Missed Connections

Craiglist's Missed Connections are a good read on their own, but with Sophie Blackall's help they are a delight! For those not familiar with Missed Connections, they are online postings where strangers try and reconnect with someone they had a chance encounter with. They are usually romantic call outs of missed opportunities however Sophie has turned them up a notch by interpreting and bringing life to these random interactions. She has created a very funny series of paintings which are beautifully imaginative and very endearing, click on her blog here to see them. Here are the ones that tickled me the most (click on each of them to appreciate their loveliness):




Sophie Blackall is an Australian who as she put it "moved to New York [Brooklyn of course!] on a whim with her amenable husband and indifferent small children in 2000." She has also illustrated many children's books amongst many other things. She also keeps a blog which she updates showing the latest things she is working on, check it here.

Peter Funch

This week I stumbled upon Peter Funch the Danish photojournalist who lives in NYC. I want to share with you his Babel Tales series which are just beautifully composed photo stories of urban life in the city.

In order to create these 29 images, he spent two weeks standing on street corners of NYC - Broadway and Prince Street in Soho and downtown on Chambers Street - taking pictures of passers by. Later he sorted them into themes and photoshopped them into sets so that they tell a story eg black outfits and white (almost angelic outfits); yawners; smokers; children; guys in uniform; everyone on their mobile phones etc. Even though a lot of effort has gone into the final images, I really love the concept and they work really well together. Here are my favourites:

If You Could - Exhibition

If you are in London this weekend then go and check out the If You Could...Collaborate exhibition at the A Foundation Gallery, Rochelle School, London E2 from 15th — 23rd January 2010.

If you could is the brain child of art directors Will Hudson and Alex Bec and this is their 4th annual exhibition. There are some amazing and hugely talented designer/illustrator partnerships and I'm absolutely gutted to be missing it, especially as Craig's work is being exhibited. Here are some of the great collaborations (there are about 33 in total):
Craig Ward, Sean Freeman & Alison Carmichael / Oliver Jeffers & Aaron Ruff / Fontaine Anderson & Deanne Cheuk / Mario Hugo & Micah Lidberg / Anthony Burrill & John Griffiths / Marion Deuchars & Margaret Calvert / George Hardie & Leonardo Sonnoli & Sara Fanelli / Rob Ryan & Michael Marriott / Jim Stoten & Andy Rementer...to mention a few!

The exhibition is a chance for creatives from all four corners of the world to partner (with a person of their choosing, regardless of their discipline) and get out of their comfort zones. It has no doubt challenged the way the artists usually work. There was no brief for this project, except to design something a little unexpected. I can't wait to see photos but here are a few tasters of the Ward, Freeman & Carmichael collabration - a type triptych of laser cut wood...

Check out the If You Could website for more photos.

Hoot-enanny!

Top row (l-r): Accessorize necklace; Owl Party paper art by Helen Musselwhite; Fingerless gloves by Manic Knitter; Thank You card by Kate Sutton.

2nd row (l-r): Cupcakes; clock by Decoylab; Paperchase stationery range; Where the Wilds things are cushion from Urban Outfitters.

3rd row (l-r): Mr Owl by Matte Stephens; Charley Harper's Twowls; Sweater by
Kate Davies (also includes free pattern); Wall vinyl by One Up Design's.

Bottom row (l-r): The Little Owl restaurant NYC; Cast-iron trivet from Three Potato Four; Door stop by Rose & Grey.

Happy New Year! and farewell 2009: the year of owls or so it seems...they kept appearing everywhere. Above is a small collection of owl things that I have spotted throughout 2009 and I wanted to share it with you, being that I am the intrepid owl.

I've always liked owls but it wasn't until I cleared out my mum's loft (attic) of my childhood memorabilia that I realised how far back it went...I actually owned a fair amount of owl ephemera. The list of owl 'things' included: 3 stuffed owl toys - ascending in height- from the 1970s (a hand me down from my mum), a photo of me with a tawny owl from when the owl man came to my primary school, a small stained glass window disc, pencil tops, a bag, a t-shirt, a small ceramic owl and the list just went on. I also found one of my favourite childhood books up there: The Owl Who Was a Afraid of the Dark by Jill Tomlinson - I still love the cover of this book!

I really liked owls and I guess I still do, hope 2010 is good for you.

Alma - Short Film

Alma is a beautifully animated short directed by Rodrigo Blaas. It's the Spanish director's first short film, and it's an award winner. It's set in Barcelona, Spain (notice the Sagrada Familia in the first few seconds of the film and of course the Gaudi inspired shop) and it is faultlessly animated.

The plot plays on childhood nightmares made real - but I won't ruin the surreal plot, just watch it! The website mentions that the video won't be up for long, so be quick and watch it while you can! If not I've taken some stills of it.

Alma from Rodrigo Blaas on Vimeo.

Incidentally, Alma means 'soul' in Spanish...

Jessica Hische

Daily drop capper and adopted Brooklynite, Jessica Hische, is an extremely talented typographer, designer, illustrator and winner of an ADC Young Gun 7 award - meaning that she is under 30!

She has a great eye for style and colour and her work exudes maturity whilst also showing hints of playfulness. Here are a few snippets of her work, but to see more please visit her sites - not sure which one is her main one, so check them both out here and here.

She also runs an ongoing project called The Daily Drop Cap for which she creates hand-crafted, vintagesque ornamental initials. She also kindly gives you the coding for these decorative caps to encourage you to use them to adorn your blog posts or sites. So lovely!

Yee-Haw!! Happy New Year

A few days ago I went to Chelsea Market to buy some yummy bread and as luck should have it they had an immense letterpress exhibition by Yee-Haw Industries. Unfortunately for me I wasn't carrying my camera, so all the images here are from their website.

The exhibition consisted of 78 prints dotted around the market. I really liked the variety in the prints - some were just letterpressed; others letterpressed and then sewn (50 quilt squares were created specifically for the show); some were overlaid woodcut letters and some were huge (42x90"). They were all lovely, reasonably priced and drool worthy.

Yee-Haw Industries are based in Knoxville, Tennessee. They are a custom letterpress print and design outfit founded in 1997 by Kevin Bradley and Julie Belcher. The exhibition ran from 4th October 2009 - 2nd January 2010. New Year's resolutions: 1. always carry a camera, 2. learn about exhibitions earlier, 3. post said exhibitions. Sorry folks!