the serif-text bandit strikes again...

Absolutely no idea who is behind all of this fantastic typographical decoration around Shoreditch, but I love it!

the monsters are upon us...

Scenes from the first round of nursery decoration...
Help sticking the vinyl up courtesy of Crina.
Artwork courtesy of Tado, Geneviève Gauckler and Rolito, by Domestic.

its a veritable variance of vegetables!

Scenes from the Children's Vegetable Display at the Lambeth County Fair in Brockwell Park, just up the road... The turtle got first prize...

Adam Neate doing it for the kids

Heres a great video of my mate Adam showing off his stuff on CBBC

I said V, I said A, I said V-A-N...

A brilliant piece of street art that suddenly appeared yesterday, caught on the way home form work last night...

Camberwell Illustration Grad Show - My Fave...

Has to be Hyu Se - a Korean girl.
Unfortunately the room was so dark its hard to see her work here, but it was a piece which covered the whole wall, consisting of drawings of her family, displayed as a family tree, complete with kinky and very personal comments...

glue Private View makes it into Computer Arts

Pity about the poor photograph! Where did my lips go? Thanks to Sam Gilbey for the opportunity to contribute to the article.

graffiti - malay style...

rampant optimism...

is displayed in this huge street mural outside the Wieden and Kennedy offices in London... makes you feel great just to stroll past it...

Eulogies...

Thought I'd spare a few lines for two of my favourite old men, who have both died recently...
KURT VONNEGUT - died at 84 this week

Master of the time-travelling, fantasy, Sci-Fi universe (and the salacious Sci-Fi paperback under his pseudonym of Kilgore Trout), and author of the most compelling book about the bombing of Dresden - Slaughterhouse 5.

He was prolific, filthy, and a true post-linear thinker...

(Here he is, talking about when he tells his wife he's going out to buy an envelope - thanks to Melody for the quote)

"Oh, she says well, you're not a poor man. You know, why don't you go online and buy a hundred envelopes and put them in the closet? And so I pretend not to hear her. And go out to get an envelope because I'm going to have a hell of a good time in the process of buying one envelope. I meet a lot of people. And, see some great looking babes. And a fire engine goes by. And I give them the thumbs up. And, I ask a woman what kind of dog that is.
And, and I don't know. The moral of the story is, is we're here on Earth to fart around. And, of course, the computers will do us out of that. And, what the computer people don't realize, or they don't care, is we're dancing animals. You know, we love to move around. And, we're not supposed to dance at all anymore."

JEAN BAUDRILLARD - died at 77 a few weeks ago

I remember going to see him speak many years ago at Sydney University, with all the excitement of a long-awaited performance by a rockstar... Tickets were like golddust... I'm sure the irony wouldn't have been lost on him... I remember Pierre Stokx asking him a very provocative question about whether he really was a visionary, or just full of shit... He was more offended that I'd expected and I was vaguely disappointed that he hadn't come back with a poignant remark.

Here is a cutting from the obituary section in the local morning paper...

"Jean Baudrillard, who died in Paris aged 77 this week, was a marvellously batty theorist of the kind the French do well. His big idea, argued in a book called Simulacra and Simulation, was that what is real doesn't exist, compared with the "hyperreality" offered by the media, particularly TV.
To express that belief, he adorned his flat with 50 sets.
In 1991, he claimed "the Gulf War did not take place" and had merely been symbolic. Nevertheless Baudrillard's verbose perversity is sometimes very funny, like a latter-day Oscar Wilde. In 1998, he published a book about America which is a classic of culture clash. He was fascinated not only by such sights as joggers and people eating alone, but the "orgasmic elasticity" of American carpets. How sad that he has - really - died."

See you later Monsieur B xx

Reichstag...

Parliament's collection in the Reichstag is absolutely mindblowing... Jenny Holzer, Anselm Keifer and more... Here are some examples of the work - the greatest of which is the building itself, as transformed by Norman Foster for the opening in the late 90s.

Standing solitary, this is an original piece of the old tunnel connecting the Reichstag with the buildings next door - there is a conspiracy theory (with quite a lot of weight) that Göring went through the tunnel to set fire to the building in 1933, blaming the Communists and leaving the way open for a Nazi political victory a couple of days later.

hello to sean and claire!!

Berlinertastic!!! Met up with Sean and Claire in Berlin, where they took me to a huge dancehall come pizza parlour/bar... It was swing night and we were surrounded by about 60 people in a sweaty dancing frenzy: from 18 to 80 everyone was cutting their moves on the dancefloor... They sold an artwork of there's a few days later and took me out for brunch at Gorki Park - an amazing Russian Cafe... read all about it here and here.

everything's gone all rabbits

A fantastic collection of rabbits... a great painting done by an American artist (details forthcoming) and a pair of stuffed rabbit toys from the Melbourne artist Beck Wheeler, who I already own a painting by... check out the work and toys for sale through her site!

losing laura jordan - my exhibition piece

Here are some images of the work I put in the show.
The brief was to produce a piece of work that described your journey to London - be it your bus ride into work, or your emotional/physical/metaphysical journey up to this point, where you find yourself in London. Mum - I'll send you the brief later because I know you'll want to read it! I set the brief for the agency without thinking about what I was going to cover first, and I had a thousand different ideas... but pretty soon formulated that:

1. I wanted to document the possessions of mine that had made it with me on my travels so far (esp. as I'm such a hoarder)
2. I wanted to do something using the book "Laura Jordan" that I've had in my possession for about the last 12 years - its a really bad 80's soft porn... so bad in fact that its been discontinued!

My initial idea was that I could create a new persona for myself by juxtaposing the objects (a lot of which are things like my vast collection of dog collars...) with pieces of text from the novel.

In fact, it ended up (as the title suggests) by being more of an ode to the things in my life that i've left behind, or have transmuted into something else (such as my maiden name) - and to essential parts of myself that I will always hold close to my heart though they don't remain part of my everyday existence anymore.

It actually became quite personal, and I was sad in a way to give a voice to the feeling of leaving my trail behind me, which was gradually becoming longer and quieter through time as I move ahead.

The texts that were highlighted on the wall behind were the most (BADLY WRITTEN!!!) pornographic bits I could find in the novel - a juxtaposition of the nostalgia, preciousness and personal sadness the objects bring... They sat on a background of nasty wallpaper - the kind you might find in a rented apartment - to bring everything back into the realm of the personal and historical again.

All in all, kinda successful I thought, for something that was put together through the pressure of work/morning sickness/baby thoughts and exhaustion!

Here is a picture of the installation itself:

Close-up of the objects (and Bish, one of the glue Producers):

glue private view - photos from the show...

Here are some photos from the glue Private View, the exhibition of artworks by staff that Emma and I organise at work every year. This year we had over 300 people at the event: staff, clients, family and friends. Even though I couldn't drink my way through the cocktail list like usual, I had a brilliant time... Big thanks go to Lina from Lime Events for helping us with the event co-ordination... and canapes!!!
We've not only been at different times clients for one another (I designed a site and print work for her about 3 or 4 years ago) but have also become great friends... Check out her company website - and book her for your next London event!!!
Big thanks also to our glue Designer Leal Bao, who took the great photos below. Check out his site at: http://luvpixel.net/.