Blog Watch

One of my favourite designers, JP Williams of MW Design has started a blog to dcument what he describes as his 'manic collecting' at Amassblog. His collections are varied but generally have to do with typography or design. With the blog he is endeavoring to find what’s special in the mundane and highlight what makes it so to him. Having visited JP on a couple of occassions at his New York studio, and been fortunate enough to look through some of his amazing collection, I'm looking forward to reading about it in his own words, and would urge anyone who has an interest in the history of graphic design to pay a visit. JP is also one of the most impeccable graphic designers you will come across and a visit to his studio MW's website is also well worth your time. You can read the interview I did with
JP Williams at his studio in 2007 here.

Judging Albums By Their Covers 14

Radio Retaliation: Thievery Corporation

I confess that when it comes to buying music that sometimes I spend more time looking at the package than I do listening to the actual album. Mark me guilty as charged when it comes to the Thievery Corporation. The Washington DC duo have been serving up their particular style of 'polite grooves' for a number of years - inoffensive, perfectly produced sounds with all the rough edges sanded off, to burble away in the background. So what makes me keep returning to pick up their albums again and again? Nothing less than the fantastic album packaging they keep delivering with their releases from the brilliant talents of Neal Ashby. Radio Retaliation is no exception, and surprisingly, these time around, the Thievery Corporation also deliver something musically with a bit more bite.

I'm always on the look out for some handsome and different looking ways of presenting album covers. Not so much in those 'special edition' packaging sets for die-hard fans, but just your general consumer release. Radio Retaliation really stood out to me when I first saw it on the shelves at Borders - and it taps into what I think may be the future of physical album packaging. The CD is packaged in a jewel case or digipak. It comes bound in a cardboard folder - real industrial stength cardboard box cardboard. Folded within this is a giant sized poster designed with a really nice 'cut and paste aesthetic on recycled stock, that contains all the lyrics and details. The CD is nestled within this, no foam nub to hold it or anything - outside of the actual CD it's all paper, no plastic whatsoever. Plus, it has a ninja on the cover and everybody loves ninjas.

The package aesthetic all relates perfectly to the (subtle) political messages that The Thievery Corporation are delivering on the album, a swirling world music mixture that leaves you mostly unaware of the social contexts upon a first casual listen. A plethora of world music greats guest on the album including daughter of sitar master Ravi Shankar, and sitar virtuoso in her own right Anoushka Shankar, as well as Nigerian afro-beat star Femi Kuti, respected Brazilian vocalist Seu Jorge, Slovakian singer and violinist Jana Andevska, and DC-based "Godfather of Go-Go" Chuck Brown. There's a reason for the prominence of these artists, mostly of 'Third World' heritage. The mission statement seems to be to deliver humanitarian and politcal messages through these global voices, emphasised beautifully by the packaging as a direct response to the often vapid irepetitive pop music so often delivered over the airwaves, Radio Retaliation indeed

KSDesign

Nice to see that local design company KSDesign have had a much needed update to their website. The revamp includes lots of new work on show as well, including a superlative array of their wine label designs. KS (IKDesign) is one of Adelaide's longest running and most respected design comapnies, and virtually wrote the book on Australian wine label design, definitely worth your time to take a browse through their portfolio.

AGDA Awards Show in New York

I've just gotten back from a trip to New York and apart from my usual drop-in to see designers of note, the city was also hosting an exhibition of the 2008 Australian Graphic Design Awards at the AIGA headquarters. I've made a flickr set of the exhibition that you can view here. They were taken after a long hike down Broadway to reach the building on a particular snowy morning. Please forgive also the less than sterling photography, the interior was less than perfect for photography and I was trying to get as many shots off as I could before getting in trouble over the AIGAs 'no photography' policy! :) Obviously, all work is © of the respective creators. It's a pity that the AIGA chose to hold the exhibition at the same time as their own annual design show, (pictures of which I'll post shortly). The AIGA show was in the main area downstairs while the AGDA show was relegated to the upstairs mezzanine area - I saw quite a few people come in and peruse the AIGA show but few (if any) venture upstairs to look at the AGDA show, even though the work therein outweighed a lot of the AIGA pieces in creativity and quality (in this humble authors opinion!) Some good signage directing people to what was upstairs would have been a start!

Designers Who Are Better Than Me 16

Adelaide Design Group and winners of design awards a' plenty, Mash, have finally put up some of their fantastic work for us to look at. From the site they describe themselves thus:

"Take a few well-chosen brand creators, designers, simplifiers and solutionists; with a passion for what we do (by definition a Branding Agency). Put in the awkward position of having to define ourselves, and feeling a little like we are putting an ad in the singles column, Mash is an agency that creates truly memorable work without the ridiculous theories and processes. We cater specially to clients who truly want to build their brand with creativity and originality.

Mash was founded in 2002 Adelaide, Australia by Dom Roberts & James Brown. This seems a lifetime ago now, and since 2002 Mash has done some growing up, working in many facets of branding, design, visual identity, web design, photography, art direction and copywriting.

Mash also thrives on collaborating with like-minded creative individuals and bodies to construct, present and represent all that is visual. Mash has developed a circle of photographers, copy writers, illustrators and stylists, which means Mash can develop specific teams to handle a variety of projects."

Being an Adelaide design firm, there's lots of nice wine work, but also some excellent identity pieces and their great 'Wolf and Cub' album cover to peruse.

Friendly Fires: Skeleton Boy

It's amazing what you can do with some double sided tape and billions of Styrofoam balls as this amazing monochrome film clip demonstrates!

Designers Who Are Better Than Me 15

University of South Australia Alumni Jeremy Matthews is VP of Graphic Design at Product, Interaction and Brand Agency Ammunition Group in San Francisco. Jeremy Graduated a year below me and is married to designer Mia Daminato (who was in my year at University).

Jeremy has over a decade of experience in brand and identity design. Prior to joining Ammunition, Jeremy was Design Director at MetaDesign, San Francisco. At MetaDesign, Jeremy was responsible for creating identity and communications for clients as diverse as Kohler, Johnson & Johnson, MTV and Shangri-la Hotels. Prior to MetaDesign, Jeremy founded Mia&Jem with his wife. Specializing in identity design for the hospitality industry, they designed and implemented award-winning identities for several prestigious restaurants in Australia, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur.

Jeremy’s work has been widely published in North America, Spain, Germany, Asia and Australia. In 2008 his work was included in the “Sex in Design/Design in Sex” exhibition at the MOS in New York, alongside the work of famed designers such as Karim Rashid, Kiki de Montparnass and Pentagram.

Needless to say, the work on The Ammunition Group site is mouth-wateringly brilliant, done for some top name clients and worth a lazy browse through.