There’s a very nice write-up of my Smiths album prints on the website camp-dot.com here.
It’s in Italian, so thank goodness for Google Translate.
Thursday, 28 March 2013
Tuesday, 26 March 2013
Markus Löw
Even though it’s for something yucky, the clarity and simplicity of this design is superb.
Monday, 25 March 2013
Saturday, 16 March 2013
How My Artwork Got To Be On HBO's 'Girls'
It’s May 2012 and one afternoon an email arrived in my inbox. ‘Hello’, it began, ‘I’m writing from the Art Department of an HBO show called ‘Girls’. We’d love to buy and use your Oscar Wilde print on one of our sets.’
This was pretty amazing. I’d not seen the show (I was sans satellite TV) but I knew it was a critical and audience hit, so I was completely excited to be involved (I soon got to see series 1 and loved it, and now I’m watching series 2 and ditto, but moreso).
Things move fast in TV production and everything has to happen right away (I know, I work as a writer in TV), and by the time the nice person at HBO had arranged for me to use their FedEx account it was too late - Friday afternoon, and they were recording on Wednesday. So I sorted out a secure way for them to receive an enlarged version digitally, sent it over, they printed it and framed it and pow - there it is, above, on set in the opening minutes of series 2 episode 1 (production designer Matt Munn explains here that ‘It feels like the type of Oscar Wilde poster that would be on a wall in Williamsburg’ - so kudos to me for being on the hipster wavelength I guess…).
Hannah (spoiler alert) split up with Sandy in episode 2, so it was bye-bye to Oscar & Morrissey, but just seeing the print there on the set of ‘Girls’ has kind of completely made my year. So thanks to everyone at HBO who I dealt with, you were great.
Friday, 15 March 2013
My palette in the middle of painting someone’s portrait.
My palette in the middle of painting someone’s portrait.
Thursday, 14 March 2013
Wednesday, 13 March 2013
William Turnbull (again)
The BBC4 programme about William Turnbull last night was rather good:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/mobile/iplayer/episode/b01r3nw7
Things we learned:
1. Giacometti lived in three sheds, even though he was loaded.
2. Picasso was a pain in the arse.
3. Ditto Max Ernst.
Essential television gives you this level of vital information, you see.
Tuesday, 12 March 2013
Brain, meet page
Thinking through layout ideas for some new posters. Always involves thinking through layout ideas from old posters. The trick is knowing what to keep, what to throw away, and what wrap up in a parcel and send to yourself in 5 years time.
Edward Bawden
Edward Bawden’s illustrations are so ‘New Elizabethan’ (was it Ronald Searle who coined that term for the 1950s? I’m not sure). It’s hearteningly ‘Merrie Olde England(e)’. Here are some labels for beer bottles he designed in 1952. All very resonant (especially the one on the left, I think).
Monday, 11 March 2013
Tschichold
I love these labels Jan Tschichold designed for Roche in the 1960s. So quiet. So distractingly boring
BBC Television Centre
Where I have spent many a nervous hour, plus an equal number of bored ones. And eaten some truly shocking sandwiches. It is/was a wonderful place.
Ken Garland by Unit Editions
The other week I bought Unit Editions’ new monograph on the graphic designer Ken Garland. It’s a fantastic little book - nice proportions, decent essay, lots of photos of the work and some really great ones of Garland’s studio. If you’re into the Swiss International Style turned into something warm, neat and humanistic, this is the book for you.
Existentialist Rehearsals
Rehearsing the text for my Simone De Beauvoir print. Sometimesss a convincing S iss very evasssive.
Max Huber
I love Max Huber’s work because I can’t quite get a hold on it. Maybe because it’s like a dream of 1960s Italian retail advertising as well as being the actual thing. It’s so idealised and perfect and chic that it often seems like was designed for a film or TV set rather than the real world.
Décollage
For some reason I always thought the advertising-hoardings-in-the-round that they put up round the BFI IMAX cinema near Waterloo Station in London were done on fabric. How wrong I was. It turns out they’re done same way most adverts are - lots and lots (and lots) of adhesive-backed printed paper sheets. They’re currently re-posting (some godawful cheap-looking Samsung phone ad is going up), leaving the place looking rather wonderfully like something Raymond Hains would have done if anyone had let him.
The Smiths
I’ve touched on The Smiths’ literary allusions before in my Oscar Wilde print, but recently I’ve been listening to them a lot again (long-time fan, you see) and wondering how I could make a decent print equivalent of their well-read, bleakly nostalgic pop. Surveying a pile of recent vintage Penguin Book purchases, the idea suddenly struck me - what if Morrissey and Johnny Marr had been full-time novelists, and instead of releasing albums they wrote a series of connected novels? ‘Consider x as a form of y’ is one of my favourite mental exercises (and was done so well byAlfred Jarry and JG Ballard, amongst others), so I set to work.
The result is a set of four prints, one for each of the four main studio albums The Smiths released from 1984-7. Morrissey’s titles sit so well with the worn spines of these books. Here’s their debut album ‘The Smiths’:
Then, ‘Meat Is Murder’:
Next, their masterpiece, ‘The Queen Is Dead’:
And finally, ‘Strangeways, Here We Come’:
Click on the images above to go to my shop, where the prints are now available.
London Transport Museum (again)
I wet back to the London Transport Museum again this week because… well, because I could. The great thing about the £13 entrance fee, which seems rather steep for a one-time visit, is that your ticket is valid for the entire year. So you can come and go as many times as you please.
For someone as fascinated as I am by ‘pre-decimal’ Britain the place is an absolute treasure trove. There’s example after awe-inspiring example of integrated design, of functional and beautiful design for a purpose. Take these tiny pamphlets - on a variety of subjects, over a number of decades and by many different designers. They’re just wonderful.
For someone as fascinated as I am by ‘pre-decimal’ Britain the place is an absolute treasure trove. There’s example after awe-inspiring example of integrated design, of functional and beautiful design for a purpose. Take these tiny pamphlets - on a variety of subjects, over a number of decades and by many different designers. They’re just wonderful.
Book And Kitchen
Pleased to hear that Book And Kitchen, a new bookshop and café in Ladbroke Grove, is now open. As well as a wide selection of books and refreshments in very pleasant surroundings they also have a display of a selection of my prints (which are on sale in the shop). If you’re in the area, or even if you’re not, pop by and support a new independent bookstore - goodness knows we need as many independents as we can get.
They’re at 31 All Saints Road, London W11 1HE. Closest Underground stations are Westbourne Park, Ladbroke Grove and Notting Hill Gate. Here’s a map:
View Larger Map
They’re at 31 All Saints Road, London W11 1HE. Closest Underground stations are Westbourne Park, Ladbroke Grove and Notting Hill Gate. Here’s a map:
View Larger Map
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