New Originals: introducing the London Rollergirls

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Sponsored / Miscellaneous University of the Arts London dispels the myths around studying a postgraduate course

Whether or not to study a postgraduate degree in the arts is a question pretty much every undergraduate will ask themselves. But it is a pertinent question particularly within the arts, as the option to spend a few more years developing as a creative is tempting.

It's Nice That — 23 May 2019
Features / Miscellaneous “Does it stop being a real thing?”: Tanztheater Wuppertal and life after Pina Bausch

Stepping into the lobby of Islington’s Hilton Hotel on a sunny day in early Spring, I meet Julie Shanahan. She’s been dancing at Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch for over 20 years and is in London to perform the first full-length piece choreographed for the company since Pina’s death ten years ago. We meet to discuss the UK debut performances that weekend, marking a new era for the world-famous company, which has invited two guest choreographers to create two new pieces for the company of 36 dancers. She greets me with a hug, possessing the poise and grace that you’d expect from a dancer, blonde hair tumbling down to the elbow and silver bangles clinking against a leather jacket. We find a sofa to sit down on and start talking about Pina.In the contemporary dance world, Julie is a distinguished member of the dance-theatre genre. Led by Pina Bausch herself, Tanztheater Wuppertal remains at the forefront of avante-garde dance. First challenging the notions of what dance could be during the dark landscape of post-war Germany, Pina continued to choreograph seminal works until her untimely death in 2009. Carving a previously unseen form of expression through dance, Pina’s form of Tanztheater combined elements of dance with theatre and performance theory in a one-of-a-kind interpretation.

Jyni Ong — 29 April 2019
Features / Miscellaneous We take a look back at the best stories of the year to date

The Easter weekend here in the UK has given us at It’s Nice That the chance to put our feet up for a few days, but we still want to provide you with your regular dose of creative ideas and inspiration. So we’ve decided to pull together some highlights from the year so far, including a handful of the most popular articles of 2019 and a few of the team’s favourites as well. From an in-depth study of the benefits of boredom (worth reading if you’re heading out of town to visit the family this weekend) to a story about Michael Bierut’s fresh identity for Mastercard, we’ve got all angles covered. There are even a few alpacas thrown in for good measure, courtesy of photographer Daniel Gebhart de Koekkoek. Check out all this and more below.

It's Nice That — 18 April 2019
Work / Product Design Renowned set designer Gary Card embarks on his dream project of designing toys

It’s Nice That favourite, set designer Gary Card, has once again surprised us with his weird and wonderful imagination. The much-loved set designer, known for his colour-filled scenes for the likes of Comme Des Garcon, Liberty and Nick Knight, has just released a collection of toys, now available from Dover Street Market’s worldwide stores and Unbox Industries. “It has always been a dream of mine to design toys,” Gary tells It’s Nice That. “Ever since I was a kid, it was the only thing that I really wanted to do.”

Jyni Ong — 05 March 2019
Regulars / Ones to Watch 2019 Natsai Audrey Chieza rethinks how designers and scientists can solve the world’s toughest problems

Imagine a world where architects use algae as a sustainable building material, where textiles can be dyed, not by toxic chemicals, but by brightly coloured microscopic microbes, and where leather can be artificially produced without harming any animals or using plastic-based materials. Finding it hard? Well, luckily for the rest of us, Natsai Audrey Chieza is doing all of that imagining for us.

Matt Alagiah — 25 February 2019
Work / Digital A Pint in London: a new game where the quest is for the perfect tipple

A Pint in London, a game created by London-based writer Ana Kinsella, is a narrative-led, web-based game taking the user on a multiple choice journey through London in search of the perfect pint spot. It’s a game that’s simple in its idea, but finding “your pub” is one of those personal joys of London – a city that to some seems like a stressful metropolis, but to others is a collection of tiny villages to wander through and make your own.

Lucy Bourton — 18 February 2019

Work / Events This year’s Birmingham Design Festival explored truth in the design industry

On a grey day at the beginning of June, I stepped off the train in Birmingham to attend the much-anticipated Birmingham Design Festival. Founded out of the need to fill the West Midlands’ festival-shaped hole, the festival’s impressive line up hoped to contribute to a more transparent, helpful and genuine design industry.

Jyni Ong — 19 June 2019
Work / Graphic Design Designer John Christian Rose on how he turns mess, chaos and clutter into art

“Oh my god, my process is a mess,” says New York-based artist and designer John Christian Rose. With a style that’s distinctively marked with bold colours, textures, “fucked-up type” and analogue elements, the way he gets to the end result is suffused with beautiful chaos. “I hate it when things get stale, so avoiding that at all costs is always my main goal,” John tells It’s Nice That. “I like it when things are fucked up. And that’s why I hate Illustrator – I like the effort I have to put in to clean up my mess.”

Ayla Angelos — 19 June 2019
Work / Illustration “My creative process is hella eclectic”: illustrator Jack Fletcher

On a miserable, grey day (in June!), Jack Fletcher’s illustrations put a smile on the face of the entire editorial team here at It’s Nice That. The Edinburgh-based artist creates vibrant drawings of flora-inspired women, ghost-boy hybrids and other cheeky-looking characters that are sure to brighten up anyone’s day. Illustration seems to have been on the cards for Jack, who can trace the art back through his bloodline. “Both my mother and Grandfather were illustrators so I grew up as a child surrounded by family who were always creating. It was from them that I acquired my love of drawing,” Jack tells us.

Daphne Milner — 19 June 2019
Regulars / Ones to Watch 2019 Jee-ook Choi turns Uniqlo’s AIRism range into a series of ethereal illustrations

There is something utterly mesmerising about the illustrations of Jee-ook Choi, the Seoul-based creative we picked as one of our Ones to Watch earlier this year. Partly this is down to the way that the surreal and the everyday often sit side by side in her drawings, forcing the viewer to study the images and what they’re really showing. Partly, though, it comes down to the sense of stillness she manages to convey. Many of Jee-ook’s illustrations appear to capture scenes that are frozen in time.

In one piece we wrote about last year, the foreground is dominated by a huge mobile, holding the planets suspended in space. The illustration also depicts the figure of a woman in the background, looking pensively out of a vast window on to the night sky. These are the hallmarks of much of Jee-ook’s portfolio to date – thoughtful, silent figures and still scenes, with any movement reduced to the barely perceptible swing of a mobile.

“My pictures tend to have a static feeling like time has stopped,” she tells It’s Nice That. “I like the feeling that you’re sitting idly for a long time, and if there are things moving around, I want the objects to just float in space.”
It should be said that movement isn’t completely lacking from her work, though. Last year we also wrote about her series Sprinting Balls, which featured her typical serene backdrops, but here they were broken up by bouncing balls that injected a real dynamism into the otherwise still scenes. “I got the idea from a technique used in cartoons to represent a sense of speed, while viewers imagine the escape of the ball,” she told us back then.

So Jee-ook is no stranger to movement. Nonetheless the brief we set her for this project – to interpret the lightness, airiness and coolness of Uniqlo’s AIRism range – was one that felt suitably new and exciting to her. The AIRism range is all about keeping you cool and dry in hot temperatures, with light fabrics that wick away sweat while maintaining comfort. The interpretation Jee-ook eventually landed on relied on each picture showing items of clothing and vast sheets of fabric, all so light that they are being carried away on an unseen breeze. Movement was essential. As always, Jee-ook started by taking lots of notes and looking at reference imagery. “My creation process is very simple,” she says.
“Once I’ve organised my thoughts with a few simple notes,” Jee-ook continues, “I can immediately draw them in my head and if the images are interesting to me, I will look for photographs that can help me recreate my imagination. This time I looked at a lot of fashion pictures to express the texture of cloth.”

Matt Alagiah — 19 June 2019
Work / Illustration “Nothing should stand still”: Elaine Song on her dynamic, abstract illustrations

Asked how she would describe her work, Seoul-born, London-based illustrator Elaine Song replies with three words: “Melancholic, dreamlike, surreal.” Having recently completed her bachelor’s at Kingston School of Art, Elaine has a portfolio packed to the brim with observational drawings that blur the real world, interpreting it through Elaine’s perceptive.

Ruby Boddington — 19 June 2019
Work / Photography Meet Ian Weldon, the “photographer that photographs weddings”

“I am not a wedding photographer,” says Newcastle-based photographer Ian Weldon. Instead, he prefers to call himself “a photographer that photographs weddings”.

Ayla Angelos — 19 June 2019

Work / Photography Marco Kesseler documents an annual tradition that sees two churches battling with 100,000 rockets

Chios is the fifth largest of the Greek islands. It’s mountainous and picturesque and, every Easter, home to a 100-year-old celebration that sees two church parishes of a small mountain town fire 100,000 rockets at each other. The aim: to hit the opposition church’s bell.

Ruby Boddington — 19 June 2019
Work / Photography Greg Lin Jiajie captures stories from his “favourite place”, his hometown of Fujian

Highly noted for his sophisticated fashion photography for the likes of Vogue Hong Kong, Miu Miu, i-D, Modern Weekly Style, GQ and Tank amongst many others, London-based Greg Lin Jiajie views photography as a profoundly intimate experience. “Photography to me is more than just a picture,” he tells It’s Nice That. “It captures memories and documents moments; reminding us where we come from and enlightens where we are going.”

Jyni Ong — 18 June 2019
Work / Graphic Design Grotesque and playful, Tres Tipos Gráficos’ latest project is filled with personality

Filled with vibrant colours, strong compositions and spontaneous typefaces, the latest project from Madrid-based design studio Tres Tipos Gráficos is a compelling yet varied one. Generación 2019, presented by La Casa Encendida, is a catalogue that aims to brings together and promote the work of young Spanish artists – presented in an exhibition, competition and publication organised by the Montemadrid Foundation.

Ayla Angelos — 18 June 2019
Work / Photography Luca Mastroianni on his journey from Instagram selfies to the new Gentle Monster campaign

“Instagram! It all started with Instagram!” explains the Brussels-based photographer Luca Mastroianni. Transforming the average selfie into a high fashion world of wonder, Luca’s unexpected career as a jet setting fashion photographer all began when he started documenting his outfits on the gram. “One day, I decided to create a background on Photoshop to deepen the aesthetic of my photos and make them more interesting,” Luca tells It’s Nice That. “That is when I realised I could create a multitude of compositions with almost no resources thanks to Photoshop.”

Jyni Ong — 18 June 2019
Work / Graphic Design Graphic designer Jacob Pardoe on collaborating with a neural network and the surprises it produces

Jacob Pardoe is a graphic designer, currently approaching the end of his time at the Royal College of Arts’ Visual Communication master’s. While preparing to show his final project at the degree show, Jacob has also launched Afyx, “a small flexible studio practice which is manifesting into something I’m really excited about,” he tells It’s Nice That. While his portfolio includes publications such as Propland, as well as typefaces and speculative letterforms, we caught up with the designer to find out about his work for a recent series of performative lectures at the RCA, produced in collaboration with a neural network.

Ruby Boddington — 18 June 2019
Partnership / Dropbox: Call for Collaboration Call for Collaboration: Mahaneela is looking for a mixed media creative to visualise modern love

Call for Collaboration is an It’s Nice That x Dropbox Paper project connecting creatives from across the world to collaborate on fun, fully commissioned creative projects. Each month we’ll spotlight the projects on It’s Nice that and show how Dropbox Paper helps these great ideas come to life.

Lucy Bourton — 18 June 2019

Work / Illustration Annu Kilpeläinen’s zine Rally 2U promises cars, sun and speed

Five years ago, Finnish illustrator Annu Kilpeläinen made a zine, entitled Rally, about sun, champagne, cars, plunge pools and impossibly unsafe driving routes. The time has now finally come for Rally’s sequel, Rally 2U, which includes just as many depictions of sun, speed and automobiles making their way down meandering roads in various vibrant shades of pink, yellow, green and blue.

Daphne Milner — 18 June 2019
Regulars / Double Click June's Double Click features real-time user interaction, infinite scrolls and lo-fi aesthetics

Double Click is back for its second instalment and it’s a stellar line-up of websites featuring everything from floating T-shirts to aesthetics inspired by archaic reading machines.

Ruby Boddington — 18 June 2019
Work / Art Lee Kan Kyo’s practice involves taking a selfie a day and a loyalty card club

Lee Kan Kyo is turning Japan’s art scene on its head with his mind-boggling felt tip pen artworks. Born and raised in Taipei, Lee first ventured to Tokyo 12 years ago to studio graphic design, and has stayed there ever since. In these years, the main change in Lee’s work is that he is no longer a graphic designer but an artist. Known for his intricately detailed drawings of commercial flyers, his work continues to “rethink the role and the perspective of the graphic designer” and as a result, his artist practices considers both typography and visual language at the core of his work.

Jyni Ong — 17 June 2019
Work / Photography Office supplies sweat, struggle and stress in Philotheus Nisch’s recent series for Die Epilog

Die Epilog is a German magazine founded in 2012 in Weimar. Released annually, the team describes the publication as “a journal of questions, answers, punchlines and surprising twists about contemporary culture.” For the latest issue, photographer Philotheus Nisch has responded to the theme “Big Plans” (Große Pläne) with a series of still lifes, visualising the feeling of planning and the stresses associated with it.

Ruby Boddington — 17 June 2019
Work / Graphic Design It’s been another busy year of cultural design projects for Badesaison

Graphic design studio Badesaison has gone and done it again with some beautiful new projects. While we gazed in awe at a couple of its projects last year, we recently caught up with the Zurich-based studio on five of its most recent design endeavours; which are as sleek as ever. Founded by Lukas Ackermann and Andreas Sporri, it’s been another busy year for the graphic designers and as exemplified through these works.

Jyni Ong — 17 June 2019
Regulars / In Conversation Kengo Kuma tells us why we need “a new period of natural design”

Welcome to In Conversation, a new fortnightly interview with a leading light from the world of creativity. Every other Monday, we’ll publish a new Q&A here on It’s Nice That. Today, for the third instalment of the series, we sit down with Kengo Kuma.

Daniel Milroy Maher — 17 June 2019

Regulars / The Graduates 2019 The essentials of handling your finances as a graduate, junior or freelance creative

Within the creative industry, the financial side of things is honestly quite boring and dry. It’s also not something that many creatives are prepared for – budgeting and thinking numerically are totally different skills to learn and education hardly sets you up for them.

Lucy Bourton — 17 June 2019
Work / Art Painter Nick McPhail uses Renaissance techniques to make his architectural landscapes “glow”

Los Angeles-based artist Nick McPhail had little interest in painting until, “out of desperation”, as he tells it, he transferred from Audio Production at Michigan State University to their Studio Art programme, having “hated” his previous course. He says: “It was like the lights had suddenly been turned on for me. I was immediately obsessed, not only with painting but also the history of the medium.” Listing his influences in modern and contemporary art history as Edouard Vuillard, Giorgio de Chirico, R.B. Kitaj, Laura Owens, Fairfield Porter, Rebecca Morris, Helen Lundeberg and Ken Price, Nick creates illustrative, layered paintings that feature landscapes and architectural elements, using a colour palette of cool pastel and bright neon tones.

Rebecca Irvin — 17 June 2019
Work / Photography Photographer George Muncey on making the most of what's available

It’s very easy to overlook what’s right in front of you. This disregard of what’s easily available was the inspiration behind photographer George Muncey’s series Lonely Cloud: a comprehensive overview of life in modern-day Britain.

Daphne Milner — 17 June 2019
Work / Photography Photographer Svetlana Bulatova documents the environmental trauma of the Chechen wars

“I wish to explore the bond between human and nature,” says St. Petersburg-based independent documentary photographer, Svetlana Bulatova. Svetlana embarked on her career in photography as part of a charity foundation, and is a current member of Women Photograph, an international organisation for promoting the work of female documentary journalists.

Rebecca Irvin — 14 June 2019
Work / Art From designer to full time artist, Caroline Walls on her gestural paintings

After working for a number of years as a designer and art director at fashion and lifestyle brand agencies in New York and London, Caroline Walls moved back to her native Melbourne to pursue her own artistic practice. She tells It’s Nice That, “After ten years of working in the industry, I craved some creative autonomy and felt a real yearning to explore my own art practice away from the restrictions of clients and design briefs.”

Jyni Ong — 14 June 2019
Work / Digital Benjamin Muzzin on how digital art needs to be “shaken up badly”

Growing up in a small town in Switzerland, as a young boy Benjamin Muzzin found solace in the computer. “It was a great window into knowing what was going on abroad and the only way to feel part of a subculture for a while as I wasn’t really interested in what was going on in the mainstream media,” he tells It’s Nice That. Years later, Benjamin went onto study media and interaction design at ECAL, experimenting with CGI, 3D and video mapping softwares, which were still pretty new back then in 2010.

Jyni Ong — 14 June 2019

Work / Illustration Choose Your Fighter: illustrator Kevin Sabo’s queering of hyper-masculine gaming culture

Illustrator Kevin Sabo is a self-confessed “fanatic” for gay pop culture. “I know way too much about the shit that doesn’t make me any smarter,” he says, “but I’m so addicted to it anyway. I believe there is a purpose in my addiction.” With his new series, Choose Your Fighter, currently on display at the Well Gallery in Richmond, Virginia, Kevin invokes a host of visual and conceptual femme-pop references to combat the typically overtly masculine overtones of gaming culture. In Kevin’s words: “You’ll find fashion inspiration from Lil Kim or the Spice Girls. You’ll find colours and fonts that are inspired by movies like Kill Bill. Janet Jackson’s ‘Velvet Rope’ era definitely infiltrates my style – that album contains so much raw vulnerability mixed with sex mixed with truth mixed with anger mixed with a persistence to find peace.”

Rebecca Irvin — 14 June 2019
Regulars / Nicer Tuesdays Matthew Jones gives insight into Accept & Proceed's work for Nasa

Matthew Jones, the creative director of Accept & Proceed, left the designers in the room squirming with jealousy after giving insight into the studio’s work for Nasa during his talk at last month’s Nicer Tuesdays. Accept & Proceed is a graphic design agency based in East London’s Hackney Downs but as a team, Matthew told us, “we come from all over the world”.

It's Nice That — 14 June 2019
Work / Illustration Illustrator Jordan Awan on fulfilling his childhood dream

As a child, Jordan Awan spent hours diligently studying his parents’ anthology of New Yorker cartoons. They say the apple rarely falls far from the tree and, in Jordan’s case, this is undeniably true: many of his ancestors were themselves renowned artists, including Rea Irvin, Otto Soglow, Saul Steinberg and Charles Barsotti. It was, however, during a family outing that Jordan decided on a creative career. “My parents took me to a Keith Haring show in DC in the early 90s, maybe 1992; seeing his work is what made me want to be an artist,” Jordan recalls. 20 year later, Jordan fulfilled his childhood dream and became art director at The New Yorker.

Daphne Milner — 14 June 2019
Work / Publication Nansen magazine emphasises the shared experiences of migrants

Fridtjof Nansen was a Norwegian explorer and humanitarian whose life-long project involved orchestrating relief for refugees after the First World War. For example, he created what became known as the Nansen Passport, a document that allowed stateless refugees safe passage into other countries. Nansen was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1922 for such philanthropic endeavours. Almost a century on, and his name has been taken up by Nansen magazine, a publication about migrants and their shared experiences like learning a new language or trying to build up a network.

Daphne Milner — 14 June 2019
Work / Graphic Design Swans, Lamborghinis, Indian luxury and Wild Wild Country inform Futur Neue’s new font

“My primary role is to answer communication problems” says Alex Dujet, co-founder of Futur Neue. The independent Geneva-based design studio is known for its sleek editorial graphic design as well as its experimental type design, research and interactive work for a variety of clients. Additionally co-founded by Constance Delamadeleine and Sébastien Mathys, the studio prides itself on its multi-disciplinary output for a number of cultural institutions and businesses alike.

Jyni Ong — 13 June 2019
Work / Illustration Illustrator Faye Moorhouse has made a trilogy of zines about her cat

We love Faye Moorhouse’s illustrations – we love the weird humour of them, we love their naivety, and we love the craft that goes into their making, which employs an extensive range of materials, including gouache, acrylic, pencil, ink, ceramic, collage and digital software. In her words: “My style is very immediate and messy. And hopefully funny – and a bit dark!”

Rebecca Irvin — 13 June 2019