Solar eclipse? Pah. Here's what you really want to see – the Weekender!

To celebrate the astrological enigma and apocalyptically exciting event that was today’s eclipse – which we all saw, and wasn’t an anti-climax at all – here’s The Weekender! A round-up of the art and design news that has eclipsed everything else this week, at least in our eyes. Happy Weekend!

– We’ve all done it; you’re scrolling through Amazon hurling books into your cyber basket like you’re Michael Jackson buying priceless vases in a department store, and you come across an absolute horror of a Kindle book cover featuring some Microsoft Word Art scrawled all over the cover. Fortunately, one kind person has combined all of these monstrosities together in one place.

– Tune in to this week’s Studio Audience podcast to hear us chat about the V&A’s new McQueen exhibition, the trouble with searching out creativity in small towns and Tinder.

– Following Singapore’s annual U Symposium, Rob Alderson wrote an Opinion piece this week pondering exactly why the highly successful Kinfolk magazine seems to be met with such split opinions.

– And this week we were lucky enough to have RCA professor, graphic design writer, fanzine fan and self-publishing champion Teal Triggs show us around the most inspiring and influential books on her Bookshelf. Wowzers!

– Tom Vek kicked off our Art + Music feature this week with a superb essay on what inextricably links the two.

– That feature also saw us get an exclusive look at Ghostpoet’s innovative album sleeve, made from his own SKIN.

– We were also super excited to have a chat IRL with the legendary Kim Gordon, artist and member of Sonic Youth. Swoon.

– We marvelled at the incredible images of an underwater sculpture park near Mexico.

– We garnered some insights from The Guardian designer Chris Clarke about the redesign of the paper’s The Fashion supplement.

– And we found out what it takes to make an award-winning piece of moving image art.

– Last week the endlessly stylish Freunde von Freunden spoke to Vijendra Chhipa from Bagru, India, about developing his trade as a textile printer, complete with a short film and a collection of photographs, and it makes for a fascinating and touching read.

– In the week when Facebook made the decision to ban fully exposed buttocks, loads of other interesting things happened too! For example…

– It’s been thirty years since cartoonist Alison Bechdel created the Bechdel test, a measure of gender equality in films, and now it’s been adapted for the music industry too.

– Studio Ghibli co-founder Isao Takahat is back with his first film in 16 years, and Dazed posted an exclusive clip on it this week.

Rob Alderson

I don’t want to shock you, but I am not that familiar with the oeuvre of NWA. However this Nina Gordon cover of Straight Outta Compton has really floated my boat the past couple of weeks. I first heard it at Design Indaba when Shubhankar Ray played it as he took the stage (bullish) but it’s become my new jam (as the kids are wont to say). Lovely stuff.

Maisie Skidmore

I’ve said it before and I’ll no doubt say it again – Twitter account @oldpicsarchive is great. While in theory it’s precisely the kind of puddle of nostalgia I’d like to look down on (s’posed to live in the present and all that) in practice I LOVE seeing the occasional reminder of how simple, unpretentiously and frankly joyful life once was. Case in point, here’s a nice picture of Albert Einstein on the beach.

Liv Siddall

I never knew I liked Noel Gallagher, at least not this much. Well done Rolling Stone for compiling a list of his 101 things he’s said that are either offensive, rude or just plain arrogant. Funnily enough, after you read and snort through your nose at about 50 of them you start realising that he’s actually got a point. Personal faves are:

“If I was to write songs literally about my life, heavens above, they would probably be more boring than James Blunt. If at all that is possible. Which of course, as we all know, it isn’t.” –BBC Radio 2, Feb. 2015

“I feel sorry for Keane. No matter how hard they try they’ll always be squares. Even if one of them started injecting heroin into onto his cock people would go, ‘Yeah but your dad was a vicar, good night.’”

Emily Gosling

A sweet little video for a sweet sweet song by a very sweet woman, Samantha Whates. This video for her song Trees and Gold is by animators Will & Joe, and uses beautiful imagery inspired by 1920s shadow puppet animator Lotte Reiniger. It’s rather gorgeous, and we hope you enjoy it as much as we do.

Billie Muraben

I think this may have been one of the first things I watched on YouTube and it remains one of the best. The punchline is worth the wait, basic but effective. Enjoy!