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S1_main — Lightning + Kinglyface: *Penelopiad*

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Cn1 — Lightning + Kinglyface: *Tenth Cranial Nerve*

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Skin3 — Lightning + Kinglyface: *Chimera*

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Work / Set Design

Lightning + Kinglyface

Words by Rob Alderson, Thursday 15 March 2012

Amazingly-named set designers Lightning + Kinglyface, aka Anna Fulmine and Victoria Shahrokh have just unveiled their brand spanking new website and my goodness it’s a thing of some beauty. The dynamic duo have a wonderfully atmospheric style, creating thoughtful, intriguing and frequently unsettling pieces (a stretched canvas of “human skin” anyone?) for a whole host of top-notch clients. Their new site not only looks good, but manages to do justice to their craft, which can sometimes get lost in translation online.

www.lightningandkinglyface.co.uk

Most Recent

Art Bank Taiwan joins London Design Biennale this week, exploring cultural identity through political and social commentary 20 September 2018
Tiziana Jill Beck explores the identity of anonymous travellers through masks 20 September 2018
The new issue of Indoek brings America's oldest city to life 20 September 2018
Master of plasticine Kate Isobel Scott is back with a new animation 20 September 2018
Johannes Schnatmann understands himself as an author as much as a graphic designer 20 September 2018
Filmmaker Samona Olanipekun explores innocence and loss in his love letter to the immigrant experience, Kindred 19 September 2018

More like this:

Work / Photography Benedict Morgan exposes the trickery of a photography set in his Tableware series with Lisa Jahovic

There’s always something intriguing about how a visual illusion is performed, and it’s our curiosity towards such trickery that photographer Benedict Morgan has been investigating for years now. His latest personal work to do so is Tableware, a set of images revealing the “truths” of a photography set. Each shot – co-created with set designer Lisa Jahovic – is split in half, the top showing a printed photograph, the bottom showing the set in real life, immaculately sewn together in-camera. The results make anyone want to look closer.

Jenny Brewer — 21 May 2018
Work / Set Design Nico Krijno's new work steps into energetic and chaotic set design

It is difficult to describe which discipline the work of Nico Krijno falls under. Widely known for his editorial photography, when we stumbled across the journal section of his website our eyes were met with collaged works, and in their mishmash of colour and texture we struggled to work out whether they were digitally made or were born out of a unique style of set design.

Lucy Bourton — 10 January 2018
Work / Set Design New Studio's diverse editorial work for The New York Times Magazine

Derek Brahney set up his studio in Brooklyn after working freelance for a few years as a way to officially separate his commercial work from his artistic practice. “I had gotten to the point where I could finally (barely) afford to rent a small studio space, which felt like somewhat of a milestone,” Derek explains. So when he acquired his new studio he decided to celebrate the fact and name it New Studio, of course.

Ruby Boddington — 13 December 2017
Work / Set Design Thomas Petherick and Georgia Pendlebury explore the sculptural quality of clothes for Novembre Magazine

“When I was a student, I met someone that was studying set design and remember thinking, ‘how boring, I couldn’t think of anything worse’,” explains London-based set designer, Thomas Petherick, “ten years later, here I am and it couldn’t be any less boring!”

Ruby Boddington — 08 November 2017
Work / Set Design Michela Natella’s hyperreal world and stand-out set designs for Toilet Paper Magazine

The hyperreal world is where Michela Natella spends her time, sifting between a colourful land that makes you question what is real and what is purely imagined. Having spent the last 10 years in set design, this area of practice is her most crafted and defined, stemming from a hugely creative background and hands-on approach.

Ayla Angelos — 06 September 2017
Features / Set Design Set designer Gary Card on the importance of being a chameleon

“This is, I think, the generation of the polymath. Everyone’s a polymath! It’s a word that’s thrown at me quite a lot.” Meet Gary Card, a multi-talented set designer, illustrator, artist, and lately, sculptor. Adaptability is part of the territory for a set designer. “Every day is completely different. It’s a great thing being a set designer: you’re constantly making new things, you’re constantly shifting. By our very nature we have to be chameleons to be able to apply a brand new set of skills to each job.”

Bryony Stone — 22 February 2017

Sponsored / Exhibition Art Bank Taiwan joins London Design Biennale this week, exploring cultural identity through political and social commentary

Art Bank Taiwan will join the London Design Biennale for its final week this week at Somerset House. The exhibition will interpret the Biennial theme “Emotional States” in an exhibition titled Invisible Calls. The work will showcase contemporary work by acclaimed artists Cheng-Chang Wu and Che-Yu Hsu who both explore Taiwanese cultural identity through social and political commentary through an ‘invisible call’ to action.

Kieran Yates — 20 September 2018
Work / Illustration Tiziana Jill Beck explores the identity of anonymous travellers through masks

Berlin-based illustrator Tiziana Jill Beck is fascinated by the role masks play in society. Her practice blends contemporary concerns with the kind of energy that emanated from the kind of drawings that sat on the wall of prehistoric caves, only to be found millenia on. Tiziana’s work draws from daily observations as well as folk art, art history and literature which she transforms intuitively into new compositions to bring about unexpected surprises and new meanings.

Jyni Ong — 20 September 2018
Work / Publication The new issue of Indoek brings America's oldest city to life

St. Augustine is America’s oldest city. Tucked away on the northeastern tip of Florida, St. Augustine is more specifically the oldest continuously occupied settlement of European origin in the contiguous United States. Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, a Spanish conquistador, willed it into being back in 1565. 452 years on, and surf-mad publication Indoek have celebrated all that’s good about St. Augustine with the second issue of its city-specific magazine. We now want to go to St. Augustine.

Josh Baines — 20 September 2018
Work / Animation Master of plasticine Kate Isobel Scott is back with a new animation

Anyone who has watched a stop-motion animation by Kate Isobel Scott will know she’s got a steady pair of hands and the utmost patience for plasticine. Her shorts are usually all made of moulded blobs of the material morphed into wide-eyed characters wibbling and wobbling through sets that also makes by hand. A process which takes time and a ridiculous attention to detail, Kate’s animated skill was recently picked up by New York-based street brand Knickerbocker to create a short focusing on a 1950s New York street scene with a skateboarder.

Lucy Bourton — 20 September 2018
Work / Graphic Design Johannes Schnatmann understands himself as an author as much as a graphic designer

For Berlin-based graphic and type designer Johannes Schnatmann, the internet is his main inspiration. Working alongside commercial projects, the designer has created his own publication Tempus Futurum which explores the idea of a utopian design process. Featuring over 20 contributions from designers, including It’s Nice That favourites Pouya Ahmadi and Jonathan Castro, each creative dissects the personal concept of Utopia following the publication’s premise that utopian design is impossible. Speaking to It’s Nice That Johannes explains how, “there should be no limit or point of restraint in a design process. Design is limitless”. For instance, “the design of a chair continues to prove that it is limitless. It’s design is still explored and reinvented. It is refused a point of utopia”.

Jyni Ong — 20 September 2018
Work / Film Filmmaker Samona Olanipekun explores innocence and loss in his love letter to the immigrant experience, Kindred

Samona Olanipekun talks to It’s Nice That about the thinking behind his short film Kindred, an eight minute dream-like journey into what it means to be a subject of a shifting cultural identity. “I really wanted to put across this idea of a collective journey. My parents moved to the UK in the 80s for education and to give us the best possible opportunity in life. For me, making this film was a way to explore what that meant”, explains Samona. The short is commissioned by the Barbican as part of their season titled The Art of Change; Samona was given the theme “Globalisation” to explore. “When I came across the brief I had already had a few ideas that revolved around the migration of people” he says. “In recent years I’ve had a huge fascination on the migration of people and the risks people take to venture into the unknown or the conditions that force people to take that risk.”

Kieran Yates — 19 September 2018

Work / Publication Beyond Heaven is a visual history of early Chicago house music

“The graphic elements — from typography to illustration, to the use of printing process with those gradients — all add up to a varied but distinctive aesthetic that visually represents this culture.” Brandon Johnson is talking about flyers. More specifically he’s talking about flyers for house nights. Even more specifically, he’s talking about the flyers that make up his wonderful new publication Beyond Heaven: Chicago House Party Flyers From 1983-1989, a 96-page collection of visual ephemera from one of the most significant periods in the history of nightlife and club culture.

Josh Baines — 19 September 2018
Work / Animation Dinner For Few is an allegorical animation depicting our society that benefits a select few

Dinner For Few is a ten minute CG-animated film depicting a sociopolitical allegory of our society. Directed by Emmy award-winning animation artist Nassos Vakalis, the animation is now available for online viewing on Vimeo. Following a narrative of a grand dinner hosted by gluttonous characters taking their fill of everything and anything in the surroundings, the film offers a nontraditional CG aesthetic using flat graphics and dark outlines as opposed to 3-dimensional realism, providing an appropriately harsh lens to the story of self-indulgence.

Jyni Ong — 19 September 2018
Work / Publication Grace Ahlbom’s publication Dreaming is Heavy Metal investigates new printing methods

Imaginative and diverse, artist-cum-photographer Grace Albohm has a self-proclaimed propensity to “romanticise the handwork, labour-intensive and traditional printing of photography,” she says. From curiously found fanzine images brought into the darkroom and made into cyanotypes, to shining a torch through pin-holes cut from cardboard, hers is a practice that opens up the oft-abandoned darkroom and turns it into a place of delightful happenings, and magic.

Laura Isabella — 19 September 2018
Work / Illustration Anna Gille’s evocative illustrations dissolve the barrier between the natural and the artificial

Berlin-based illustrator Anna Gille brings out the beauty of the natural environment through her illustration series Window (VPPB). The illustrator has been producing images of various landscapes for the past three years forming the basis of her Windows series, working from a large archive of digital photography featuring different kinds of landscapes including parks, gardens, nature reserves and zoos. She collects such photos alongside screenshots of digital simulations and computer game graphics, widening her archive to encompass a broad range of real and artificial topographic documentation.

Jyni Ong — 19 September 2018
Work / Photography Photographer Thurstan Redding’s project Castle Village portrays an optimistic and joyful view of old age

A retirement village in Berkhamsted might not be the first place you would imagine to find fashion photographer Thurstan Redding — who has shot for the likes of British Vogue, Arena Homme +, i-D, Dazed and Love — but it was here, in Castle Village, that one of his most unique projects thus far took shape.

Laura Isabella — 18 September 2018
Work / Publication Jay Cover and Brad Holdgrafer visually tackle the concept of walls through "playschool politics"

Walls, a recent children’s book made by illustrator Jay Cover and art director Brad Holdgrafer, is a literal depiction of the political situation in both the US and the UK, a metaphorical exploration of the concept of a wall, and a “playful look at the problem” for the kids it’s aimed at and the parents reading to them, too. It started as a pet project between the two, over Skype and e-mail the book, which combines a rhyming poem by Brad and Jay’s illustrations, was a cathartic exercise initially, until Princeton Architectural Press got in touch and saw its cultural and visual worth.

Lucy Bourton — 18 September 2018

Work / Graphic Design Emily Schofield’s graphic design practice balances function with irrationality and expression

London-based graphic designer Emily Schofield realised that her interests in fiction, contemporary culture, art and politics didn’t have to exist separately from her design practice. Her beautifully, crisp portfolio of work spans print, digital design and art direction demonstrating a delicate balance between creative expression and logical functionality. Speaking to It’s Nice That, Emily explains that in her creative process, “I need to be able to express something with my designs but when you become too focused on style and expression you often lose the bigger picture,” she says. “I only find meaning in my work when I see its larger role in society — whether that’s functionality, or an ability to provoke reaction, or simply to communicate a message”.

Jyni Ong — 18 September 2018
Work / Illustration Dairy drinks and cigarettes meet in Lucas Reis' illustrative evocations of Japan

When Lucas Reis was a kid growing up in Brazil, he had a Japanese friend. That friend was Lucas’ link to a country that has gone on to fascinate him ever since. The illustrator — who is also a creative at Mother — absorbed as much as he could from his playground pal. “As my taste began to develop in music, art, and design, I was always very aware of what was happening in Japan,” he tells It’s Nice That. “I tried to really understand what such a different mindset to my own could produce.”

Josh Baines — 18 September 2018
Work / Art Travis Alabanza’s radical performance practice is disrupting politeness and gratitude

London-based Travis Alabanza’s creative practice involves writing words and performing them. Their work has consistently challenged the distinguished art world from an artist residency at the Tate to starring in the acclaimed theatre show Putting words in your mouth at the Roundhouse. Travis’ unapologetically clear and poignantly, personal voice is working towards a new theatre show, Burgerz, debuting October 25 at the Hackney Showroom.

Jyni Ong — 18 September 2018
Features / Graphic Design “Go, go, go”: how DIA messed with design theory, only to improve it

Moving. This one word sums up everything New York-based design studio DIA embodies. Movement is in the neoteric, kinetic identity systems it creates and the processes it uses to construct them. Moving forward is in the ethos that drives its leaders Mitch Paone and Meg Donohoe to redefine with graphic design is. DIA is always moving and, in turn, its solidified itself as the master of typography in flux. It’s a studio which messes with design theory only to improve it, leaving the rest of us scrambling to catch up. Despite a somewhat-earnest façade, DIA is a studio built upon the interpersonal relationships it harbours, particularly between Mitch, founder and creative director, and Meg, managing partner. “We are on the same page with just about everything,” Mitch explains, “Same taste in design, art, food, architecture, vacations.” This “universal compatibility,” as he describes it, feeds through everything they do, in or outside of work, forming the basis of their collaboration. “Most importantly,” he continues, “there is a balance of our mindsets. Meg steers the ship with a long-term vision, whereas I am very much immersed in immediate creative tasks.”

Ruby Boddington — 18 September 2018
Work / Graphic Design Leonardo Pellegrino's soft and delicate graphic designs are inspired by his Italian roots

“I prefer working on projects where there is a personal connection, when I can actually relate to, and believe in, the project that I’m working on,” explains Italian graphic designer, Leonardo Pellegrino. A recent graduate of Central Saint Martins, Leonardo is currently working at Brave New World in London, developing a multidisciplinary portfolio which offers graphic design, filmmaking and art direction.

Ruby Boddington — 17 September 2018
Work / Publication Blessure magazine is an "ironic" publication that communicates through its anti-design layout

Blessure magazine, designed by France-based Chambre Charbon, is an alternative magazine drawing similarities between ten to fifteen different artists for every issue. ‘Blessure’ means ‘wound’ in French, referring to the novelist Jean Genet’s words on Giacometti. Genet admired Giacometti’s ability to capture the fundamental, raw essence of objects and people in his work, the encapsulation of a “secret wound” or “blessure secrète”. Similarly, in Blessure, the publication alludes to the sense of style and personality of each artist without text. The communication is solely through the artworks and the design.
 
The latest issue of Blessure focuses on the use of textures created by the computer, creating a new and contemporary language. There is no text, instead the images craft a unique narrative entirely subjective to each viewer. The tone of the artworks changes depending on the print layout and the other works they are interacting with. The 180-page publication features work from Brenna Murphy, core.pan, Deylan Seu, Everest, Jamie and Rickie McNeill, Marine Léauté, Marvin de Deus Ganhitas, Nicolas Sassoon, Sabrina Ratté, Ulysse C. Müller, Ville Kallio, Yannick ValGesto and Boris Détraz.
 
“I quickly made the decision to never feature the same artist twice, so that the magazine can mutate as quickly as possible”, Chambre Charbon tells It’s Nice That. Inspired by publications such as Weird magazine by Noel Freibert and Mould Map published by Landfill Editions, Blessure’s objective first and foremost is to focus on the artwork, secondly, on an anti-design aesthetic. Chambre Charbon describes the design as “pretty direct and oddly neutral”, calling itself a magazine in an “ironic” way and purposefully adding no value to the print run by choosing not to use risograph printing or spot colours.

Jyni Ong — 17 September 2018

Work / Graphic Design Play on Play on the nostalgic references that inform its forward-thinking practice

Melbourne-based studio Play on Play has carved out a reputation as the go-to for film titles with substance, finesse, and – as the name suggests – playful humour. Founders Naomi Akikusa-Dawber and Lucy Fry draw inspiration from shop windows and heavy metal album artwork; old horror novels and erotica; ghost signs and vernacular typography; as well as movies “from a time when the titles couldn’t rely on technology”.

Billie Muraben — 17 September 2018
Work / Animation Glasgow’s VAJ.Power is transforming club nights into multi-sensory experiences

Holly McGowan and Sofya Staune created VAJ.Power in Holly’s bedroom in Glasgow as a way to share each other’s knowledge of digital technology. Initially supplying visuals for events from Glasgow to Moscow, the duo now put on their own events, >Fuse, revolutionising the traditional club night into a multi-sensory, accessible event. Their creative process revolves around a process of learning, “we became very interested in why working in 3D animation, modelling and coding are so inaccessible and how to make it more open to all”, VAJ.Power tells It’s Nice That. As a result, >Fuse also hosts workshops in digital technology, investigating the relationship between music and moving image.

Jyni Ong — 17 September 2018
Work / Digital Studio Hyte's identity for iiii Magazine examines the characteristics of type, code and interaction on the web

“Combining a self-aware sense of humour, with a love of expansive cultural ephemera,” iiii Magazine is an independent arts and culture publication, based in London and Manchester. Started by Jordan Harrison-Twist and Chris Samuel, its content sets no limit on matter or form and it publishes a range of content from incisive criticism, personal essays, humour pieces and “odes to oddities” – all connected by a passion for language.

Ruby Boddington — 14 September 2018
Work / Animation New animation Leather “marries the loose and scribbly with the technical and obsessive”

From stacks of drawings of cut, falling hair; plant roots and wilting flowers; built up and sliced through black masses; and a flailing puppet who comes to a sticky end, Leather, is an animation by London-based artist Chris Smith. A video accompanies the track from post-punk band Sauna Youth’s 2015 album, Distractions, Leather took years of drawing, testing and animating, and has been released with Deaths, the final part of their trilogy of LPs. “It grew from a very rough three-second version of the haircut sequence” Chris says. “I developed the character of the scissors and the theme of cutting as a destructive act. The scissors are a malevolent and disruptive presence, although you could say that they create as well as destroy, but it’s not a happy ending for the puppet.”

Billie Muraben — 14 September 2018
Regulars / Friday Mixtape Friday Mixtape: The Honey Hahs' mix of songs to get ready to, or if you're just feeling dancey

Last Friday South-London based band, The Honey Hahs released their first record Dear Someone, Happy Something. It’s a very sweet record, gentle, happy and joyful and is the result of Sylvie (11), Robin (12) and Rowan’s (16) joint and solo songwriting.

Lucy Bourton — 14 September 2018
Regulars / Nicer Tuesdays Luke Evans' honest and emotive talk on the journey his practice has followed

At Nicer Tuesdays August we had the absolute honour of revealing a new project by photographer Luke Evans. A firm long-time favourite of ours Luke took to the stage at Oval Space to introduce his work to those who may not of known him, but they definitely love him now.

It's Nice That — 14 September 2018

Work / Graphic Design Swedish design studio Amanda & Erik avoid the tropes of minimalist, Scandinavian design in their practice

Swedish-based duo Amanda Berglund and Erik Kirtley have been collaborating for almost a decade on their graphic design and illustration practices. Currently, the studio is working on a variety of projects including a community-based project designing vinyl wrap design for a mini-van, this will function as a mobile youth centre in a nearby rural municipality. Amanda & Erik spoke to It’s Nice That about their vibrant design practice, discussing two, recent print-based projects that showcase the studio’s intellect and innovation.

Jyni Ong — 14 September 2018
Work / Exhibition New Good Press show Permission Slip is a masterclass in archiving and translating everyday chaos

Permission Slip, the latest show at Glasgow’s Good Press, is an exhibition of works by Landfill Editions’ Hugh Frost and artist Sean Roy Parker; who describes the show as being about “the debris of art-making, the capturing of waste thoughts or materials, and how they can become the scaffolding for one’s practice”.

Billie Muraben — 14 September 2018
Work / Art “A space with no rules”: stylist Ibrahim Kamara on his latest collaboration with Kristin-Lee Moolman and Gareth Wrighton

Before Buffalo, fashion stylists were considered dressers, not artists in their own right. Enter Ray Petri, and the ‘80s youth culture movement he spearheaded together with photographer Jamie Morgan. Together, with the help of a tribe which included Mitzi Lorenz, the Kamen brothers, Mark Lebon, Cameron McVey, the duo blended together art, fashion, photography and music, shaking up London’s subcultural scene from grassroots to high fashion and elevating styling into an art form. Pairing kilts with MA-1 flight jackets and Armani suits with Dr Martens, stylist Ray Petri created genre-defying looks that still possess a punk sensibility over 30 years on.

Bryony Stone — 13 September 2018
Regulars / Nicer Tuesdays Charlotte Mei talks through the processes that inform her multidisciplinary practice

Charlotte Mei is an illustrator and artist known for wearing various creative hats. Some fans adore her ceramics or attend her classes; brand art directors commission her illustrations; and a variety of international mags are often filled with original Mei’s. Her working process is one that varies in terms of application and point of view, and she took the Nicer Tuesdays audience through how she gets it done at the August event.

It's Nice That — 13 September 2018
Work / Graphic Design Type designer Kia Tasbihgou on how “knowing cool designers and nice fonts isn’t enough”

As a graphic designer and custom type designer, Kia has worked with the likes of Nike, Christie’s and Vanity Fair. His type designs are original and contemporary, embodying the distinct personality of each client while maintaining a sense of Kia’s effortlessly quirky style.

Jyni Ong — 13 September 2018
Work / Publication The creative methods and madness of everyone from Wes Anderson to Rei Kawakubo

One of my favourite ways to procrastinate is – somewhat ironically – to read about other people’s models for productivity and achievement; and It’s Nice That alum Emily Gosling’s new book, Great Minds Don’t Think Alike, provides ample opportunity for taking time out to learn about how some of our great creative minds get their creative juices going.

Billie Muraben — 13 September 2018

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