Seasons Greetings!

Click on the image and use your keyboard arrow keys to navigate through the album.

Just wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas / Happy Holidays or whatever you celebrate this season, and what better way to do it than with some talented designers.

In order of appearance (left - right):-
1st row: Adrian Johnson’s ‘Six Geese A-laying’; Darling Clementine's 'Candy Cane';
Tom Gauld's '4 calling birds' & Rob Ryan's G2 Christmas card.

2nd row: Jotto Seibold's 'Olive the other Reindeer'; Craig Ward's 'Season's Greetings'; Alison Carmichael's 'Baubles' & Christoph Neimann 'Let it Dough'.

3rd row: Yulia Brodskaya's bookcover for the 2009 Neiman Marcus 'The Christmas Book'; Kate Sutton's 'Robin'; Jessica Hische's '6 Geese are Laying' from her personal project & Frode Skaren's 'Opposites' Christmas card.

Have a great one everyone!

Scott Campbell - illustration exhibition in London, 4th March

There are a few things I miss about London, one of them being the cool illustration exhibitions. I'm sure that there are plenty in this creative hub of an apple, I mean I live right in the gallery district, but I'm talking the small intimate cool exhibitions. Anyways enough about me, let's talk about Scott Campbell.

Scott is a night owl (well I'm presuming he is) as he finds time to create these adorable illustrations as well as holding down a day job making video games! I'm certainly not the only one who likes his stuff as the London Miles Gallery are exhibiting his first European show in March and he'll be doing 2 comic workshops there on the 6th March (from 12.30pm - 4.00pm).


Scott C. (how he also likes to be known) is from San Francisco and now lives in NYC. A man of many talents: international comic book artist, painter, illustrator, and computer game designer...to name a few, will be showcasing over 100 of his watercolour paintings.

His style is light-hearted, often-humorous and his imperfect lines create supernatural creatures.

So go see the Scott Campbell solo exhibition: Everybody, all the Time, Thursday 4th March 2010 from 6pm @ The London Miles Gallery, 47 Mowlem Street (Off Vyner street) East London E2 9DR.

---//

P.S. Also happening in London is the Oliver Jeffers: In Conversation with Martin Salisbury exhibition with the AOI @ London College of Communication - 19th March 2010 at 2.30pm, Main Lecture Theatre, Elephant and Castle, SE1 6SB.

'This is a rare opportunity to hear the award winning children’s book author, illustrator, artist and New York resident Oliver Jeffers talk about his work and new book The Heart and the Bottle in conversation with children’s book expert Martin Salisbury. The event will comprise of a presentation by Oliver followed by a discussion of his work with Martin Salisbury then the floor will be opened for questions. Tickets will be limited so BOOK NOW.'

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.

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.

Monsters of a household variety

It's seems this month is all about monsters, maybe it's a reaction of Where the Wild Things Are.... But these monsters are different as they are hand sewn and in a gigantic book called Monsters of a Household Variety .

The book is a creation of British textile artist, illustrator and 2009 winner of the New Designers One Year On prize, Ruth Ashton. The book was commissioned by Anthropologie, to coincide with it's London flagship opening.

The pages are so intricately sewn and she uses interesting materials for each monster. Each spread is dedicated to the different monsters you might find in your own house like the smelly bin monster, the light bulb popper, the remote control remover, the hot water runner monster...each have their own mischievous stories. The book is enormous (25.5"H, 24.5"W, 3"D), I've included pictures from the Anthropologie site to show the size!

The 24 page book doesn't come cheap - a mear $1,200.00, but to be honest it is a limited-edition, soft cotton page, hand-embroidered book so if you can afford it then it's worth it's money. I will just have to keep popping into the NYC shop to get my dose!

Cliff Roberts

Cliff Roberts illustrations have cropped up on many design blogs of late and feeling left out I thought it was time to feature him here.

Roberts was a cartoonist and animator in the 1950s+, working for companies and clients such as Sesame Street, Playboy, Ford Times Magazine and The New Yorker. Later on in life he also worked as a photographer and had work featured in the 1964's World's Fair and also wrote, animated and directed popular Saturday morning cartoons such as Scooy-Doo, The Smurfs and The Pink Panther.

I really love this style, where everything is broken down to simple, basic forms and colour palettes. Even though the images are flat they are still so charming and American in aesthetic. Cliff was born in 1929, retired in 1993 and sadly died in 1999.

I haven't managed to find much information about Roberts, but I did find this gem from Todays Inspiration blogspot. It shows one of the newspaper comic strips that Roberts created in the 1970s for the Children's Television Workshop, Sesame Street, which was still fairly new then. For the strip, he created two characters called Jasper and Julius, a comedy duo.

Among my research I also discovered that he illustrated these beautiful and rare editioned books in 1955 and 1956: The First Book of Jazz by Langston Hughes and Thomas by Mary Harris.










Thanks to davidgeorgepearson at flickr.com for the The First Book of Jazz images and lemon.wonder at flickr.com for the Thomas images.

Maurice Sendak

Maurice Sendak's Where The Wild Things Are film is coming out tomorrow. The world's favourite book has had a 'wild' affect on everyone. I've seen no end of billboards, TV ads and even Urban Outfitters are getting in on the act. They have their own line of WTWTA toys, cushions, t-shirts, and other merchandise. As I also found out there is a Maurice Sendak exhibition on at the Animazing Gallery in Soho NYC, called 'Sendak in Soho: the artwork of Maurice Sendak'.



'Sendak in Soho' is the World's largest Sendak exhibition and sale of his original illustrations and etchings (they have over 200 of them). The exhibited work is a mix of conceptual illustrations and published work. It was a privilege to see the works in progress, tracings, early drafts, limited editions and etchings of one of the books I grew up with.

Those lucky enough to afford the artworks will be in for a treat, but it was out of my range especially as my favorite turned out to be $185,000...ouch. Some of the proceeds will benefit the Rosenbach Museum & Library and Jane Goodall Institute, an organization dedicated to the well-being of real-world wild things. This show coincides with the film release as well as the critically-acclaimed Sendak retrospectives at the Morgan Library & Museum in New York City and the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco. It's fitting that he has two exhibitions in his native NY (he was born in Brooklyn in 1928). You couldn't take photos inside, so here is what I could take:

"I never thought I'd sell this artwork. It holds a place in my heart almost too dear for me to part with it. But, as I age, I find myself letting go of things I never thought I would. Now, with the Wild Things movie about to be released, feels like the perfect time. Having worked with Nick and Heidi at Animazing Gallery in the past adds to my comfort in selling these pieces." - Maurice Sendak

This free exhibition runs from Oct 2 - Nov 8, 2009. In a few weeks time I will experience my first US Halloween, and I'm already betting that I will see many Max's or other characters from the book. We shall have to see!

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.