Movie Title Montage

A Brief History of Title Design from Ian Albinson on Vimeo.

Just came across form a great site dedicated to Film titles called Art of the Title. I love a great title sequence so this site is a real treat, give them a click here, go on it's Friday!

And the winner is…

Ahhh!! only 10 days to go to the most glitzy night in the movie calendar and this year it seems like a bumper crop of contenders vying for the top prize. I know this isn't a movie blog but I thought I'd take a look at the identity end of the market and see which of the contenders for 'Best Picture' has put forward the 'Best Poster'.

If your like me, a visit to your local cinema means perusing the posters for coming attractions while your waiting for the previous sitting to leave and these are usually pretty underwhelming. The tried and tested formula goes like this: a big picture of the star (preferably with a gun or weapon of some sort), their name at the top of the poster, a review quote as near the center of the poster as possible, the name of the film and a footer of credits, logos and other extraneous information taking up the lower part of the poster, just google 'film poster' and anything that has been release since 1980 fits pretty much to this template. So who are this years contenders and how do they measure up?

The nominees for the Oscar for Best Picture 2011 (in no particular order) are;
Black Swan
The Fighter 
Inception
The Kids Are All Right 
The King's Speech
127 Hours 
The Social Network 
Toy Story 3 
True Grit 
Winter's Bone

So 10 films in 10 days,  I might even run a little poll on the side, feel free to vote (in fact I implore you too!!) so we can see if the results on the night match up with the the result here! Stay tuned part one coming up soon.

A memory for faces?

I just finished reading this fascinating article on typefaces and memory. It seems that some recent research has found that San Serif fonts such as the ubiquitous Helvetica and Arial do not tax the brain due to their easy legibility, but other less legible fonts stimulate the brain into thinking that because of the extra effort needed the brain feels that this may be worth remembering and concentrates more.
I won't regurgitate the article in it's entirety but if you're interested I highly recommend reading it.

The spirit of Christmas past

The presents have been opened, the turkey is long gone, the batteries in the kids toys are going flat and now the Christmas tree is on the pavement. I have been taking some snaps of Christmas trees past that I have come across this past week.
It makes me a little sad to see the trees stripped of their baubles, tinsel and stars then dumped in the street, I know you can't keep them in the house for ever but maybe we can find a more magical way to see them off! All suggestions welcome, maybe a green Santa who collects them from the kids and takes them away for pulping?

Stuffed!

To Every Seed His Own Body © Polly Morgan

After the over indulgence of Christmas I'm sure this is how the majority of us are feeling! Our turkey has long shuffled off this mortal coil and has been reduced to soup and sandwiches but it could have so much more beautiful and different if it had fallen into the hands of Polly Morgan.

Polly Morgan is a British born artist who uses the medium of taxidermy to put across her interpretation of life, death and beauty. She is a fully qualified taxidermist but isn't interested in recreating animals in realistic life like poses or habitats, instead she has a more poetic approach sitting somewhere between the Victorian love of taxidermy that saw large dioramas of human events rendered with animals, (the most recognisable being 'The Kitten's Wedding') and the Romantic paintings of Joseph Wright.

Bird in an Air Pump, Joseph Wright of Derby

Kitten's Wedding 1898, Walter Potter

The first time I saw Polly Morgan's work I was struck by it's directness and strength, it immediately recalled my own growing up in the country and the everydayness of  death.

One piece entitled "Still Birth" transported me directly to an episode where my little sister accidentally killed my pet duckling. She was only about 2 or 3 years old at the time and decided to pick it up and pet it, unfortunately she held it by the neck while petting it, and didn't notice it dying then simply placed it back in the nest. It was there that I found it later that evening when I went to feed it. It lay there with it's neck limp, it's beak slightly open and it's head lying on a bump of straw.

Still Birth, 2010 © Polly Morgan

It's strange to have a piece of art talk to you that directly to the point where I can smell the warm dusty straw and feel the 'dead weight' of the duckling in my hand. If you're intrigued by Polly Morgan's work then click here to access her site. Also as a foot note all the animals used in her work died of natural causes.

© Polly Morgan

Pyric Victors, 2009 ©Polly Morgan

Black Fever and Blue Fever, 2010 © Polly Morgan

TED Talks: Dennis Dutton on Beauty

Dennis Dutton gave this fantastic speech on the universality of beauty, it's a condensed version of his book The Art Instinct: Beauty, Pleasure, and Human Evolution which I now need to track down after watching this.

Modern mix

There are probably those among you who are reading this that are too young to have experienced the true magic of putting together a compilation tape. The physicality never mind time spent choosing the perfect opening song. Should it be a quote from a film? Maybe something from a kids programme taped live from the TV. I remember a good compilation taking weeks of contemplation to find the 'perfect' next song to carry the mood of the tape, and that's with out mentioning making the cover!

I recently came across this video from IDEO who are playing about with a new way to inject a bit of the warmth and tactility of "Mix Tapes"back into digital music. I'm not sure it will ever go into production but I like the idea that we can take the convenience of digital music files and make them  more human and interactive.


c60 Redux from IDEO on Vimeo.

The nearest I have come to it so far is this USB cassette, which has all the fun of putting a playlist together and a bit of retro packaging that's customisable to boot.

The Fog

This morning was really foggy and it reminded me of some photos I took in London under similar conditions. Perfect weather for hot soup!

Type talk

Just came across this on FPO, a handy reference for all those discussions on typographical architecture. It was designed by Scott Boms, Grant Hutchinson and Luke Dorny for Ligature, Loop and Stem who produced this beautiful ampersand poster, printed on 280gsm Somerset Black Velvet stock in metallic silver and glossy transparent inks (stop drooling!) but it is unfortunately sold out so no Santa treats
this Christmas.

Antonio Rubino

Antionio Rubino, cover illustration 1909.

A little while back while doing some research on illustrators I came across the work of Antonio Rubino. I had never heard of him before but over the Halloween holiday I had a little time to do a bit of research on him and was amazed at his body of work.
Antonio Rubino was an Italian illustrator who was born in 1880. Having graduated in law he was bound for a life in the legal system but three poems that he wrote and illustrated changed the path of his career and saw him bound for Milan. There he worked illustrating music manuscripts and articles for journals but had bigger ideas about creating his own publication and in 1908 he co-founded Corriere dei Piccoli which if my Italian serves me it is still going strong.

One of Rubino's strips from Corriere dei Piccoli, 1911

Not only did he create beautiful character strips for Corriere dei Piccoli and countless elegant illustrations for ads but after the war he created Italy's first animation studio. In 1942 he released Nel paese dei ranocchi, followed by Crescendo rossiniano (1943) and finally L'arco dei sette colori (1955)

A child's block puzzle based on the animation  Nel paese dei ranocchi 1942

A piece of Nel paese dei ranocchi memorabilia

A still from Nel paese dei ranocchi

Rubino was obviously influenced by the Jugendstil and his illustrations have a beautiful sense of time and place that still look fresh today. What I love most is his innate understanding of space and balance, incorporating typography with image and producing magical worlds where peoples imaginations can dwell. The only publication of his that I have come across is this illustrated book by Santo Alligo which is on my Christmas list now!

Antionio Rubino, cover illustration

Antionio Rubino, cover illustration

Antionio Rubino, cover illustration

Antionio Rubino, cover illustration

Antionio Rubino, cover illustration

Antionio Rubino, cover illustration

 I also came across this child's bedroom decorated with Rubino's illustrations. The room is part of a collection in the Wolfsonian Museum, Genoa. It makes me want to get my paintbrushes out and create something magical for my two kids, I don't think I would be able to create something as magical as this though.

Rubino Bedroom. Image © Wolfsonian Museum, Genoa

A fantastic chair by Rubino. Image © Wolfsonian Museum, Genoa

N.Y.C.–New York Crochet!

© Nicole Gastonguay

After last weeks knitted item I have another posting from the world of wool. I came across the work of Nicole Gastonguay who is a New York based artist/illustrator who designs book covers to keep the wolves from the door! I first saw her work while flicking through Tangible and recently came across it this week while searching for 'TV Dinner' on the net and the resulting image of a not so happy piece of meatloaf made me smile, as did all here other creations when I visited her site. There was an old loved feel to the way that her creations had been photographed as well, as if they were demosration illustrations from an old crochet pattern book.  I could think of worse ways of ending the week than clicking over to her site and checking her work out! I just wonder what her book covers are like!

© Nicole Gastonguay

© Nicole Gastonguay

© Nicole Gastonguay

© Nicole Gastonguay

© Nicole Gastonguay

© Nicole Gastonguay

Lunar Landing

On my way to work today I walked past a house that was having a treatment carried out to its walls, the result of which was small patches of powder at the base of the wall. I just had to take my camera out and take a few shots. It felt like I was looking through a telescope and seeing the Sea of Tranquility.

Nifty Knits

Knitting is something I always wished that I could do. I remember being at secondary school and trying to knit squares that could then be stitched together to make a quilt to keep old ladies knees warm down at the local old folks home. After about an hour of frustration I completed my first row (with a few dropped stitches) but that was as far as I could get, the second row remained elusive and that signaled the end of my adventures in knitting! I wished that I had persevered and could incorporate it into my design.

I recently came across the work of American artist Robyn Love and that desire was rekindled. Robyn has used her knitting and crochet skills to make simple but striking statements, her recent typographic work called "Unconditional Yes' is bright, passionate and reaffirming and her 2008 project the knitted mile made me wince at the number of man hours needed to complete a project like that, it made me think of Carol Hummel's knitted "Tree Cosy" which when I first saw pictures of it I thought that it was a clever job in photoshop but no it was for real and made the tree look beautiful. The installation lasted for 3 years and she has gone on to create similar works across America and in India and has even made underpants for trees as well!

The Knitted Mile by Robyn Love

"Unconditional Yes" by Robyn Love

"Not Stained Not Pure" by Robyn Love

 Tree Cosy, Cleaveland Heights by Carol Hummel