Helga Steppan: Be long a part

This evening, photographer Helga Steppan will be giving a talk about the work that forms her “Be long a part” exhibition, currently on show at Man&Eve gallery in London (7.30pm). As well as installation and moving image work, Steppan is also exhibiting these fanstastic images of her personal belongings that she grouped by colour.

Putting the grim in Grimsby

How Not to Entice Prospective Students lesson #1
By a lovely quirk of type-size and perspective, this recruitment poster for Grimsby College remarkably achieves the complete opposite of what it originally set out to do. Perhaps the previous year group were just really really obnoxious? Nevertheless, it’s always a risky word to use when there’s a possibility that there might be something in the way of your poster.

The Wall Piano

As we traipse around the summer’s degree shows on the hunt for the hottest, brightest, tastiest new talent, some projects just leap out and slap us about the head with their all-round neatness. Like this: a little bit of tech-trickery that turns an ordinary wall into, you guessed it, a piano.

Find Your Own Angle: Gemma Shiel

Win a Canon EOS 60D camera and lens kit worth £849.95 in our reader competition. All you have to do is submit images that you feel fit the campaign theme Find Your Own Angle to our Flickr page…

Readers’ competition: Find Your Own Angle

Win a Canon EOS 60D camera and lens kit worth £849.95 in our reader competition. All you have to do is submit images that you feel fit the campaign theme Find Your Own Angle to our Flickr page…

Find Your Own Angle: Damien Poulain

Win a Canon EOS 60D camera and lens kit worth £849.95 in our reader competition. All you have to do is submit images that you feel fit the campaign theme Find Your Own Angle to our Flickr page…

For the love of Hirst

For the Love of God, 2007
The power of the artist-as-celebrity is currently in full effect at White Cube gallery’s Mason’s Yard branch, where Damien Hirst’s latest exhibition is nearing the end of its run. Hirst’s influence is such that the exhibition is spread over both of White Cube’s spaces simulatenously (the other being in Hoxton Square) and they are packed full with the usual Hirst-y imagery of birth, death and religion – a series of photo-realist paintings of the birth of Hirst’s youngest son Cyrus by Caesarean section adorn the walls in the upstairs gallery at Mason’s Yard, while the downstairs space has a dissected shark, cow and a sheep frolicking in formaldehyde.

Build’s Get Involved poster, returned

Karl Escritt’s poster
When Build designed a poster for monthly musical shindig Get Involved that invited people to quite literally get involved – with the poster – he probably never expected he’d get to see the results of other peoples’ involvement. However, thanks to the combined power of blog post + myspace bulletin, dozens of you requested the “blank” file in order to get stuck in. Here are the 40+ posters that have been returned to us so far. Please be patient as it will take a little while for the full post to arrive on your screen. And get your scrolling finger warmed up…

The Rise of the Twee

McEwans Lager ad featuring You’ve Got the Power by Win (agency: Collett Dickenson Pearce, 1986)
As an adult, it’s rare to be frightened by an advert. But back in the mid-80s, I remember one TV ad scaring the living shit out of me (shown above). I can recall everything about it: the zombie-like characters, the concept of pushing giant balls up neverending steps and the stirring music that seemed to suit the desolate tone perfectly. It was immersive, gripping and (for me) pretty pant-soiling stuff. But ads don’t employ this aesthetic anymore: they don’t want to scare you. In fact they do the complete opposite – they’re frequently soft, fluffy, handmade-looking things for products that just want to be your friend. And invariably, the choice of music or soundtrack follows suit: arpeggiated acoustic guitar? Check. Softly spoken, whimsical vocals? Check. These are prerequisites in advertising’s obsession with the sound of twee.

Screen Star

I’m a bit of a sucker for a nice bit of screen-printing, which is why, of all the work on show at last week’s D&AD New Blood student showcase, Nicholas Saunders’ really caught my eye.

D&AD Student winners

Above is Student of the Year (from University College for the Creative Arts at Farnham) Scott Evans’ extensively researched music video The Clock – which details the detrimental footprint of everything he does, looking at fuel emissions, laptop manufacturing processes and more, much more…
Last week D&AD announced the winners of this year’s student awards. We’ve made a selection of work that took first prizes below…