Sunday, August 31, 2008

La Biennale di Venezia

Venice International Film Festival
65th Venice Film Festival - 27th August to 6th September, 2008
11 days of glitz and glamour, a high-profile media event among the most important in Italy and around the world, set on the Lido di Venezia. The international focus consists of, and gives equal emphasis to, the press, experts in the field, international “opinionmakers” and commentators, and the general public.

International Art Exhibition
53rd International Art Exhibition. The event will run June 7th to November 22nd, 2009.
In 2007, the event attracted almost 320,000 visitors in the Giardini and Arsenale venues, and 34,000 professionals in four vernissage days. A world-wide cultural event that attracts a varied international public throughout a 150-day exhibition period.

International Architecture Exhibition
11th International Architecture Exhibition. The exhibition is from September 14th to November 23rd, 2008
The only specialized exposition of its kind in the world, developed in the same spaces (Giardini and Arsenale) as the International Art Exhibition; in 10 editions it has become a point of reference for designers, architects, professionals and trend setters from the world of art, fashion and communication.

International Festivals of Dance, Music and Theatre
6th International Festival of Contemporary Dance - Beauty. From June 14th to 29th, 2008
Commonly bound by an elevated level of research and experimentation, the three festivals have taken their place on the international scene, looking to a young and curious audience, in tune with the most innovative and experimental cultural changes. The Dance and Music Festivals are co-produced by the Teatro La Fenice.


History of the Venice Biennale
1895 - 2008

The Venice Biennale has for over a century been one of the most prestigious cultural institutions in the world. Established in 1895, the Biennale has an attendance today of over 300,000 visitors at the Art Exhibition.

The history of the Venice Biennale dates back from 1895, when the first International Art Exhibition was organized. In the 1930s new festivals were born: Music, Cinema, and Theatre (the Venice Film Festival in 1932 was the first film festival ever organized). In 1980 the first Intl. Architecture Exhibition took place, and in 1999 Dance made its debut at the Venice Biennale.
Read more...

Monday, August 25, 2008

Christoph Niemann's illustrations

Christoph Niemann's illustrations have appeared on the covers of The New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, The New York Times Magazine and American Illustration. His work has won numerous awards from the American Institute of Graphic Arts, the Art Directors Club and American Illustration. He is the author of two children's books, "The Police Cloud" and the forthcoming "The Pet Dragon," which teaches Chinese characters to young readers. After 11 years in New York, he moved to Berlin with his wife, Lisa, and their sons, Arthur, Gustav and Fritz. His Web site is christophniemann.com.

Saturday, August 23, 2008

Arquitecture is a language

The phrases 'contemporary architects' and 'contemporary architecture' have obvious meanings but like 'modern architects' and 'modern architecture' the terminology is open to interpretation - shades of meaning.

Modern Architects
Modern Architecture became linked to a certain genre of building and thus over time wasn't really 'modern' anymore. Contemporary Architecture currently has less baggage, it is not affected by fall-out from the reign of a certain style.
Modern Architecture - the 'International Style' - was associated with some great architects and some powerful countries and companies. It became the equivalent of the Classical Style in the Georgian period, ie the establishment architecture, the status quo. Some key Modern Architects include Le Corbusier, Mies Van der Rohe, Walter Gropius and Frank Lloyd Wright.
Since the seventies architecture styles have become more fractured and we have - amongst what could be termed contemporary architects - post-modernists, neo-modernists, deconstructivists, contextualists, expressionists and so on.
‘Contemporary Architects' suggests a position that is anti-vernacular, comfortable with new materials and non-local materials & forms, using architectural language that is not generally steeped in past typographies or traditions.

Famous World Architects - Contemporary

Santiago Calatrava
David Chipperfield
Terry Farrell
Foster & Partners
Future Systems
Frank Gehry
Zaha Hadid
Michael Hopkins
Steven Holl
Toyo Ito
Henning Larsen
Daniel Libeskind
MVRDV
John McAslan
Rick Mather
Richard Meier
Enric Miralles
Rafael Moneo
Jean Nouvel
Cesar Pelli
Renzo Piano
Richard Rogers
Moshe Safdie
Alvaro Siza
Snohetta
Bernard Tschumi
Ruy Ohtake
Oscar Niemeyer

Friday, August 22, 2008

What is Subvertising?

Based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, Adbusters is a not-for-profit, reader-supported, 120,000-circulation magazine concerned about the erosion of our physical and cultural environments by commercial forces. Our work has been embraced by organizations like Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace, has been featured in hundreds of alternative and mainstream newspapers, magazines, and television and radio shows around the world.

Adbusters offers incisive philosophical articles as well as activist commentary from around the world addressing issues ranging from genetically modified foods to media concentration. In addition, our annual social marketing campaigns like Buy Nothing Day and TV Turnoff Week have made us an important activist networking group. Read more...

Subvertising

The word subvertising is a portmanteau of the words subvert and advertising. Thus, the primary goal of subvertisements, more commonly referred to as subverts, is often to sabotage political candidates and campaigns, corporations, and other targets.

Thursday, August 21, 2008

Art History Timelines - a pet project of Scott Zagar

To generate a timeline with image gallery, select as many categories as you want and click the "Generate Timelines" button below, or simply click on a category name. You can also get to the images by using the search engine and artist browse features to the right. This database contains 1640 images of 1303 works by 266 artists.

About Scott Zagar
Since 1997 I have worked as a software developer, graphic artist, web and sound designer and project manager. I have developed vertical portals, e-commerce solutions, search engine interfaces, database applications and large-scale web publishing systems. Read more...

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

the bird machine - screen print posters

the bird machine, inc., is a screen print poster workshop, owned and run by jay ryan, which is located very close to chicago.

jay learned to screenprint beginning in 1995, working under steve walters at screwball press. jay printed posters for his own band (dianogah), his friends' bands, and the clubs they played at. slowly, work from other clubs and other bands came in.

in 1999, jay started the bird machine print shop in the basement of his apartment building, and soon hired mat daly to help with the printing responsibilities. mat worked with jay until the end of 2007. Read more...

Coudal Partners, Films About Hand-Made Posters
The Beginning and End Are Up To You, is a mini-documentary about John Solimine who created the limited-edition poster for Field Tested Books 2008. For our first summer reading feature we asked Jay Ryan of The Bird Machine to design and hand-screen a limited run of posters. We visited Jay and Mat Daly at the Bird Machine Shop and we can tell you that the whole thing is refreshingly analog and deliciously slow.

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Design Matters - RememberTibet

RememberTibet.org is an initiative started by Jonathan Barnbrook and Pedro Inoue designed to engage people during (and after) the Beijing Olympics Games through art and design to help raise awarness of China's policies towards Tibet. I asked Barnbrook to explain his goals:

What is your long term plan?
Our long term plan is, in some small way, to add to the weight of opinion that will change the situation. It's important, though, to not see this as only a design project even though we are asking for creative pieces; it is these pieces that can be used as tools but without getting hung up on whether they are legitimate design or not.

Do you think this will make a difference?
We will never know. Things aren't as simple as someone putting up a poster and the world will change. But I do believe that things change because of people forcing an issue onto the agenda.

What is the inspiration for the animated sequences (shown below)?
The animation is the first part of the project. It is there to publicise the web site and encourage people to contribute their own work.The main point of doing this animation is to remind people very simply and clearly about this situation in a balanced way. That is why it is just two people [in the narration] discussing the situation; there is no heroic ranting and we are trying to tackle the grey areas that Chinese government constantly tries to bring to this argument. By Steven Heller

Monday, August 18, 2008

WHAT IS SAYSME TV?

SaysMeTV is a website that gives individuals the opportunity to use TV to make an enormous difference in their politics, in their local community... and beyond.

The business plan works like this: Saysme.tv offers a service over the Internet that streamlines the submission process for homemade television advertising and offers cheap slices of cable-TV time — perhaps as little as $6 for a 25-second spot, assuming you are O.K. with appearing on CNN Headline News sometime next week in parts of Charlotte, N.C., in the wee hours.
Published: August 18, 2008
Saysme.tv didn’t invent the loudmouth, but, as the company’s logo indicates, it sure hopes to sell him a megaphone.

Thursday, August 14, 2008

Student Ideas - James Widener





james widener // snuffhouse is print, illustration, type and web design. I have been doing mixed media since i started a video editing and a few art class's in middle school and haven't stopped since. Now i attend Full Sail university in Orlando Florida for a degree in digital media that originally i had the intention to just do web design but after a few refresher class's in photoshop and illustrator class's and meeting some of my favorite illustrators in the industry, i found something i really love to do in typography and print. Although sometimes vector illustrations can be a trendy look and there are so many artists out there that similar styles emerge and that caught me at times with that trendy look, but i try and stray from that with by including my writing in my illustrations and much more meaning to bring something fresh and new to the table. Web was always something that intrigued me and something i am still growing into every day and love learning and designing. Typography, print and illustration on the other hand i truly love because it gives me the ability to voice my feelings or get a point across in a graphical manner and truly convey a more powerful message. It's been a crazy journey for me with a tun of ups and downs and without the help from some really talented people and friends i wouldn't be here today please check out some of my inspiration and talented friends. There is so much that is going on the next few months so please bookmark my blog and stay posted.
links

http://www.5280lasers.com

http://www.twhitedesign.com

http://www.fatpunkstudio.com

http://www.jam-factory.com


http://yumfactory.com

http://web.mac.com/palehorsedesign/Pale_Horse/Home.html

Monday, August 11, 2008

Just try to guess which font is the hero!

What if fonts were people and they all got together to decide who could join the club? College Humor

Lemon Magazine

LEMON is “Pop Culture With A Twist”: a new breed of magazine that stakes its claim at the intersection of 60s-70s Pop and 21st century hyper-culture. Designed and produced with obsessive attention to every last detail, each issue of LEMON is pure Pop Art.

Friday, August 8, 2008

Love Lyrics Competition

Closing Date: 03 October 2008

Books are a great source of inspiration for song lyrics.

The Arctic Monkeys have done it, so have Radiohead and Nirvana. They've all written song lyrics inspired by a book - and now you can have a go.

Write some song lyrics inspired by one of the ten following books and you could see your winning words performed live by electro poet outfit Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip!

Follow these three easy steps to enter:

Step one: Take a look and choose a book
Step two: Feel the rhythm and get the rhyme
Step three: Submit your lyrics

Monday, August 4, 2008

3x3 Magazine - contemporary illustration

Introducing 3x3, the first magazine devoted entirely to the art of contemporary illustration. Three times a year we take an in-depth look at art and environment of three illustrators. We explore their influences. How they work with clients. How they got their first big break. Each article is written by a fellow illustrator who knows exactly what our audience wants to hear. From the U.S. to Europe, Asia, or wherever, we’ll stay tuned to what’s going on the world of illustration.We’ll feature four or more new talents in every issue, they might be right out of school or are just now beginning to make a name for themselves or illustrators we find that have a truly unique take on the art of illustration. Read more...