Work / Uncategorized

Jeremy Deller, Clip Art and the It’s Nice That annual in this week’s podcast

Words by Liv Siddall, Friday 05 December 2014

This week we chat about the It’s Nice That Annual, Jeremy Deller’s encounter with Andy Warhol and waving a sad goodbye to the much-loved Microsoft feature: Clip Art.

As ever you can listen using he SoundCloud embed below or subscribe via iTunes here.

Int_cop2_grande — The It’s Nice That Annual 2014

Jeremy Deller and Andy Warhol. Photo courtesy of The Guardian

Most Recent

Matthew Keff digitally riffs off the design tropes of social media and advertising 20 August 2019
For illustrator Doris Liou, “drawings are about what you want to show others” 20 August 2019
Julian Glander is on the lookout for a collaborator to create a new set of emojis 20 August 2019
Revue Tintamarre is a free publication showcasing the work of one student every month 20 August 2019
Marta da Silva’s impressive portfolio is “fluid, futuristic and somehow blissfully chaotic” 20 August 2019
Double Click August is full of playful designs that prompt user interaction 20 August 2019

More like this:

Work / Uncategorized My 2014: Print Editor James Cartwright sums up the best bits of his year

This year feels like it was over before it even began – which is a total cliché but it’s God’s honest truth. It feels like just yesterday I was launched blinking and hungover into the first days of 2014 and now I couldn’t really tell you what I got up to. Anyway, it was a whirlwind, a rollercoaster ride full of emotional ups and downs, physical highs and lows, triumphs of spirit and ingestions of spirits. Yeah 2014, you were alright, I liked you, though at times you were a bit of a t**t.

James Cartwright — 19 December 2014
Work / Uncategorized ECAL's website MAAD is a comprehensive archive of their MA in Art Direction

You could be forgiven for taking a cursory glance over the MAAD site, as I did, and assuming that it was dedicated to a design collective more diverse and comprehensive than we’d ever even seen before. Because that it kind of what it looks like. In fact, MAAD stands for Masters in Art Direction and belongs to ECAL, aka the Ecole cantonale d’art de Lausanne, in Switzerland, and the website serves as both a pamphlet for prospective students and an archive for the projects of previous ones, making it one of the best thought out university sites that we’ve ever seen.

Maisie Skidmore — 04 November 2014
Work / Uncategorized We love Tom Sewell's lunar calendar for his residency over on Post Matter

The difference between artists and normal proles is shown in the ease at which an artist can convey a very simple idea with visuals to make it shine. For instance this new work by our much-loved local artist Tom Sewell, in which he created a 31-day lunar chart when asked by digital art blog Post Matter to take part in a month-long residency. To me, Tom’s work is like having a toe constantly submerged in anonymous, otherworldly fluid – he takes the online world and melts it down until it resembles pools of history, typography and coding all glooped together into one. This series of serene planet GIFs gives me the same ambient pleasure as my desktop Mountain, and I’m going to keep up with this lunar July calendar even though it’s August tomorrow.

Liv Siddall — 31 July 2014
Work / Uncategorized Japanese artist Ryo Kuwabara's incredible eye-popping poster design

Ryo Kuwabara is a master colour coordinator and a geometric genius: scrolling through his Tumblr page, it’s kind of unbelievable when you realise that he has designed every single one of the decorative, eye-popping posters in the spectacular online portfolio. His work is space age but also early computer age, composed out of highly artificial patterns and rounded shapes that contain just a hint of Keith Haring. I’m not entirely sure what the posters are for, as the only English words that I can decipher are “Circuit Disarray” and “Blink” and “Symphony of the form,” but I do think that all of these words are very evocative of Ryo’s fantastically playful designs.

Madeleine Morley — 25 June 2014
Work / Uncategorized The new issue of art, culture and surfing magazine WAX has launched with a bang!

You don’t get much cooler than a fluorescent publication about art and surfing produced in Brooklyn, but luckily WAX magazine has proved itself not to just be another trendy rag, but a bonafide pleasure for all who see it. Take, for example, Printed Pages editor James Cartwright’s reaction when it plopped into the It’s Nice That offices the other day – he squealed like a little piggy and ripped off its plastic binding to flick through its fresh, untouched pages.

Liv Siddall — 19 June 2014
Work / Uncategorized Graphic Design: Kigi combine design and illustration to create great identities

Kigi are a graphic design company based in Tokyo, Japan, who combine two of our absolute favourite things: design and illustration. Their identities for bottled products are sparse, playful and eye-catching, so that they become the things that you find really hard to throw out of your bathroom cabinet when all of the product’s gone. Some of the designs for the little jars and vials make them look like they belong on an alchemist’s shelf, and we particularly like Kigi’s logo for a line of natural face products that’s been inspired by the Rubin vase. Kigi have also designed the fabric prints for Liberty, and they started off by making big pointillist posters out of monochrome stickers, but what we like most about them is their incredibly tactile and imaginative approach to design.

Madeleine Morley — 19 June 2014

Work / Digital Matthew Keff digitally riffs off the design tropes of social media and advertising

The digital artist talks us through his creative and technical process in creating “kooky audiovisual scenarios” inspired by different parts of digital culture.

Jyni Ong — 20 August 2019
Work / Illustration For illustrator Doris Liou, “drawings are about what you want to show others”

The Brooklyn-based illustrator went from being a RISD student obsessed with drawing accurately from life, to an editorial illustrator depicting subjects he wants to show others. Here, he discusses this transformation in ethos.

Jyni Ong — 20 August 2019
Partnership / Dropbox: Call for Collaboration Julian Glander is on the lookout for a collaborator to create a new set of emojis

In the latest instalment of our own ongoing project Call for Collaboration with Dropbox Paper, animator Julian Glander is on the hunt for a new collaborator to help him create a set of emojis.

Lucy Bourton — 20 August 2019
Work / Publication Revue Tintamarre is a free publication showcasing the work of one student every month

French type design students Eva Aguirregomezcorta and Pablo Desportes started the project a year ago after feeling frustrated with the lack of exposure for art students, outside of the university context. Revue Tintamarre, therefore, showcases the work of one student, every month, for 12 months and is distributed for free around Brussels.

Ruby Boddington — 20 August 2019
Work / Graphic Design Marta da Silva’s impressive portfolio is “fluid, futuristic and somehow blissfully chaotic”

Freshly graduated from the University of Porto, the young graphic designer takes us through her fun, experimental and razor-sharp body of work.

Lorna Pittaway — 20 August 2019
Regulars / Double Click Double Click August is full of playful designs that prompt user interaction

This month’s Double Click is all about fun. Each featured website employs clever tactics to make people stay a little longer, mostly through giving people something to play with.

Ruby Boddington — 20 August 2019

Work / Photography Ioanna Sakellaraki explores Greece’s last professional mourners and their rituals around death

Three years ago, the Royal College of Art graduate lost her father. The experience of grief led the photographer on an extensive project, exploring death rituals and the notion of loss from a Greek perspective.

Jyni Ong — 19 August 2019
Work / Publication Catalog Press is questioning what a book can be (and maybe it's made of cheese)

By examining what exactly a book should (and could) be, this small but incredible publishing house is creating some of the wittiest and creative tomes we’ve seen of late.

Lucy Bourton — 19 August 2019
Work / Graphic Design Floriane Rousselot's digital platform Typelab supports and champions the work of young designers

The graphic designer started the platform while studying towards her diploma as a way to showcase her work, and the work of her friends. Today, Typelab has represented 24 young typographers, offering them a place to showcase WIP display fonts which wouldn’t find a home in more traditional type foundries.

Ruby Boddington — 19 August 2019
Work / Photography Photographer Theo Cottle tries to “keep an element of truth” in everything he shoots

Based in London, Theo recently visited Naples to capture the city’s effervescent, restless youth after falling in love with the football culture, narrow alleyways and, of course, the pizza.

Ruby Boddington — 19 August 2019
Work / Graphic Design “Stay simple and playful”: Arnaud Aubry talks to us about making his fun and charming work

Working seamlessly across multiple disciplines is no mean feat, but the Nantes-based graphic designer and illustrator makes it look easy with his clean and colourful work.

Lorna Pittaway — 19 August 2019
Work / Illustration Théophile Bartz on his fantastically hypnotic illustrations

Taking us behind the scenes of his ecstatic work, the graphic designer-turned-illustrator talks to us about the merits of a fast-paced process and finding his creative voice.

Lorna Pittaway — 19 August 2019

Sponsored / Graphic Design Four top creatives design posters from Adobe’s new Createfulness collection

Adobe is inviting creatives from all over the world to design a poster using their latest collection of assets. Jonathan Castro, Noa Snir, Annu Kilpeläinen and Célestin Krier lead by example, creating original designs which investigate the new concept of “Createfulness”.

Jyni Ong — 19 August 2019
Work / Graphic Design Podcast company Gimlet’s new identity by GrandArmy is designed not to be too “slick”

Modern brands are so “quiet and inoffensive”, it’s like they “wish they could disappear entirely”. That’s according to Eric Collins, a partner at New York creative agency GrandArmy, who says he wanted this work for Gimlet to go against the grain.

Matt Alagiah — 16 August 2019
Work / Fashion Utopia and dystopia collide in Bysanz Baisen Zhou’s other-worldly creations

The London-based multi-disciplinary designer brings his usual combination of creepy and beautiful to his latest work – A Better Feeling: Metamorphosis – which explores our increasing entanglement with the technologies we use.

Lorna Pittaway — 16 August 2019
Work / Digital Who are the people with the power to design the system we live in? Digital artist Peter Burr investigates

The New York-based artist’s film, Drop City, is the latest in a series of works exploring communities living off the detritus of a desktop environment.

Jyni Ong — 16 August 2019
Work / Graphic Design Design studio de_form on its exhibition identity for Erik Kessels’ latest show

How do you highlight both the playfulness of an artist’s work and beautiful typography in one exhibition identity? Nora Demeczky and Eniko Deri chat through their recent work designing the identity for The Many Lives of Erik Kessels at Mai Manó House in Budapest.

Jyni Ong — 16 August 2019
Work / Photography Traditional fashion photography, fine art and 3D renders combine in Olya Oleinic's portfolio

The photographer’s work is hard to define but, despite its myriad inputs, has a visual consistency. Currently, her work is based upon reconstructing the daily observations – light reflected off the glass building surface, cultural dress codes across countries and communities, but especially people’s interactions, manners and unaware behaviour.

Ruby Boddington — 16 August 2019

Regulars / Nicer Tuesdays Cabeza Patata on finding the right way to represent the diversity of the world around us

Creating work which speaks to everyone is a difficult task and one that character design and animation duo, Katie and Abel, found themselves tackling when Spotify asked them to make a gender-neutral character for a new campaign. In a reflective and introspective talk, the creative partners spoke about what they “didn’t get quite right” and the pitfalls of trying to make someone who represents everyone.

It's Nice That — 16 August 2019
Work / Art “I feel like I am following breadcrumbs”: Mel Arzamarski on her pursuit of art

This Oklahoma-based artist’s work tends to evolve around a heavily saturated, hyperreal landscape that effortlessly blur the boundaries between fiction and reality. Where she gets her inspiration from, however, is far from made-up.

Ayla Angelos — 16 August 2019
Work / Graphic Design Through playful and considered design, Elya Forelya aims to tackle the stigma around ASD

The Russian designer’s new multi-dimensional project comes decorated with bold illustrations and a playful colour scheme – a clear demonstration of her ability delve into research and tackle important issues with intention.

Ayla Angelos — 16 August 2019
Work / Photography Ed van der Elsken’s new monograph highlights his contribution to Dutch street photography

One of the Netherlands’ most influential contemporary artists, Ed van der Elsken gained global fame with his black and white photography. Now, The Nederlands Fotomuseum pays tribute to the photographer restoring over 42,000 of his colour slides for a new exhibition and book.

Jyni Ong — 15 August 2019
Work / Graphic Design “A spaceship collided with a baroque cathedral”: Alex Valentina shares his latest typeface

The young graphic designer talks to us about his unconventional approach to type design and his newest project, GoliaGolia, a bold and playful experiment in typographic form.

Lorna Pittaway — 15 August 2019
Work / Publication DR.ME's latest zine sees The Simpsons cleverly collaged with renaissance paintings

The studio with an affinity for collage is back at it again. This time, it’s the world’s most famous yellow family which provided inspiration.

Ruby Boddington — 15 August 2019

Work / Animation Ikea and its products are reimagined as a Greek tragedy by Edern van Hille

The Parisian animator crafts a bold yellow and blue animation short from the Swedish superstore and its products. Featuring matricide, murder and elements of fate, Le Fils D’Ekia has all the makings of a contemporary Greek tragedy.

Jyni Ong — 15 August 2019
Work / Illustration Sebastian Curi's recent work for Venmo celebrates friendship in all its diverse forms

The Argentinian illustrator has had a huge year. Having recently relocated to Barcelona, he tells us about one particularly big commission in which he was asked to create 50 bold, colourful illustrations embodying the spirit of Venmo’s brand.

Ruby Boddington — 15 August 2019
Regulars / Nicer Tuesdays Alice Mann on making photographs that the people she shoots want to see

In a joyful talk which focussed on her much-loved body of work, Drummies, the South African photographer invited us into her empathetic and “people-oriented” approach to image-making.

It's Nice That — 15 August 2019
Work / Photography In his new series, photographer Josh Edgoose captures a world ruled by birds

From everyday moments to those that make history, street photography has the ability to capture the true essence of human nature. For this British photographer, however, people aren’t his main focus.

Ayla Angelos — 15 August 2019
Regulars / Nicer Tuesdays “At the end of the day it’s just about people and stories”: Deepa Keshvala on her approach to filmmaking

In her moving Nicer Tuesdays talk, the London-based DOP and filmmaker tells the story behind her recent release Kara and always creating human-centred work grounded in emotion and truth.

It's Nice That — 14 August 2019
Work / Digital This is not the Amazon is an eerie and uncanny film that questions our relationship to nature

In their first collaborative project, Jean-Baptiste Castel and Astrid Feringa take a critical look at our growing alienation from the rest of the natural world.

Lorna Pittaway — 14 August 2019