PMKFA

Posted by Alex Bec, Friday 21 January 2011

We were introduced to one louder this week, an agency from France that represents some brilliant worldwide talent. One of the names on their rosta is PMKFA, a design studio from Tokyo who have a pretty varied output to say the least. I could go on about their stacks of great graphic and fashion design, illustration and art direction but the piece that really caught my eye was this eccentric illustration of food for a Japanese kids food science exhibition. A plethora of different techniques which if I was a little younger I’d flock to like a moth to a flame.

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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Photography
Arthur Drooker's photographs of an American mermaid convention, Merfest

Liv Siddall • 22 January 2015

Cool Hunting used to be a place of current art and design, expensive watches, exclusive booze bottles, leather mountaineering accessories and cars you will never be able to afford. Nowadays it’s a place of exotic content nestled snugly in a brand new redesign that’s pretty ahead of the game. Recently it’s been championing the work of an American photographer called Arthur Drooker, largely focusing on his series entitled Conventional Wisdom. Arthur is something of a curiosity-lover, and his wild, weird series are the visual result of him being unable to resist the pull of “Bronies,” ventriloquists, clowns, re-enactors and taxidermists.
Graphic Design
Wonderful head shots of hand models in M.G.T-designed book

Emily Gosling • 14 January 2015

From the dainty digits that show off wedding rings to the Marigold-clad hands that demonstrate the power of toilet cleaners to the precious paws that poke at futuristic gadgets, it’s easy to forget that the hands that advertise are attached to bodies and heads we seldom see.
Web
Wesley Verhoeve's portraits of lesser-known American creative cities

Rob Alderson • 23 January 2015

I don’t mean to show off, but I’ve met quite a few Americans, and I often ask them about the creative scene in the USA. More specifically I’m interested in whether it’s possible to elucidate any recurring themes or general characteristics in such a huge, diverse country. Most of them, bluntly but politely, say that no, no it’s not. What a ridiculous question. Get out my car. So to study American creativity is actually to study its individual outposts, and that’s where Wesley Verhoeve’s One Of Many project comes in.
Graphic Design
California knows how to design as proved by this stunning new book

Rob Alderson • 27 January 2015

For a young boy who grew up in the suburban Midlands, the west coast of the USA is really the America of my imagination, far more so than the refined cities of the Eastern seaboard, the vast expanses of the rural states or any of the other myriad landscapes to be found between sea and shining sea.
Graphic Design
Jorge León's impressively coherent identity for a Barcelona skate shop

Rob Alderson • 26 January 2015

It’s always refreshing to see a creative being really honest about the challenges of a particular brief before showing us their solution. So it is with Barcelona-based graphic designer and art director Jorge León, who sets up his work for the Amigos skate shop by referring to the “many problems” it had encountered with its brand.

Weekender
Enid Blyton couldn't have written a better one; it's time for the Weekender!!

It's Nice That • 30 January 2015

This Sunday night sees the Seattle Seahawks take on the New England Patriots in Superbowl XLIX. Yeah us neither. But it does make us think that more stuff should use Roman numerals. They’re cool. They’re confusing. They make even the most mundane event seem electrifyingly exciting. What if the early 2000s boyband Five had actually been called V. They’d probably be massive now. Or Enid Blyton could have written The Secret VII. Where were we? Oh yeah, some great stuff to read and watch from the past seven days. Once more into the fray!
Art
Ella Kruglyanskaya paints bawdy portrayals of the female form

Billie Muraben • 30 January 2015

Latvia-born Ella Kruglyanskaya now lives and works in New York, depicting cartoon-like friends and “frienemies” out-and-about in large-scale oil paintings and murals. Ella’s work is packed with bawdy humour, exaggerated forms, exuberant mark-making and interactions. She describes her intention as “pictorial events… [that] aspire to an unspoken punch line” – the content, references and line-work all filtered through comedy.
Publication
British youth culture captured perfectly in new mag Collection of Documentaries

Liv Siddall • 30 January 2015

“C.O.D is what it says on the tin,” says Lee Crichton, editor and creator of Collection of Documentaries – a weighty tome celebrating a gritty adoration of British culture. “The magazine started off as me thinking I wanted to recreate The Face, which obviously was impossible. I starting researching British-inspired magazines and thought there was a gap to create something new and fresh. I then got in touch with Sheryl Garrett of The Face for advice on how to put such a publication together.”
Photography
Jussi Puikkonen photographs the man behind that giant rubber duck

Maisie Skidmore • 30 January 2015

To my mind, a career in editorial photography is akin to living the dream: you hang out at home in your pyjamas waiting for a phone call informing you that you’ll be sent halfway around the world to photograph some enormously talented, charismatic character, and be put up in five star hotels and business class all the way. I recognise that more than likely the opposite is true: it’s a skanky mouldy flat, you’re put on the number 55 bus to shoot somebody who lives down the road, and there’s neither a five star hotel nor a plane anywhere in sight. Still, the breadth of brilliant people to photograph is there, and that’s enough to incite envy in even the most satisfied of people.
Graphic Design
We chat with the man behind Panda Bear's incredible graphics, Marco Papiro

Emily Gosling • 30 January 2015

Adoring pretty much anything Panda Bear-related (his amazing interactive website, his brilliant music, his very lovely hair), we felt it was high time we shed some light on the man behind his wonderful record sleeve designs, Marco Papiro.
Advertising
Superbowl XLIX is nigh – here's our pick of the ads released so far

Rob Alderson • 30 January 2015

On Sunday Superbowl XLIX takes place in Arizona which brings with it lots of cultural collateral – a much-hyped half-time show (with Katy Perry this year), some baffled Brits pretending they know what they’re talking about and loads of Twitter users doing that “superb owl” joke. It also means a huge amount of attention lavished on the adverts, and this year quite a few brands have jumped the gun and got their spots out early.
Graphic Design
An interview with Ged Palmer, sign writer extraordinaire!

James Cartwright • 30 January 2015

I came across Ged Palmer’s work for the first time a couple of years ago over a boozy pub lunch with my dad, and since then I’ve followed his progress in hand lettering and sign-writing with interest. His skill in this traditional medium has gone from strength to strength, with new techniques and processes added to his arsenal on a regular basis, and what started out as a simple flair for type has progressed into a fully-formed talent for fashioning works of graphic brilliance.
Illustration
Another treasure trove of work from Swedish creative Martin Nicolausson

Rob Alderson • 30 January 2015

It is almost exactly a year since Swedish illustrator Martin Nicolausson last appeared on the site but if it’s to become an annual tradition to check back in on his work, then you won’t find me complaining. Martin has considerable and versatile talents and particularly excels in editorial work for the likes of Icon, New Humanist and Wallpaper* magazines. But there’s also some charming self-initiated work among his recent updates, including a series dedicated to golf which actually makes this stuffy sport seem pretty darn appealing. His colour palette is often muted but he makes the most of every visual decision to ensure maximum, if sometimes quiet, impact.
Illustration
Presenting Edith Carron's wonderful coloured pencil editorial illustration

Maisie Skidmore • 30 January 2015

How’s this for a delightful collection of images? Edith Carron is a French illustrator who has been working out of Berlin for the past seven years, and her portfolio comprises a beguiling combination of fun, socially-conscious and mischievous themes delivered in coloured pencil and print. And it’s fantastic. So much so, in fact, that The New York Times, Zeit Campus Magazin and Suddeutsche Zeitung Magazin are only three from a client list longer than we care to count who have commissioned Edith to make first-rate work, including this wonderful cover for Revue Citrus, depicting two male footballers in a loving embrace before their fans. Edith also generously posts a collection of personal work in her Journal, in which she takes snapshots from every day life and makes them look like something out of a technicolour children’s book-inspired dream. What a treat.
Graphic Design
London studio Julia discusses its PJ Harvey Recording in Progress graphics

Emily Gosling • 30 January 2015

When we popped to Somerset House last week to ogle PJ Harvey recording in a box we spotted some powerful exhibition graphics, designed by London-based studio Julia. The designs are shown online on PJ Harvey’s website, but really come to life at Somerset House, where they sit illuminated on the wall of the holding pen-like space visitors stand in before being led to the basement area that houses the recording studio box.
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.

Graphic Design
We chat with the man behind Panda Bear's incredible graphics, Marco Papiro

Emily Gosling • 30 January 2015

Adoring pretty much anything Panda Bear-related (his amazing interactive website, his brilliant music, his very lovely hair), we felt it was high time we shed some light on the man behind his wonderful record sleeve designs, Marco Papiro.
Graphic Design
London studio Julia discusses its PJ Harvey Recording in Progress graphics

Emily Gosling • 30 January 2015

When we popped to Somerset House last week to ogle PJ Harvey recording in a box we spotted some powerful exhibition graphics, designed by London-based studio Julia. The designs are shown online on PJ Harvey’s website, but really come to life at Somerset House, where they sit illuminated on the wall of the holding pen-like space visitors stand in before being led to the basement area that houses the recording studio box.
Graphic Design
An interview with Ged Palmer, sign writer extraordinaire!

James Cartwright • 30 January 2015

I came across Ged Palmer’s work for the first time a couple of years ago over a boozy pub lunch with my dad, and since then I’ve followed his progress in hand lettering and sign-writing with interest. His skill in this traditional medium has gone from strength to strength, with new techniques and processes added to his arsenal on a regular basis, and what started out as a simple flair for type has progressed into a fully-formed talent for fashioning works of graphic brilliance.
Graphic Design
Logo book author Michael Evamy on what makes great logo design

Emily Gosling • 29 January 2015

If Pentagram’s Micheal Bierut reckons a book can “make better designers of all of us,” its likely to be a pretty useful tome. The designer was heaping praise on Logo: The Reference Guide to Symbols and Logotypes by Michael Evamy, which is just about to launch its new mini edition with publisher Laurence King.
Graphic Design
Fons Hickmann m23 creates some seriously striking work for Greenpeace

Maisie Skidmore • 29 January 2015

A couple of weeks back we had Fons Hickmann, founder of the eponymous design studio Fons Hickmann m23 in Berlin, talk us through his favourite publications, so that we could get a bit of an insight into his taste, influences and inspirations. In the process, we found out that the studio has recently begin working on Germany’s Greenpeace Media. “For Greenpeace Media we design magazines, posters and even packing tape,” the studio’s website explains. “Working with political and social topics has always been important and close to the heart of m23.”
Graphic Design
Frankfurt studio Arndt Benedikt and its joyous poster designs

Maisie Skidmore • 28 January 2015

Scrolling through Frankfurt-based design agency Arndt Benedikt’s website, I get the impression that somebody in the studio is sneaking off every half an hour to immortalise some of the fantastic design work they’re creating in poster form. Or maybe managing partners Felix Gross and Falko Ohlmer are just really into posters – in which case, hurrah! Alongside remarkably advanced work like this campaign for Greenpeace, and some mature corporate design work they make these: bright, dynamic and joyous posters, for everything from a spell teaching at the University of Applied Sciences Mainz to an open air party in Hamburg. They’re informative and really nice to look at, which is all we need from our large-scale printed matter.
Graphic Design
Fantastically simple record store branding by Swedish studio Bedow

James Cartwright • 28 January 2015

Swedish design studio Bedow isn’t new to branding musical enterprises. Back in 2013 it produced a clean, minimal identity for Canadian record label More Than Human. That work was nice, but its latest offering for Stockholm’s internationally renowned store Record Mania might be even better.
Graphic Design
A graphic update on the traditional Tarot deck by designer Isabel Lucena

James Cartwright • 27 January 2015

When it comes to Tarot cards we’ve pretty much seen it all. Since the arrival of the Rider Waite deck in the early 20th Century nobody in the western world has really changed the game and made The Fool, The Ace of Wands or The Hierophant look all that different from Pamela Colman Smith’s incredible drawings. But recently designer Isabel Lucena has had a crack at it, and the results are surprisingly refreshing.
Graphic Design
California knows how to design as proved by this stunning new book

Rob Alderson • 27 January 2015

For a young boy who grew up in the suburban Midlands, the west coast of the USA is really the America of my imagination, far more so than the refined cities of the Eastern seaboard, the vast expanses of the rural states or any of the other myriad landscapes to be found between sea and shining sea.
Graphic Design
Jorge León's impressively coherent identity for a Barcelona skate shop

Rob Alderson • 26 January 2015

It’s always refreshing to see a creative being really honest about the challenges of a particular brief before showing us their solution. So it is with Barcelona-based graphic designer and art director Jorge León, who sets up his work for the Amigos skate shop by referring to the “many problems” it had encountered with its brand.
Graphic Design
IS Creative Studio's work is finger lickin' good

Billie Muraben • 26 January 2015

International design agency IS Creative Studio has done some elegant branding work for both rotisserie AND grilled chicken restaurants. And both identities look refreshingly tasteful. The studio’s work spans print, product and retail design, and its practice is based on extensive research and a desire to always go beyond the product at hand. Or indeed the chicken. Founded in 2010 by Richard Meza, the agency produces great work that shifts aesthetics seamlessly. From visuals that wouldn’t be out of place on a summer’s day in Capri in 1965, to fast food stereotypes and what is described as “type [broken up] to simulate chunks of fruit swimming happily in cream,” it’s a bunch of consistently impressive design work.
Graphic Design
More great, slick graphic design work from Mike Lemanski

Emily Gosling • 23 January 2015

It’s little surprise that Mike Lemanski’s graphic design work has been something of an It’s Nice That favourite, and since we last posted about him in 2013 he’s not let his style slip. Mike’s site boasts some beautiful, mature designs for Feuilleton magazine, which takes articles from various international publications such as The New York Times, translates them into French and publishes issues every quarter.
Graphic Design
Bureau Hardy Seiler creates a jazzy identity for Hanover's free theatre

Maisie Skidmore • 23 January 2015

When Hanover-based designers Bureau Hardy Seiler and web design agency Created by Monkeys decided to pitch to design the identity for the Freies Theater Hannover, they found themselves faced with a dilemma. The theatre hosts every flavour of live performance going, from puppetry and musical shows to experimental dance, and all in one flexible and family-friendly space. How could they create a graphic language to match that?