Lovely to start the year with a feature in Computer Arts magazine. Thanks to Abi Bliss for the interview and Tony (the cat) for posing for the photo.

This was a really quick turn around poster job for the Vaccines berlin show. A pleasure to work with they wanted this turned around in 4 days! so i took on the challange. Designed, approved, printed and sent out in 2 days! phew.

These will be available in the store when it re-opens in the new year.

My work has often borrowed from the past and uses texture and distress to place it in past world. I havent ever really thought much about why i do this just that its always been an aesthetic choice that makes me feel comfortable with my work.

This week i went to the Grayson Perry: the Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman show at the british museum. I saw this piece of writing by Perry, near the end of the exhibit.it got me to a thinking.

“Wear, damage, dirt, repair, corrosion and decay are a large part of the language of autrhenticity. We give things that look old the benifit of the doubt. Age lends authority to an object. An aged arrogant inveigled, way in to the grand events of history. My work often borrows the shabby families clothes of the antique so as to lend gravitas to what it has to say. The look of age is also an important component of what we find beautiful.”

I was asked by Hazel Stark, to be part of a collection of very talented crafts people under the guise WORKSHOPPE. The store looks great and i am proud to have my posters amongst some pretty beautiful objects.

The store is open:

Wednesday 7th & Thursday 8th Dec, 1pm – 7.30pm
Friday 9th, 1pm – 9.00pm – evening party with drinks & music.
(9pm onwards, after party at MISTAKES)
Saturday 10th, 1pm – 7.30pm
Sunday 11th, 12 noon – 6pm
- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -
33-35 St John’s Square
Clerkenwell
London
EC1M 4DS

MAP

Being, as i am, a poster roast artist, i was asked to contribute to their collaboration project with the mighty Awesome Merch. SO i came up with this guy. It will be sent out to all orders from AM and available as a t shirt to buy from them.

This afternoon, Nic from Healthy Yummies gave me a shout to let me know the Logo and Lorry signage i designed for her some time ago had made its painty way on to her new catering truck named Theo.
There will be some decent professionally taken photos posted up here soon.

While at the aforementioned antiques market i discovered a series of books from the 1940′s called ‘Britain in pictures’. I was imediatly drawn in by the cover illustrations…

From Shelf appeal:

‘The Britain in Pictures series of books was published in the late 1930s and 1940s by Collins. It was edited by the then literary editor of the Spectator,Walter James Turner.

The overall aim of the series was to tell a social history of Britain, perhaps spurred on by the war and a subsequent re-appropriation of nationalism in all its forms. Although the series ran with the subtitle ‘The British People in Pictures’, the books were as much about writing as pictures. The roll call of authors reads like a veritable who’s-who of the literary, political and arts worlds of the period. From John Piper on British Romantic Artists, Cecil Beaton onEnglish Photographers and Edith Sitwell on English Women to Graham Greene on British Dramatists and John Betjeman on English Cities and Small Towns.

A uniformly designed set of over 100 books, they look great as a collection.’

After a little research i found that there are 132 in the series – listed HERE. I cant find many images online unfortunately, hense the rather awful ones here, but each has a wonderfully simple but delicate illustration on the cover. The type varies from title to title, but they all feel like a solid collection. I need to start this collection!!

There is nothing wrong with judging a book by its cover if the covers look like this.

This Morning i was up at 5 to head down to Sunbury for the antiques market. I found some lovely bits of type but could only sneak a few pretty poor quality shots when the stall owners weren’t looking.

Here is piece of work that didnt make the cut – A t shirt for the fantastic Trekstock - supporting young people with cancer, as part of their band collaberation series – this time with Wild beasts.
Im sure an incarnation of it will pop up at some point in the future.