you had told anyone five years ago that Rihanna, Kanye and Paul would team up with fashion photography powerhouse Inez and Vinoodh to create a music video, no one would have believed you. But, it’s happened. Sure Brandon Stosuy from Pitchfork just referred to it on Twitter as a GAP commercial, but I think maybe it’s stronger than that. When the collaboration was first announced I expected them to accompany it with a mindbendingly expensive blockbuster video à la Justin Timberlake’s What Goes Around…Comes Around complete with a car chase. But no, it’s stripped back, fashionable, kinda soppy and watchable. Well done Inez and Vinoodh, you’ve made this almost farcical musical trio somewhat more believable.
Film
Like Bremen? We love it thanks to this nuts student illustration project

Emily Gosling • 03 February 2015

Promoting a city or area is a tricky thing to get right. Too earnest, and you look boring; too edgy and you risk alienating families, and those of a sensitive disposition. How about going for just downright peculiar then? And a surreal cast of wooden figures?
Film
Great Guardian video lampoons hysterical Transfer Deadline Day graphics

Rob Alderson • 02 February 2015

Today is one of those weird dates in the calendar that means a lot to some people, and almost nothing to everybody else. Transfer Deadline Day is the final 24 hours that football clubs are allowed to buy players before the summer, and over recent years a weird mania has built up every time it rolls around (culminating last year in the bizarre spectacle of a Sky Sports News reporter having a purple sex toy waggled in his ear).
Film
Petra Collins turns to filmmaking with this dreamy portrait of life in LA

Maisie Skidmore • 29 January 2015

If you’re prone to being envious of impossibly beautiful creative people living dreamy lives in perpetually sunny places, I would advise you to look away now. We already knew Petra Collins was a dab hand at documenting the pleasures and perils of teenage life through her photography, but as this new film commissioned by COS and picked up on by Dazed Digital aptly demonstrates, she’s not bad at filmmaking either. Drive Time sees Petra douse life in Los Angeles with the same compelling potion that her photographs do, as she films her friends Cherry Glazerr front woman Clementine Creevy, photographer Autumn de Wilde and her daughter Arrow, artists Erin and Sam Falls and producer Asma Maroof wandering dreamily around the city, musing sweetly on the art scene there. It’s hazy and sun-soaked and plays into the hands of all the best cliches Hollywood entertains. Which, from time to time, is precisely what you need.