I’ll be teaching a couple of new classes at the Create Place in East London. Have a look if you’re interested in learning hardcover bookbinding or book hollowing.
Fashion designer Vivienne Westwood spoke outside of St. Paul’s Cathedral yesterday in support of the Occupy Movement. A seemingly unlikely supporter of the Movement, Westwood commended the protesters on their efforts and discussed her concerns for climate change. She then urged everyone to take a greater interest in art. She said “an art lover is a freedom fighter – a freedom fighter for a better world.” Watch her here:
I imagine that the title of this post has already put some people off.
Recent attempts to engage in conversions about data visualization have largely been met with snickers and eye rolls that quickly curtail any discussion of the topic. I understand why; most data visualization is insufferably boring. The typical bar graphs and pie charts do little to engage the viewer with the data they are trying to represent. There are, however, exceptions to the typical tedium of visual representations of information, such as David McCandless’ work.
A London-based writer and designer, David McCandless creates witty, appealing, and informative visualizations by combining exceptional design with intriguing data. Expressing the zeitgeist of the Occupy Wall Street Movement, one of McCandless’ recent visualizations ranks countries in terms of pay inequity while highlighting The United States as one of the more imbalanced nations. (Click the following image twice to enlarge)
Stripping data of extraneous text and expressing it aesthetically enables McCandless to communicate information with an immediacy and impact that isn’t easily achieved with an Excel spreadsheet or bland bar graph. Here are some more examples of his work:
Putting the debt crisis in perspective, McCandless channelled the classic video game Tetris in his first animation entitled Debtris. There is also an American version of Debtris.
McCandless is also the author of two books, Information is Beautiful and The Visual Miscellaneum. His work has appeared in numerous publications including Wired and The Guardian.
Watch a TED presentation about his work and see more on his personal website.
Album art is, to an extent, lost on the dominant music formats of today. While the packaging of CDs and MP3s is by no means void of excellent design and creativity, the small and digital album covers don’t have the size or physical presence necessary for the die-cut gatefolds, ornate inner sleeves, or rotating volvelles of LPs. One band whose discography exemplifies the innovation and intricacy of design achievable only through the record format was Led Zeppelin. Amongst their nine studio albums Led Zeppelin III (1970) and Physical Graffiti (1975) are indeed the standouts as the most original.
As the name implies, Led Zeppelin III was the third album released by the band. Designed by Zacron, the album’s title is thinly outlined in black and written in a large bubble font on a white background. Decorating the cover both in and outside the font is an assortment of colourful psychedelic imagery including a set of teeth, butterflies, and aircraft. The most notable feature of this album is the die cut circles which expose a revolving set of images printed on a rotating disc placed within the front cover. The inclusion of this disc, known as a volvelle, transforms the cover from a static album package to a dynamic work of art.
The sixth of Led Zeppelin’s studio albums is Physical Graffiti. Designed by Peter Corriston, the double album features a photograph of a New York tenement block on the front cover. The building’s windows are die-cut to reveal the designs on the album’s inner sleeve. Depending on which side of the sleeve you place behind the windows, you can see various objects and people in the hotel windows including Robert Plant and Richard Cole, the band’s manager, in drag. Similarly to Led Zeppelin III, the changeable design on the cover of Physical Graffiti would be difficult, if not impossible, to achieve on the packaging of a CD or MP3.
Nat Tate’s Bridge No.114 is going under the hammer at Sotheby’s.
This particular item has a uniqueness that others in the auction lot don’t; the artwork is attributed to an artist that doesn’t exist and never has.
Nat Tate, whose name is a combination of the London-based institutions the National Gallery and Tate Britain, is a conception of William Boyd who authored the biography of this fictitious artist as well as creating the artwork said to be signed by him. Devised to dupe the New York glitterati, the ploy had some high profile co-conspirators, such as David Bowie, that convinced numerous journalists and art critics of the artist’s existence.
Published in 1998, Nat Tate An American Artist: 1928-1960, is a compelling biography detailing the artist’s life. Said to be acquaintances of Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, Nat Tate’s biography describes him as living a short and troubled life; one convincingly befitting of an artist. Tate committed suicide in his early thirties by jumping off the Staten Island Ferry in New York. His body was never recovered. In preparation for his death, Tate buried the vast majority of his work leaving only a precious few pieces of artwork behind.
Prior to publishing the biography of the fictitious artist, William Boyd methodically constructed Nat Tate’s past based on found photographs and self-made art which was to pass as the scant remains of the artist’s body of work. Boyd’s attention to detail contributed to the credibility of Nat Tate’s story and he even sought out a German publisher for the biography which would further lend it the illusion of a legitimate art monograph.
At the time of the biography’s publication, numerous media outfits covered the story of Nat Tate with an earnest belief in his life and work. Nat Tate has since been outed as a clever invention of William Boyd. Nevertheless, the mythology surrounding the work of this fictitious artist has contributed to its value. The value amount (in fiscal terms at least) will be determined upon its sale in the Sotheby’s auction.
Finnish sculptor Miina Äkkijyrkkä (b. 1949) builds massive sculptures of cows from salvaged car parts.
Spanning more than thirty years, Äkkijyrkkä’s art career began following studies in an unusual variety of subjects including equine studies, dairy farming, and fine arts.
Receiving a State Art Award in 2002, Finland’s former minister of culture, Kaarina Dromberg, described Äkkijyrkkä’s art as uncompromising. She has “managed to combine in her output elements often seen as contradictory, such as agriculture and “high” culture, the visual arts and cattle-raising, or performance art and the cherishing of traditions.”
More of Miina Äkkijyrkkä’s work can be seen on her website.
On a recent tour of the Archives and Special Collections at The London College of Communication I was introduced to the work of Tom Eckersley (1914-1997), teacher of poster arts and founder of the first graphic design program in Britain. His work is remarkably effective in its simplicity. Here are some examples of his work:
More of his posters can be seen here
The London College of Communication is also home to the Stanley Kubrick Archive. The archive’s extensive range of materials span Kubrick’s career from his beginnings as a photojournalist through to his last, unfinished movie project, “The Aryan Papers.” Included in the archive are thousands of photographs, props, fan mail (although some of the letters about “A Clockwork Orange” are so damning that the authors don’t really qualify as fans), costumes, personal notes, scripts, sound recordings, etc. One of the objects I found most impressive was the prop manuscript used in “The Shining.” The movie’s deranged main character, author Jack Torrance, fills nearly 500 pages with the single line “all work and no play make Jack a dull boy.”
Visits to the archive must be booked in advance. See their website for more information.
Brian Dettmer manipluates books to create wonderfully intricate sculptural objects. Have a look…
To see more of Brian’s work visit his website at http://briandettmer.com/
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