Knitting graffiti

Knitting graffiti (also known as Yarnbombing) is a phenomenon that has been in the press a lot recently. It is thought to have started in the US in August 2005, when a group of knitters called Knitta Please were becoming frustrated with their unfinished balls of coloured wools, half-knitted jumpers and scarfs etc and so decided to 'tag' their city with wool with their 'art'. This 'tagging' craze has spread like wild fire and has even reached our side of the pond. There are hundreds of guerrilla knitting groups popping up everywhere, so here is a small snippet into the fad.

These images of urban knitting, are creations of the guerrilla knitting group called Knit in the City, where they covered a classic London telephone box in their stitched art.

These next images come from several sources, from top left - a knitted handrail cover near Tullikamarinaukio Square, Finland by Knit Sea. Top right - a tagged guard chain in Stockholm left by the Prolific Masquerade crew. Bottom left - a mooring ring tagged in Stockholm, again by the masquerade crew. Bottom right - a grateful and warm lamppost in Houston, Texas dressed by members of Knitta Please.


This tree - entitled 'tree cozy', is an incredible crocheted outfit by Carol Hummel and took her 500 hours from start to finish. It was up in Cleveland heights city hall for 3 years until just recently.


These sign posts are territorial knittings, an unauthorised project by Lauren Marsden. Her aim was to cover the signs of every street on which she has lived in Victoria, British Columbia, with knitted replicas. all fonts and dimensions are exact and there are/were 6 of the signs in total.


And lastly, here is an old abandoned gas station in Syracuse, New York, which was knit graffitied to within an inch of its life after a worldwide effort was initiated by artist Jennifer Marsh. Over 3'000 panels were stitched together to cover the building and not even the pumps were left uncovered. more info here.

Also check out: Knitted Landscape; Ladies Fancywork Society and Yarnbommbing.

Ana Galvañ

Spanish illustrator and cartoonist, Ana Galvañ, has a really lovely textural and painterly style and a good eye for colour. She was one of the illustrators who contributed to the project Terrible Yellow Eyes, a homage to Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are (it's worth taking a look at this website as there are some lovely images on there).

Johnson mobile typography

I really like the 'baby mobile' typographic treatments from the new Johnson baby ads created by Lowe London. They have a Rob Ryan feel to them (see May's posting for more about Rob Ryan), but I can't find who created them. If anyone knows, please post the designer here.

Merijn Hos

Merijn Hos (aka Bfree) is an artist and illustrator from the Netherlands. He divides his time equally between commercial work and private work for exhibitions. His work is heavily 70s influenced, but being a child of the 1970s could explain why! His use of crazy landscapes, bright colours, abstract looking characters (especially the long legged ones!) and surreal imagery all add to the psychadelic feel. When I look at his illustrations, I can't help but think of the work of German illustrator, Heinz Edelmann, who is famous for his art direction and character designs for The Beatles animated film, Yellow Submarine.

Hos uses different mediums to create his images such as China ink, felt-tip markers, collages made with coloured papers and has even created dolls for the Dilly Show in London and Barcelona in 2005.

His pictures have concurrent elements of ghosts, life and death, friendly and cute expressions and hidden messages. He says a lot of the work reflects on issues in todays society and everyday interaction between people in terms of escapism, organised confusion and friendship and loyalty.

John "Pugwash" Ryan, R.I.P.

I've just heard on the news that John Ryan, the British animator, died today at the age of 88. He created one of the best-loved children’s television programmes of the 1970s Captain Pugwash. The eponymous hero – Captain Horatio Pugwash – sails the high seas in his ship called the Black Pig, ably assisted by cabin boy Tom, pirates Willy and Barnabas, and Master Mate. His mortal enemy is Cut-Throat Jake, captain of the Flying Dustman.

Captain Pugwash started as a comic strip in The Eagle in 1950. The BBC then commissioned the first TV series in 1957-1967. This TV series was beautifully crafted with a unique real-time animating technique called “captions”. Captions were basically cardboard cutouts of the characters laid on painted backgrounds which were pinned/glued/sellotaped to cardboard levers to make the figures "move". About 50 or so captions were made for each episode, and took over a fortnight to make.

The TV series was revived in 1975 in colour and again reanimated in 1997 (see last picture) and also made into children's books. In 1991 Ryan sued The Guardian and the Sunday Correspondent for wrongly accusing the series of having sexually suggestive names – such as Master Bates, Seaman Staines and Roger the Cabin Boy. These double entendres were all incorrect and actually made up by university students in the 70s for “rag mags”, and somehow became urban myths.

Lizzie Finn - Sew good

Years ago I purchased a book called Area which showcased 100 designers and illustrators. In that book I noticed the unique illustration style of Lizzie Finn. Lizzie is unlike most illustrators as her tools of the trade are textiles and embroidery thread. She is best known for her embroidered images on the album cover Things To Make and Do for the British band, Moloko. For this she created handmade characters and also stitched the typography.

I believe that she doesn't shy away from using a computer, however I admire the fact that she prefers this more labour intensive route. She also makes us realise that there is more to design than just computer generated images.

They all went to Heaven at the age of 27

The themed They all went to Heaven at the age of 27 t-shirts are the brain child of Whipping Floyd.

They noticed that Robert Johnson (a delta blues musician), Brian Jones (lead guitarist of the Rolling Stones), Janis Joplin (rock singer), Jimi Hendrix (one of the most influential guitarists of all time), Jim Morrison (singer and lyricist from the Doors) and Kurt Cobain (singer and lyricist from Nirvana) all had something in common - they all died at the early age of 27. With this new found realisation, they wanted to interpret these great musicians lives into t-shirts and thus Heaven 27 was born! "They climbed up that stair and made a hell of a band up there." I really like them. My favourite design is the Robert Johnson one.

John Lawrence and His Dark Materials

Wood engraving illustrator, John Lawrence, creates beautiful timeless pieces for all ages. His children's book consist of This Little Chick, Seahorse: The Shyest Fish in the Sea, Tiny's Big Adventure and Philip Pullman's Dark Materials collectors edition books.

John Lawrence uses tools and techniques that go back to the 18th century, yet his illustrations don't look out of place in our modern world. His distinctive wood engravings and drawings have kept him employed over the past 40 years. The process of his print/collage technique is also time consuming. Each different colour and textured backgrounds are separate prints that are collaged into the overall design. He uses a mixture of wood and vinyl to create contrasting textures and admitidely he brings the images together with the help of a computer.

Although Pullman created all his own illustrations and pictograms for his Dark Materials series, I can see why he chose Lawrence to do the collector's editions as Lawrence's 'modern ancient approach' is perfectly suited to the style of the book. Pullman's story flits between the modern world (as we know it) and a parallel neo-industrial revolution era.

"Nothing can match the effect of the essentially organic process of wood engraving. It's all about mark-making; the marks get their character from the material and the tools, and, when you are working on wood, you can feel the textures - there are infinitesimal differences between the marks you make." - John Lawrence