Weekender: Your iced coffee, air conditioning and evening beer rolled into one

Date
5 July 2013

Friday’s usually a fun day at It’s Nice That that sees us frolicking about the studio like a small flock of sprightly lambs cavorting in a lush, green field, fresh from suckling the teats of our happy-go-lucky sheep mums (we’ve grossed ourselves out). But today it’s swelteringly hot and all that youthful energy has drained right away. We’d like to say that this hasn’t changed the tone of The Weekender, but even The Weekender is susceptible to the heat. So you’ll find this week’s instalment riddled with lethargy, cynicism and more than a dash of heat-induced ennui. You’ve been warned.

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Roman Klonek: Running up the Tsukiyama Hill

6. Robots are harsh

Saatchi London got our week off to a flyer with this spot pitching golfer Rory McIlroy against a smart-alec robot with serious attitude.

5. Snoop, snoop drool

Stetfi Orazi’s ace Modernist Estates blog celebrates some of London’s most interesting architecture but also goes further and takes us inside the homes of people who live in these amazing places.

4.What came first – the inspector or the code?

Jonah Goodman’s bespoke typeface based on Morse code was a terrific bit of graphic design geekery for us to get our teeth into.

3. A whole new world

Painter Amy Casey not only makes mindbendingly wonderful work, she has great rationale for it all, showing us the method behind the apparent madness.

2. Untidy desk, untidy mind

Graphic designer Iancul has for some time populated a great blog with his daily mental meanderings – and now he’s brought it into book form too!

1. Friends, Roman, countrymen…

Roman Klonek is back with a new show in Germany featuring his weird and wonderful woodcut creations. It’s utterly, utterly magnificent.

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This week’s Things

What have we got for you this week, I hear you ask? Well, take a deep breath, dear reader, because we have – every building in New York in its miniature illustrated form, a bunch of bottle opener key-rings and luggage tags, a larger than life and very, very blue poster, some photographs of pigeons, a horse and cart on a road in Deptford and a tasty green zine called Put a Egg On It! (and exhale). It’s like the 12 days of Christmas, except it’s July, there are only five days in the working week and we’re offering you all this art, design and publishing goodness instead of a shoddy partridge in a pear tree. Who wants a partridge when you can have all this good stuff? Right?

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Herb Lester Associates: Keyring Bottle Openers and Luggage Tags

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Herb Lester Associates: Keyring Bottle Openers and Luggage Tags

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Herb Lester Associates: Keyring Bottle Openers and Luggage Tags

Herb Lester Associates: Keyring Bottle Openers and Luggage Tags

There’s nothing worse than being caught without a bottle opener, or, er, a luggage tag, and Herb Lester Associates are taking good care of us by ensuring that we’ve got both at all times. The retro-inspired tags are our favs, going above and beyond the annoyingly stubborn and impossible to get off ones that they give you over on budget airlines. No fluorescent orange over here. No siree.
www.herblester.com

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Luke Overin: Kings of Grey/A Perfect World in Deptford

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Luke Overin: Kings of Grey/A Perfect World in Deptford

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Luke Overin: Kings of Grey/A Perfect World in Deptford

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Luke Overin: Kings of Grey/A Perfect World in Deptford

Kings of Grey and A Perfect World in Deptford by Luke Overin

We’ve long been fans of Luke Overin’s photography so you can imagine our delight when not one but TWO booklets of his work fell onto our doormat. Kings of Grey is a brilliantly documented look at a pigeon fancier’s convention and all the weird and wonderful types who dedicate their free time to these funny little birds, while A Perfect World in Deptford offers a glimpse of common and uncommon sights in a little area on the outskirts of south-east London. Luke seems to have his niche down to a tee with his insightful images of otherwise invisible societies, so more of the same would make us very, very happy.
www.lukeoverin.com

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Put a Egg On It #7

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Put a Egg On It #7

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Put a Egg On It #7

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Put a Egg On It #7

Put a Egg On It #7

We do love a zine, and this particular one, labelled “tasty!” by its editorial team, is among the cream of the crop (food funny! Woo!). They love their dumplings, and their eggs, and more or less any family food themed get togethers, and the green paper only adds to the appeal. Worth it if only for the gyoza recipes and the photographs of Japanese street food (tortoise, anybody? No?) and the piece on the wonder of Tunnock’s tea cakes, which also happens to be the current favourite snack in the studio.
www.putaeggonit.com

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GLA Design Team: Fourth Plinth Poster – Hahn/Cock by Katharina Fritsch

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GLA Design Team: Fourth Plinth Poster – Hahn/Cock by Katharina Fritsch

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GLA Design Team: Fourth Plinth Poster – Hahn/Cock by Katharina Fritsch

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GLA Design Team: Fourth Plinth Poster – Hahn/Cock by Katharina Fritsch

GLA Design Team: Fourth Plinth Poster – Hahn/Cock by Katharina Fritsch

“But how is it so blue?” is our first, second and third response to this peek at the GLA’ design team’s soon-to-be-installed poster for Trafalgar Square’s fourth plinth, and (following my successive attempts to photograph it) “how is this poster so big?” might well be the fourth. It is very blue, though – bright, shining cyan, hinting at vibrant things to come in London’s favourite tourist spot – and the poster is so enormous that even standing on a chair on my tiptoes the best you can see is a tiny bit of it at a time. The real thing is due to arrive on July 25, though, so you don’t have too much longer to wait until all will be revealed. Patience little ones.
www.london.gov.uk

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James Gulliver Hancock: All the Buildings in New York *That I’ve Drawn So Far

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James Gulliver Hancock: All the Buildings in New York *That I’ve Drawn So Far

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James Gulliver Hancock: All the Buildings in New York *That I’ve Drawn So Far

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James Gulliver Hancock: All the Buildings in New York *That I’ve Drawn So Far

James Gulliver Hancock: All the Buildings in New York *That I’ve Drawn So Far

Australian-born James Gulliver Hancock has set himself a task – to draw all the buildings in New York – and you can bet that he’s absolutely in earnest about his intention to do it. All the Buildings in New York *That I’ve Drawn So Far documents his efforts up until now; a beautifully illustrated collection of New York’s best landmarks (among others) and if the 63 pages that he’s managed so far don’t suffice then you can see his most recent additions on his website.
www.jamesgulliverhancock.com

Tweet of the Week


Gif Archive of the Week

We defy you to keep a straight face as you scroll down the pages and pages of the relentless genius that is Exploding Actresses, a tumblr of Gifs that delivers exactly what the name suggests. Want to see Kate Winslet completely losing her shit on board the Titanic, Rafiki launching Simba from pride rock and Snow White blowing her skull to smithereens in front of an audience of woodland creatures? Then this is the blog for you.

Live Action of the Week

This was all done in one shot and quickly proves that CANADA have more skills up their collective sleeves than we ever dared to imagine.

PE Teacher of the Week

Most PE teachers are sadistic, chemically imbalanced maniacs who love nothing more than to physically and mentally scar their charges, forcing them to compete with each other in gladiatorially competitive scenarios and perform herculean feats of athletic prowess. That’s how it felt to me at least. I was a fat child. Would that I’d had the pleasure of being tutored in sports by the wonderful Dale Irby, a high school gym teacher who loves nothing more than pulling witty, 20-year pranks for his pupils’ amusement. What a dude!

Game of Thrones-Themed Cat Meme of the Week

Chinese Hoax of the Week

There’s probably not a whole lot of fun to be had if you’re a Chinese farmer. I can only imagine that feeding the world’s largest country is a relentless and thankless task. So you’ve really got to respect the guy that takes time out from his busy farming schedule to create and freeze his own fake alien with the intention of tricking the local authorities. Lesson learned though, he got arrested. And put in prison. Probably not worth it in hindsight.

Pricey Shop of the Week

And you thought Waitrose were taking the piss…

Sorry we said teats before. It was a mistake.

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