Just what you've all been waiting for! Our weekly digest, The Weekender

Date
27 March 2015

If you like art, music, design, illustration, photography or animation you’re not even ready for the bulk of it that’s abut to land on your computer screen like a wet fish onto a ship deck. Are you? You are? Right then. Here it is.

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Printed Pages: Issue #1

– First of all, good news – we’ve just plonked the first four sold-out issues of Printed Pages magazine online so you can read them in their entirety, for free, without leaving the comfort of your own home. Read all about it here.

– Julian Glander made just about everybody in the studio’s week when he became the reason for this tiny idiotic man cycling in perpetual circles on the home screen. God bless you Julian Glander.

– London-based animation studio Animade breathe life into shoelaces, badger-infested fridges, wizard wands and ball sacks and all with their customary charming sound effects.

– Next up to be announced from the line-up for It’s Nice That’s annual creative symposium Here is Annie Atkins, the graphic designer who worked on Wes Anderson’s masterpiece The Grand Budapest Hotel. Have you got your tickets yet?

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Fantastic Man

– Eternally stylish magazine Fantastic Man celebrates is tenth anniversary this year with a redesign, and a cover feature by the one and only JW Anderson. We can’t wait to get our grubby mitts on this one.

– Roll up, roll up, it’s yer weekly podcast, complete with art and design news, mag chat and all the dog-based puns we could think of in two and a half minutes. (Quite a few actually.)

– And this year’s Grand National advert promises unicorns, magical horses, Avatar-like landscapes and raucous cheers. It might be mis-selling the event slightly, but we’re into it.

This week in our month-long celebration of the holy connection between art and music, we had more in-depth fascinating insights into the genre than you could shake a maraca at. Here are some!

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ISIS Magazine

– We spoke to the editor of the longest-running Bob Dylan fanzine, ISIS, about the golden era of fandom and the magic of Bob Dylan in this wonderful interview, which we guarantee will put a nostalgic grin on your face.

– And Yoni Bloch is not only the man responsible for the new-fangled interactive videos – he’s also (probably) the only man who’s ever proposed to his wife using one (which was programmed to crash if she said no!) What a guy.

– Metronomy frontman and all-round nice guy Joseph Mount had a good chinwag with us about the process behind some of the band’s most famous music videos, including an anecdote about Michel Gondry in his living room which will leave us forever envious.

– What do you mean you can’t dance to architecture? We spoke to Paul and James who told us exactly how it’s possible, and why they’re advocating it at every possible opportunity.

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McDonalds Lifestyle Collection: Image from AdWeek

– This week shall forever be remembered as the one in which McDonalds launched a lifestyle collection after its beloved Big Mac. All hail.

– What happens when you ask two megastars to sit down and have a chat together? Interview magazine has been doing it forever and a day, but it’s maybe never been quite like this, a conversation between Lynda Benglis and John Baldessari.

– The Guardian posted a fantastic piece this week celebrating Mark Leckey as “the artist of the YouTube generation.” Have a read of it here.

– This week Mykki Blanco announced that she’s retiring from the music industry to take up journalism, as Oyster reports.

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It’s Mice That

Rob Alderson

It’s April Fool’s Day next week and so it makes sense to revisit our tomfoolery from 12 months ago. I can still picture (It’s Nice That founder) Will Hudson’s face when he first suggested we turn the site into It’s Mice That for a day but if I am honest I didn’t think we’d really do it. Then our developers With Associates got involved and before I knew it we were brainstorming mice-related art and design. It was worth it in the end though; it was the most hits the homepage got on any day last year and a few readers seemed to enjoy it. You can read a detailed run-down of how it played out here.

Maisie Skidmore

This was the week that Zayn Malik left One Direction, plunging teenage girls worldwide into sobbing quivering masses in their Geography lessons in a manner that hasn’t been seen since Robbie left Take That. But for everybody who couldn’t even pretend to care there is this, VICE did a round-up of post-Zayn fan fiction, and it’s making the whole ordeal worthwhile for me.

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Penised

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Penised

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Penised

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Penised

James Cartwright

I’ve never really had the need to turn an enemy’s logo into a penis, but it puts my mind at ease to know that if I ever did there’s someone out there to take care of it for me, and for only a very small fee. Penised will make literally any logo into a makeshift cock for a mere $25. Which as far as I’m concerned would be a bargain at twice the price.

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Have a good weekend y’all!

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About the Author

Maisie Skidmore

Maisie joined It’s Nice That fresh out of university in the summer of 2013 as an intern before joining full time as an Assistant Editor. Maisie left It’s Nice That in July 2015.

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