That's a big earring.

Street artist Liesbet Bussche specializes in redefining the context of everyday objects, creating larger-than-life "urban jewelry."

http://www.liesbetbussche.com/home.html

MC

Awash with Wigs

Link: http://www.behance.net/gallery/Water-Wigs/4889175?

CG

SNEAKY

I just saw this new packaging for Lil-lets on The Dieline.

Huge congratulations to Brand Opus, who seem to of snuck a big vagina into the centre of the pack! I wonder if the client noticed? And wether it was intentional?....It doesn't seem to have been in the reading description of the design:

"As part of the redesign, Lil-Lets are introducing a new brand identity and shift in positioning to focus on discretion and femininity. The introduction of the new Lil-Lets GEM icon – which will appear on all packaging – is a representation of real femininity and is derived from cross cultural symbols for the Goddess, the Earth and the Moon.

The redesigned packaging borrows cues from the beauty category, ensuring discretion at point of sale. On the back of retailer feedback, the packaging is now in shelf-efficient formats that deliver sophistication both at the fixture and in the home.

Kate Jones at BrandOpus, says, “We have worked closely with Lil- Lets to design an identity for the brand which evokes the discreet and sophisticated world of beauty, cosmetics and fashion. We wanted to create a brand that would stand apart from its competitors by speaking from woman to woman. The GEM symbol is a confident and positive identity for the Lil-Lets brand, which evokes femininity and an understanding of all that there is to being a woman.”

In response to consumer needs, and a first for a brand within the sanpro category, Lil-Lets has worked with BrandOpus to develop a consistent colour strategy across the portfolio to denote absorbency. This new system of six absorbency colours is uniform across all ranges and ensures complete clarity and ease of navigation for the consumer.

The redesign brings a discreet yet confident look to the Lil-Lets range, which is simple for women to find on shelf.

This summer also sees the launch of the new teen liners, positioning Lil-Lets as the only brand in the category to offer a full range of sanitary protection, demonstrating an understanding of today’s women and their needs."





BRILLIANT!

JS

PERSPECTIVES

A couple of weeks ago I came upon this exhibition whilst on a stroll along the river.



Perspectives is an open air photographic exhibition at More London, near London Bridge on the banks of The Thames.

The exhibition is a showcase of the works of 'respected English photo-journalist Tom Stoddart, a man whose photography has taken him around the world since his career began on a local newspaper in the North East in the 1970s.'

I found the exhibition very poignant - being deliberately timed to pop-up during the Olympics. Perspectives highlights past and present atrocities around the world at a time when the world is coming together in celebration.

A well-nourished Sudanese man steals maize from a starving child during food distribution at a medecins sans frontieres feeding centre, Ajiep, Sudan, in 1998






BHACHAU, INDIA-FEBRUARY 2001:
A child plays with pigeons among the ruins of Bhachau, India, one of the worst hit towns after the earthquake of 2001 struck the region of Gujarat.






IRAQ – These Royal Marines from 539 Assault Squadron have been under fire during a night-time patrol, and have just been told that one of their comrades has been killed. Tiredness and grief overcome them


SARAJEVO – In the dangerous Sarajevo suburb of Dobrinja, Meliha Vareshanovic walks proudly and defiantly to work every day. Her message to the watching Serbian gunmen who surround her city is simple, ‘You will never defeat us’





There isn't a visitors book at the exhibition, instead they have filmed peoples opinions and feedback. The videos are available to watch here.

It certainly stopped me unexpectedly in my tracks on a beautiful sunny day, and made me take some time out to stop and think.
Tom Stoddart's photographs are extremely powerful and sometimes even hard to look at - The whole area was almost silent with people also being absorbed by his work, taking time to reflect and pay respect to many of the individuals in his photography.

If your in London, check it out - its up until 11th September. If not, check out his website, an incredibly brave man and an inspiration to us all.


JS

LONDON 2012

Below is the post about the London 2012 Olympics that I wrote on my blog earlier this week:



Now that its all over (very sad), I think its a great time to reflect on how brilliant its been. An outstanding performance by team GB, brilliant organisation and superb facilities - I think we put on an amazing show.

The identity for London 2012, has indeed had lots of people talking since its launch in 2007. Wolff Olins's creation was met with a collective gasp. Though it had its supporters, the majority of people on the street either disliked or actively loathed it.

I have recently seen a few articles in review of its success as an identity, again with mixed reviews. There is a great article on The Partners Blog - 'Remember The Games. Forget the 2012 identity'. Its a really interesting read, although very negative. I do agree with some of their points made, but I don't feel that the identity on the whole is 'a sorry mess'. I think Futurebrand did an excellent job in the implementation of the design....



I still very much dislike the logo, and the ugly typeface, yet despite this I think the identity actually works pretty well. When wandering around London you can't miss the Olympic signage - The bright colours and instantly recognisable typeface. It makes the directional signage to the different venues really easy to spot, within a transport system full of other visual clutter and excessive signage.

Having been to an Olympic event myself, I also found the identity to work really well from the tickets, to the inside and outside the venue. OK, so there's no witty graphic design ideas anywhere, but I found the implementation of the identity at the event sparked excitement, and the once hated 'garish' colour scheme, actually does it's job brilliantly. I very much agree with the opinions of what Silas Amos has written - The Olympic Masterpiece on the JKR blog - 'The design Gazette'.




Adding to the identity have been loads of great little films/ad campaigns etc:
Whilst I was already putting together this post, Creative Review posted about some of their highlights - The creative Olympics. Design Boom have also done a round-up with lots of nice pictures -
London Olympics 2012.

Here are some of my favourites:


This great video was used to get the crowd inside the velodrome exited whilst waiting for the competition to begin. Created by Crystal CG


A great ad from Channel 4 as it takes over coverage from the BBC for the Paralympic games.





Adidas' Take The Stage campaign for Team GB. A campaign created by Sid Lee, ran before and during the olympics.
Above shows their poster ads in the run up to the games; illustrations of athletes, that wrapped the Metro during the games and the video that concluded the campaign - featuring British athletes letting their hair down to Queen track Don't Stop Me Now. Good work Adidas!



The team kit - Designed by Stella McCartney. I think our kit looked stylish and smart, especially in comparision to some of the other countries (ahem, Russia).

The Olympic Torch, designed by Barber Osgerby and winner of The Design Museum’s Design Awards. Each hole in the torch represents one of the torch bearers. I think it looks great and was something everyone wanted to get their hands on.

After the success of the small olympic torches, Thomas Heatherwick joins the party and creates this astonishing torch. In-keeping with the idea of small touch (symbolising each person who carried it), Thomas Heatherwick's represents each country coming together for the games. An excellent idea and beautiful execution - Im sensing a black pencil is heading his way! Thoughts?



If you missed the Olympic Opening and closing ceremonies you should watch the above video, displaying Crystal CG's pixels. Described as the 'biggest disco on earth' I thought the pixels were an AMAZING idea and definitely one of the my highlights of Danny Boyle's spectacular show. 'Another great 2012 innovation – the use of 70,500 LED Pixel Tablets designed by Tait Technologies.' Each one featured nine pixels arranged in a square and were positioned on everyones seats. 'Over 70 minutes of animation was created to run on the system by Crystal CG for the Opening Ceremony, with more for the Closing Ceremony plus the two Paralympics ceremonies. Crystal was briefed by Danny Boyle to try to bring the audience in the stadium into the show, which it did spectacularly.


Olympic stamps from Hat-trick....You can always rely on Hat-trick to do a lovely set of stamps :)


On the run up to the Olympics these coins were issued by the Royal Mint. Over 30,000 people entered the competition to design a coins, each depicting a different sporting event. I particularly like the 'off-side rule' coin.

Getty commissioned photographer David Bergman to create this 'Gigapan'. A panoramic image from inside the stadium that you can zoom into an tag yourself. 'His composite image was created by shooting 425 individual photos over the course of an hour as the athletes entered the stadium. The final high-resolution image is composed of more than 3 billion pixels and measures over 94 ft. (29 m) wide and nearly 44 ft. (13 m) long. That’s about the same size as a basketball court.
To see for yourself - Click here


Overall I think London did a great job, being in London and living with a volunteer, I saw and heard of how organised, positive and vibrant the event was. The atmosphere in London changed, and it became full of excitement, friendlyness and exuberance. I for one was proud to be there, honoured to get tickets to an event, and loved every minute of it.

Congratulations to everyone who was involved - the designers, the athletes, the organisers and the spectators. Your an inspiration for the next sporting generation.....

Now lets all go and do 'The Mobot'.

JS

http://www.thedisciplesofdesign.co.uk/2012/08/london-2012/

HEATHERWICK EXHIBITION

As you have probally already seen, last week we had a studio outing to The Heatherwick exhibition, which is currently on at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. Here's my quick round up of the exhibition, wrote for my blog.

The exhibition shows a collection of Heatherwick's work, from student thoughts and ideas right through to the Olympic torch, revealed just over a week ago.

I was really impressed with the body of work this man and his studio has created, and found the exhibition hugely inspiring. Anyone in or around London should check it out!

Here's a few of my highlights:


B of the Bang - A Sculpture commissioned to mark the 2002 Commonwealth Games, it was one of the tallest structures in the City of Manchester and was the tallest sculpture in the UK until the completion of Aspire in 2008.  The sculpture takes its inspirtation from British sprinter Linford Christie, in which he said that he started his races not merely at the "bang" of the starting pistol, but at "the B of the Bang". The sculpture looks almost as if its floating, as one of the spikes holds the whole structure up.




The Olympic Flame - You will of had to of been living on Mars to not catch a glimpse of this in the last week. But I thought it was a great idea - symbolising the coming together of the 204 nations to take part in the games. A brilliant sentiment, and my favourite olympic torch ever.



Spun - These chair are created by the traditional process of metal spinning, which is used to make circular metal objects, such as timpani drums and gas cylinders. Heatherwick wanted to investigate if it was possible to make a chair with the technique, and the 'spun chair' was born. They were positioned outside the exhibition and are great fun, as you sit back you slowly rotate.



The New London Bus - A beautiful and perfect solution was created to solve the many problems that previous London buses have had. The bus has two staircases and disabled access. The curves make it appear smaller than it actually is and the curved windows give more visibility to the driver and passengers.
The seating upholstery is also quite interesting - designed to emanate the weight contours made when you sit in the seat.



The Rolling Bridge - There were a few very impressive bridges in the exhibition. This one is my favourite. The studio was commissioned to design a pedestrian bridge to span an inlet of the Grand Union Canal at Paddington Basin, London, and provide an access route for workers and residents. Crucially, the bridge needed to open to allow access for the boat moored in the inlet.
The aim was to make the movement the extraordinary aspect of the bridge. A common approach to designing opening bridges is to have a single rigid element that fractures and lifts out of the way. Rolling Bridge opens by slowly and smoothly curling until it transforms from a conventional, straight bridge, into a circular sculpture which sits on the bank of the canal. COOL!



UK Pavilion, Shaghai Expo - After winning a competition to design this, Heatherwick studio's brief was to ensure the UK's pavilion must be one of the expo’s “top five” most popular attractions at the 2010 Shaghai expo. This was a tall order when you consider what other countries do.
As many people only ever see the outside of the pavilion, on TV and at the event, Heatherwick realised that the outside of the pavilion needed to tell you what was going on inside. The way to achieve this was to make the building be a manifestation of its content. Avoiding outdated stereotypes, they decided to represent the inventiveness and creativity to be found in contemporary British life. Taking cues from the Expo theme, which was the future of cities (“better city, better life”), they explored the relationships between cities and nature and the significance of plants to human health, economic success and social change.
The outcome: The Seed Cathedral is a box, 15 metres high and 10 metres tall. From every surface protrude silvery hairs, consisting of 60,000 identical rods of clear acrylic, 7.5 metres long, which extend through the walls of the box and lift it into the air. Inside the pavilion, the geometry of the rods forms a space described by a curvaceous undulating surface. There are 250,000 seeds cast into the glassy tips of all the hairs. By day, the pavilion’s interior is lit by the sunlight that comes in along the length of each rod and lights up the seed ends. You can track the daily movement of the sun and pick out the shadows of passing clouds and birds and, when you move around, the light moves with you, glowing most strongly from the hairs that point directly towards you. By night, light sources inside each rod illuminate not only the seed ends inside the structure, but the tips of the hairs outside it, covering the pavilion in tiny points of light that dance and tingle in the breeze.


Distillery - This cool design is for the gin-maker Bombay Sapphire and is the company’s first production facility, which will also be open for members of the public to visit and will become the home of the brand. This visitors centre is inspired by the authentic distillation process, which follows a method devised in 1761. The design is inspired by the use of the 10 botanicals in this process, and points towards Britain’s heritage of botanical glasshouse structures.

There are loads more interesting sculptures, bridges, products, furniture and architecture to see. If you can't get to the exhibition you can see more of Heatherwick Studio's work here. If you can, the exhibtion is open until 30th September, and costs £6/£7 to get in.
OR.....
You can buy his book - Heatherwick Making

JS