Say What

Contains strong language.

One laptop each

Read more about it here

Nice!

Nice site

Thanks to Serif

Always wondered who...

did these.

It's Adrian Johnson.

visual treats

Listening to...

Beneath The Surface

Nosmo King

Came across this re designed no smoking poster.
A simple design.
Due to the new smoking ban in the UK, maybe we will see signs develop to fit in with their surroundings.

Courtesy of the serif publishing re design.

Pray

The designers prayer.

Courtesy of the Johnson Banks Blog

Toys Toys Toys

I've not had a chance to get into those vinyl toys out there, but i certainly like the look of these.
Alas you can't buy them in the UK.

Record Covers

One of the things that got me into Design along with a few others, was the design of the record covers i used to collect.
Factory, Warp Records and 4AD to name a few.

It was while thinking about some of these designs that i remembered one of the last record labels to push the boundries of design was MoWax records.
Their sleeves were designed by Ben Drury.

On the site it states that James Lavelle the record label boss encouraged him to source new materials, use special printing processes, develop new packaging solutions and to experiment across the range of formats.
If you look through history, it's often a similar story in design and music, with 2 creative forces encouraging and responding to each other that produces the celebrated creative work.

With the demise of Vinyl and the attention paid to the artwork, i think less people are going descover design through this medium.
The large labels now prefer images of the artist on the front as this sells the artist and iTunes giving you a tiny jpeg, there is less inclination to collect them as a piece of design.

I remember atending a talk a few years back which was about the demise of record cover artwork and the popularity of mp3's.
Ben Drury was one of the speakers at the event. I think he claimed that he wasn't working in design anymore and that this area of design was dead and not worth it.

I wish he could have said that when one of his designs convinced me to part with £60 for one album in 2 parts!

Two labels which seem to be investing in design are
Lex Records and Kindred Spirits
The music is woth checking out as well.

The only thing missing is a beach!

Here's the site that has greeted me for the past 2 mornings.
What a way to start the week and July!
Oh rainy Manchester.
I did learn a while back that even though Manchester has a reputation for being wet it's not the rainiest city in the UK.
Swansea has that title.
If it was wetter then it has been here in Manchester, then i dread to think what it was like there.

There was a famous quote from Ian Brown from The Stone Roses that said "the only thing Manchester hasn't got is a beach"
Well it is getting a temporary one, courtesy of urbis.

Beach Club

Apparently all the kids that hang around outside Urbis have been complaining about it, as they will have nowhere to go.

Should be interesting!