The door of 7 Meard St, London W1
Regular readers will remember that we gave away a sticker made by Peter Saville in our February issue. The sticker was inspired by a sign that Saville had spotted on a door in London’s Soho.
Yesterday, we had a call from the owner of that door, artist and latter-day dandy of some notoriety, Sebastian Horsley…
Illustrated CD pack for Efterklang’s Under Giant Trees album by Nan Na Hvass
As mentioned last week, we’ve been sent a raft of stunning record sleeves and CD packs so far this year. Here is this week’s selection…
Remember the time when money really could wear a hole in your pocket? The original 50p piece (above), weighed in at the best part of 14 grams and was bigger than the UK’s current two pound coin. In comparison, today’s 50p coins – at a mere 8 grams – feel decidedly flimsy.
One thing they do have over their predecessor, however, is their function as a design canvas. Over the last 15 years, the Royal Mint has been using the back of the 50p as the site for a surprising variety of commemorative illustrations, all of which are gathered together here…
Still from The Lotus Eaters, 2001-07, all images courtesy Timothy Taylor Gallery; © Marcel Dzama
Marcel Dzama has gained deserved fame for his imaginative drawings and watercolours which have been exhibited internationally and entered the mainstream consciousness with their appearance on the cover of Beck’s 2005 album Guero. Yet an exhibition of new works at the Timothy Taylor Gallery in London shows that his talents also stretch into other areas, including filmmaking.
Most computer magazines look like this.
Thanks to the good people at SpiekermannPartners, PC Professionell now looks like this:
Laser-etched skateboard by Alife
Traditionally, skateboard graphics are either screenprinted or applied using a dye-sublimination process. However, Sydney-based Refill magazine has commissioned a host of designers and illustrators (including Delta, Ben Drury, Genevieve Gauckler, Jim Phillips, Maharishi, Marc Atlan, Marok, Parra, Michael C Place, Mr Jago, Nick Night…) to create designs to be laser-etched onto skateboard decks: each design is created by cutting away the top layer of wood with a laser.
Detail of Alife’s deck
click READ MORE to see / find out more…
A C. Pegge and an L. Beltis clearly had intentions of leaving their mark on a winding staircase within St Paul’s cathedral in late eighteenth century
St Paul’s Cathedral, London: built by court architect Sir Christopher Wren between 1675 and 1710 after its predecessor was destroyed in the Great Fire of London. Hardly what you’d imagine to be a graffiti mecca. But, if you’re brave enough to climb the 500 or so steps to the Golden Gallery (the highest viewing point at the top of the dome) then a wealth of subversive scrawls and monogrammed tagging awaits you. And the best ones – by a country mile – are over 200 years old.
We’ve had the designer T-shirt and the designer vinyl toy. Now, get ready for the Designer Candle…
The Museum Für Gestaltung Zurich’s current show, This Side Up – Konstantin Grcic: Siebdruck, is promoted with this poster by Bonbon
Thanks to Tony Brook of Spin for alerting us to the wonders of the Museum Für Gestaltung Zurich’s rather cool poster subscription service.
Sign up for around £80 a year and, every other month, a lovely surprise will drop through your door – a 128 x 90.5 cm poster by a leading designer promoting the latest show at the Museum…
There suddenly seems to be loads of eye-catching record sleeves and CD packages pouring into Creative Review’s office. And hooray for that! THANK YOU to all those that send us stuff to look at (and listen to). Actually, there’s too many great sleeves to put in one post – SO have a look at these sleeves now, and we’ll post some more up next week. Favourites at the moment include the limited edition box that houses Fred Deakin’s triple CD, four hour mix extravaganza: The Triptych…
When you have a train-obsessed six (soon to be seven) year-old, your weekends can take you to some unlikely places. So it was that I spent yesterday at a depot in Acton, west London. But this was not just any old pre-fab shed in nondescript suburbia. This was The London Transport Museum Depot and I can recommend it almost as highly to anyone interested in design as I can to anyone with a child for whom the tube network is a source of endless wonder.
Charles Booth’s Descriptive Map of London Poverty, published in 1889, revealed that over a third of Londoners lived in poverty. It was colour-coded to indicate the levels of poverty and prosperity street by street. While the red colouring showed the habitat of the “well-to-do, middle class”, pale blue and dark blue revealed the areas inhabited by the “poor” and “very poor” respectively. Here, the black area in the centre (Bethnal Green) contained the “lowest class; vicious, semi-criminal.”
The British Library’s show, London: A Life in Maps, ends this weekend. If you haven’t been down (it’s free) we wholly recommend a trip over to Euston Road. The exhibition traces how the capital has been depicted since the earliest images of the walled City in the 1550s. On show are some of the earliest examples of wayfinding – the ancestry of the London A-Z if you like. While many of the cruder, hand drawn maps offer up a somewhat distorted vision of a growing city (often for political reasons), the large-scale, engraved depictions of the capital are astoundingly accurate and detailed.
One of the most respected and trusted awards for the advertising and design industries are back for 2025. Run, don’t walk to get your entries in before the Early Bird Deadline on 25 October
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
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
Brands are saying sorry at a more rapid rate than ever. CR’s advertising columnist Ben Kay delves into why sorry is no longer the hardest word and whether this is an effective strategy for winning audiences
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
Kelly Grovier’s new book charts the artist’s persistent dialogue with classic and contemporary art
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
The Pentagram partner has created the titles for the acclaimed new Netflix show, which reimagines the Greek myths in a contemporary setting
A new book from Reel Art Press collates the first comprehensive history of film posters. We explore why they remain an underappreciated area of cultural design
Mark Sinclair talks to the artist and designer about his new book, Lost Ordinary Magic, and the importance of recognising the power of simplicity and the everyday wonders that surround us
We explore how the 90s, an era the UK looks favourably upon for its thriving culture, are continually inspiring a stagnated creative industry
The band’s surreal new album visuals explore a darker, more grotesque side of romance. We speak to the creative team behind the campaign about challenging the visual tropes of rock music