grafik is a magazine about graphic design. edited monthly, there is a lot to see and read about two-dimensional design. grafik has a stand at the new designers and some illustrators at the stand who were drawing people. I present 2 of them. yes, they have drawn us – my friend derya inanici and me.

emily robertson
find her at plats, a creative community for artist

david sparshott
check him out

the original

I’ve been at the new designers, the british show of graduated design. there is a lot I want to show but one of my specials was the ‘take part’ typeface of edward nugent.

so, I am in london now. and this is the largest multi-arts centre in europe. people use to call it london’s ugliest building. but when the queen opened it in 1982 she pronounced it ‘one of the wonders of the modern world’. In the end the barbican is the microcosm of london.

library

the entry hall

barbican graphics

hall, -1

the 3rd floor

elevators

couch

the horses strike again. we’ve covered the wall inside the fine arts building with black plastic bags to arrange the exhibition as a whole. (now you have the link why I used plastic bags for the poster and the catalogue) 14 different artists are presenting their work, which is their graduation. it was a pleasure and sometimes a challenge to bring these people together but in the end we are proud that we had the chance to support them and to organize their last collective presentation at the academy maastricht.

2nd floor, ‘stuers’ (it’s how people call it) building

the luxe paarden in actie (‘luxury horses in action’)
office during the exhibition

jutta frenz
durchsicht, 00.02.00 min video, on the left side, 2007

ghita daemen
iso 7, installation, 2008

marie-claire krell
213,85 m3, installation (a fraction of the installation) 2008

I saw the ‘It’s always six o’clock’ couple days ago. now you will find a new exhibition at the mu eindhoven, museum for temporary art. but after recurrent conversations about the pros and cons of second life I feel the need to show the work of eva and franco mattes.

toys vs. avatars

tv kills mickey

‘hey fake hulk, let’s spatter some paint on the wall’

I never liked winnie pooh, he is too babyish

watch the pop culture clash or could I say generation now?
incl. an interview with the artists

video by
designguide.tv

me and my colleague and friend miriam hartwig, we both call ourselves ‘luxe paarden in actie’ while we are organising our idea of social happenings, sincerely invite to the graduation show of the fine arts students 2008 of the academy maastricht. more information about the exhibition will come soon.

cartoons are so instructive. first family guy made me a better person and now I recognized that peter mcgriffin‘s world even don’t let forget me about timeless design. what do we have here? yes, it’s an arne jacobsen egg chair. pure danish design in a toon.

wanna know more?

by pure chance I bumped on sunday into alexander pelikan at the exhibition in the designhuis. he invited me to a meeting of design 22+2. it is a dutch initiative consisting of 22 designers and 2 supervisors, ann maes and richard hutten. they are showing cross-over activities, surpassing the idle concept thinking that dutch design is known for, and conceiving functional and most original products, meant to have a longer life cycle.

alexander pelikan and christian kocx were presenting what they experienced in indonesia. both had the chance to spend 4 months in southeast asia to work and find out what possibilities for the manufacture of products and designs are given. dutch design in development is the organisation which enabled this experience for the 2 designers from eindhoven. the indonesian are craftspeople. handcrafting has been performed for centuries. designing and innovation is what they are missing because they never learned it. peli and christian have showed us some great pictures about how good these people are with their hands and that there are opportunities of manufacturing and producing – a designer’s land of plenty.

ann maes and angelique spaninks (director mu eindhoven)

presentation about indonesian manufacturer pekerti

christian kocx and ingrid van der wacht (project manager brainport)

bastian leijh, maurice mentjes, arnoud visser, ann maes, annelies hermsen, alexander pelikan, christian kocx

yesterday was the official opening of the exhibition ‘fiets’ in the designhuis eindhoven.

li edelkoort, art director designhuis and chairwoman design academy, making the opening speech

single part installation

rico souren – chair: it was a bike before

goof van beek – bycicle tire chair

thijs bouman – bike caravan

jeroen bruls and krijn christiaansen – fence air

bike seats

fabian von spreckelsen – woodtrapper

professionals

international design competition by muji. entry period 1st july – 31th july. the 3rd muji award. a lot of japanese winners in edition 1 and 2. but what about the europeans? can we strike a goal? muji present an innocent idea which happen to be an innovation. the sock dilemma. discovery of czech grandmothers.

‘By expanding our viewpoints, we currently offer “Found MUJI” products, which were developed by discovering the good points about merchandise that has been used over long periods of time, were created by humans, and were born out of daily needs.
Take Comfortable 90 degree socks (Ashinari Chokkaku Kutsushita) as an example.We “found” that socks hand-knitted by Czech grandmothers were characterized by a 90-degree shape, which perfectly fits your feet. We tried them on and felt that they fit comfortably on our heels. We then discovered that the shape of the machine-produced socks we usually wear doesn’t fit our feet owing to manufacturing reasons. So then we realized that we could provide many people with comfortable 90 degree socks produced by machine. In this way, a factor found in Czech tradition, culture, and wisdom was converted to a new MUJI product befitting our modern age’.

last years winner:

downsize the towel with “further options” from a bath towel to a bath mat, and then to a floor cloth and dust cloth (my mum use to make a wiping cloth from everthing)

there is something about nadav kander‘s photos what gives me a certain good feeling.

4 days in berlin.

where is this creativity gone to?

max (something went wrong with his hair), raymond (best man at the panorama bar) and mireille (the painter with the whiskey voice)

bell – interdisciplinary art magazine + an exhibition in a box

kreuzberg ‘plattenbau’ view

lass uns freunde bleiben (let’s stay friends) bar – choriner straße 12 (prenzlauer berg) you can even buy a cigarette for 20 cent, served in a glass

the ‘photoautomat‘ city (unfortunatly I am not allowed to show the pictures we took inside)

don’t read it, just look at the cover

making the band

berlin youth

clementine treu, brooch

coming to terms with the past

meet the people who are making the baas collection. a bunch of designers, freelancers, interns who gave me the feeling that they are in their own clubhouse. they are not going in for sports but for realising the work of maarten baas. about 12 people are working for him right now. and it’s not just about work, it’s also about creating a personal atmosphere. they eat, play and laugh together (I heard some good jokes while eating). In between I had the feeling that the sign in the kitchen (kleuterschool = kindergarden) has a point. solely because they seemed to be happy like I was in kindergarden and entertained myself with play dough to shape a house for my bunny family. (my mum is still speakig about this creative break through)

bas den herder and ‘peli’

alexander pelikan and the salmon

lunch for the pixies

erik vermeulen

erik and wieland vogel

the supervisor

the kindergarden sign

isn’t it obvious that they have fun?