Karen Caldicott’s Nation Cover

Karen Caldicott’s cover for today’s issue of The Nation. Art director: Steve Brower
In a nod to Barry Blitt’s now infamous New Yorker cover from July, Karen Caldicott has created a Republican version for today’s issue of The Nation, featuring John McCain and Sarah Palin high-fiving astride a polar bear rug (you can see how she achieves her clay illustrations in an earlier CR blog post, here). The scene is, once again, the Oval Office, but Obama’s framed portrait of Bin Laden (it was a joke, remember) has been replaced by a copy of the Ten Commandments. While Blitt’s take was clearly ironic, depicting the right-wing smears that have circulated about Obama, Caldicott’s cover, scarily, doesn’t require nearly as much decoding.

Kyoorius Design Yatra Day1

CR is here in rainy Goa for India’s biggest gathering of designers, the Kyoorius Design Yatra. Today we found out what Tyler Brûlé’s Monocle was originally called, why elephants are like design and that monsoon is the most romantic time of the year…

Skyped Ya!

The next time an annoying client calls you on Skype or your boss wants to give you a remote telling off, SkypedYa can help

Diesel’s S&M Shop

London’s Soho may have a history of sauciness but this is the first time we can remember an actual building going for the S&M look…

Nagi Noda 1973-2008

Coca-Cola spot from 2006, dir. Nagi Noda
Some sad news to report but we’ve just been made aware that Japanese director and artist Nagi Noda has died. She was only 35. Noda was responsible for some amazing music videos and commercials and brought an eccentric and colourful approach to most of her projects. The circumstances surrounding her death remain unconfirmed but videostatic has posted a note from Partizan’s Daniell Hinde expressing his shock at the news. Click through for some examples of work from a very talented creative who will be much missed…

Posters of the Cold War

Supermen poster by Roman Cieslewicz, Paris, 1968 (used on the cover of
Posters of the Cold War by David Crowley)
To coincide with the forthcoming Cold War Modern show at the V&A museum in London, V&A Publishing are set to release a book of posters from the period later this month. Edited by David Crowley (co-curator of the exhibition) Posters of the Cold War includes a selection of posters produced between 1945 and 1970. In our next issue, Crowley examines the role of the World’s Fairs and Expos that enabled nations to pit their cultural capital against each other during the post-war years. As a taster, we’ve picked a few of the most interesting posters from his new book, alongside his detailed description of each…

One-Track Mind

“One of the most appealing things is the variety of shapes, colours and sizes they come in.” Rory
Feminists may initially shake their heads wearily at the premise for Tony Davidson’s new book One-Track Mind, which bears the subtitle “a revealing insight into the obsessed minds of men”, but should read on as it’s actually surprisingly amusing. The book contains photographs, taken all over the world, of objects that are reminiscent of breasts.

Roger Hiorns’ Seizure

Artist Roger Hiorns inside Seizure. All photographs by Nick Cobbing
Artangel, the arts organisation that has built a reputation for creating excellent exhibitions in unusual venues across London, is currently showing Seizure, a new artwork by Roger Hiorns, in a dilapidated social housing block near Elephant & Castle. The installation sees a bedsit in the block filled with resplendent blue crystals.

Was John Pasche Asked to Join the Rolling Stones?

After our post on John Pasche’s design and subsequent sale of the Rolling Stones logo (above), rumours began to circulate that Pasche had been offered a place in the band and even that the Stones had bought his house for him. We have the truth…

Cadbury’s remixed

Gorilla remixed to Total Eclipse of the Heart
Fallon’s enormously successful Cadbury’s ads return to our screens this evening with remixed soundtracks. Both Gorilla and Airport Trucks will play out in full length, taking up the whole of an ad break during the finale of Big Brother on Channel 4, at 10.30pm. The new version of Gorilla (shown above) is cut to Bonnie Tyler’s Total Eclipse of the Heart, while Airport Trucks will be set to Bon Jovi’s Living on a Prayer, which, rumour has it, was the ad agency’s original preferred soundtrack for the ad.
Both remixes have been overseen by Fallon’s creative director Juan Cabral, but they do smack slightly of Cadbury trying to ‘milk’ the success of the original spots. But we will let you make up your own minds… At present I can only find Gorilla on YouTube but will add Trucks if it appears.

CR Blog hosts new Cinematic Orchestra film

Still from To Build A Home, a new film by Up The Resolution created for The Cinematic Orchestra’s forthcoming DVD, Ma Fleur
Here at CR, we get sent dozens of music promos every week. And most, to be perfectly honest, tend towards a predictable and frankly uninspiring formula as overstyled youths bounce around in a studio/street/park playing their instruments as a singer, usually lacking in charisma, good looks and sartorial elegance, mimes vocals to camera (yawn). Or worse, an aging, muscly popstar jumps around like she’s 21 wearing a leotard (for the love of all that is good in the world, make it stop, make it stop).
Refreshingly, a new video by Up The Resolution for Ninja Tune act, The Cinematic Orchestra – entitled To Build A Home – avoids clichéd music video formulas. Instead it combines beautiful cinematography with a talented cast of actors and an emotionally harrowing story line. The film is also unusual in that the soundtrack consists of two, rather than the usual one, track…
We’re delighted to announce that the CR blog is hosting, right here, right now, the very first screening of To Build A Home. Read on to view the film and to read a Q&A with director Andrew Griffin (UTR’s Griff) about the project…

Airside’s Alphabunnies

Here at CR, we love a good typeface. And, as it goes, we’re big fans of playboy bunnies. So imagine our delight when we spotted a new print available from the Airside Shop that craftily combines both type and bunny-girls (albeit bunny girls with rabbit heads – you know, ancient Egyptian godess style)…

1 … 1,324 1,325 1,326 1,327 1,328 1,329 1,330 1,331 1,332 … 1,408

More from CR

Image: Shutterstock

How to scale your design business

Growth is a dream for many businesses, but it comes with challenges. Daisy Crowder, brand and marketing director at design recruitment agency Craft, offers advice on how to navigate the change and keep staff on side

Runway finale of the Ganni SS24 fashion week show

Cultivating community with Ganni

The Danish luxury fashion label has spearheaded the characterful evolution of Scandi style. Here, chief brand officer Priya Matadeen discusses its approach to collabs, the pressures of being a responsible brand, and how Ganni Girls grew from a hashtag to a badge of belonging

Guinness brand profile

How Guinness embraced social

By loosening its approach to advertising, and engaging with its audience directly, the drinks brand has transformed with the times and won a whole new set of fans

Lego Fortnite

How Lego creates meaningful brand experiences

We speak to Lego’s VP of global brand development Alero Akuya about the brand’s rare ability to straddle the physical and virtual worlds with ease – whether through its immersive new art exhibition in Paris or collaborations with Epic Games and Nike