Having been completely intrigued by Rob’s account I booked myself and a friend a place for this months event, held at Canvas and Cream in Forest Hill.

So there we were, my friend and I, at 6pm last Saturday evening eagerly awaiting an instruction text from the Gingerline crew. Forest Hill was to be our destination for the evening…we were to follow the Ginger arrows into a quiet residential mews and enter a small white door flanked with fairy lights. What greeted us behind a maze of free standing doors was an enchanting puppeteer’s workshop.

With the smell of wood shavings lingering in the air we feasted on beetroot soup (served in a mini paint pot!), duck leg with seasonal pumpkin and sweet potato mash, and finally Autumn fruit meringue roulade, the menu couldn’t be faulted.

While dining and getting to know our fellow Gingerliners, puppeteers from The Puppet Barge company treated us to a charming story of Brer Rabbit and Little Red Riding Hood.

We left, well fed, watered and full of smiles (maybe that was the wine…). For anyone wanting to have the Gingerline experience I suggest showing your interest early because judging by the comments, this event is understandably gaining momentum.

I’ll explain; It was about the same time as the euro currency entered circulation back in 2002, that I started to notice a dramatic increase in euro naming. Very quickly it became apparent that these businesses, services and products preceeding with ‘Euro’ often had little relevance, if any at all, to europe. A touch of irony still, my observations were exclusive to the UK, a country not even in the euro currency zone. Put simply, we had entered the era of the euro.

Yet it wasn’t simply the lack of relevance that caught my attention, I found, from a branding perspective, that these finds showed a complete lack of imagination, whilst often achieving comical results. It seems that if imagination is your enemy, then euro is your friend!

Bringing this project to life again seems more timely than ever. Greece and Portugal, amongst others, are facing economic woe, eurozone sovereign debt is huge and the euro currency scrabbles for composure. If the euro was to collapse, what would it mean for the businesses I’ve catalogued? Perhaps a turnaround to a more patriotic Great British perspective… I’m seeing a lot of union jacks all of a sudden.

Here’s just a small sample to wet the palette, find more over at the euroblog.
I’ll be continuing to delve into the catalogue updating the blog with new finds from here on.

I created the pseudonym Crochet Sundays following my graduation in Graphic Design & Typography, as a channel through which to share and explore a particular style of my illustration. This particular project, ‘Wild Lady Flowers’, are a series of hand drawn illustrations inspired by antique cigarette cards. This series features three different lady flowers with a description on the reverse placed in a printed brown envelope. Collect and watch your garden grow.

Crochet Sundays has been given the opportunity to sell ‘Wild Lady Flowers’ at The Poundshop at this years London Design Week. The Poundshop is a pop up shop with a difference, it’s a platform for designers to sell designer goods under the strict brief that the product is to be sold for no more than £1. It was founded by Illustrator Sara Melin who has joined with design collective Household to create this ultimate low cost, high quality shopping experience. The shop will open its doors during London Design Week in September, for more information visit The Poundshop website.

For some reason unbeknownst to me, many a Londoner still seems to have a difficult time venturing south of the river. These days you don’t even have to hitch a ride with the boat man, you can walk across a bridge of your choosing (I’m a fan of Waterloo) or board one of those locomotives you’ve heard so much about.

River Thames and Waterloo Bridge, London. ©Tom Arthur

The reasons for heading down here are multi-faceted: Great markets, cheap clobber, chatty locals (especially in Le Penge when you’ve fallen asleep on the night bus, apparently it happens a lot), superb galleries, and special parks. My personal area of expertise is Deptford where I have lived for 5 years. There was a burgeoning art scene here when I first moved here, Deptford X was going strong and there were a few decent art galleries and studios in the locale, the area has since, artistically, boomed. This owes partly to the enterprising South London Art Map (formerly Deptford Art Map) that decided the best way to survive outside of the obvious art hubs in London was to pool resources and give people a decent reason to head south (or 150 decent reasons going by the last South London Art Map gallery count).

The character of these areas, especially Deptford, owe a debt of gratitude to the market traders, independent traders and gems of characters that grace the streets of Deptford making it one of the most friendly, open, unpretentious places I have ever had the fortune of living – traits that don’t normally go hand in hand with ‘creative hubs’. This in turn has lead to an art scene that is both socially engaged and politically aware, whilst of course benefitting from the masterful menagerie of tat and quite frankly visual feast that graces the markets – happily this is Hew Locke’s inspiration for this years Deptford X festival.

Whatever convinced the vendors that Capri-sun and Timotei make happy market bedfellows I’ll never know, it’s not a logic I’m willing to question, because those guys could sell snow to the Eskimos, and probably convince them to take a few Vienettas while they’re at it. My point being artists are lucky to be in Deptford, Deptford is not indebted to the artists. Deptford was built on its trading prowess, and in fact a couple of us galleries could probably learn a thing or two from our boys at the market. With the public purse well and truly tightened art establishments would benefit from learning to create their own income streams and shake off the assumption that a commercial art enterprise can’t possibly also be a risk-taking, experimental one.

Hatch Space is an artist run studio and gallery provision based in Deptford, providing space and a platform to show to both national and international artists in the formative years of their careers. Hatch Space Flickr
– Galleries in South London are open late on the LAST FRIDAY of every month.

Deptford X 2011 runs 23rd September- 2nd October: Deptford X are currently accepting submissions from artists in response to Hew Locke and Indra Khanna’s Statement of Intent.

Hilarious responses quickly followed putting the very same advertised music software to the test:

A little more recently, Jay-Z’s Empire State of Mind was quickly re-hashed for a more Welsh-centric audience and a video that truly epitomises the word viral, Rebecca Blacks “Friday” has countless parodies all of varying degrees of success.

So it seems YouTube has become the home for a brand of humour that has long been around, but now, more than ever, a parody or remix seems to be the de facto response to any videoclip that has at least mild pop-culture success. There are a number of reasons that would point to why, not least the ability of the public to make video responses at a cost that’s never been lower and outreach thats never been greater.

That same public, namely us, are the filter of what is successful and what is not, we need to sort the wheat from the chaff. It seems the most successful parodies and mash-ups always offer an insight, a production skill, or tone of humour that has an originality and creativity. If we discover it, the author is given a massive springboard and a chance to reach out to millions of viewers in a matter of hours. Perhaps successful careers can be started?

This cut-up version of The Apprentice gained massive appeal, not just based on the popularity of the show, but in its own right:

The likes of Kutiman, remixing and reshaping musical YouTube clips from his bedroom to construct whole new original tracks, has gone on to be a prolific producer:

I have recently graduated from University of Hertfordshire after studying graphic design for 3 years. I am currently involved with placements at a few design companies and am lucky enough to have been offered a job as creative coordinator at Karen Millen which I will start in a few weeks time.

When I started the final year of my graphic design course, I began to actively check around 5-6 blogs and websites as sources of inspiration to try and keep up with what’s going on in the industry. These include Behance, Yayeveryday, Creative Review, Itsnicethat and Formfiftyfive.

I discovered behance through a friend, and found that it has some really nice work which covers lots of bases including film, typography, packaging, web and editorial to name a few. Just the fact that one site covers so many strands is very interesting and I’ve also discovered that people have got freelance work from having their work on the website.

Every so often you will come across a personal project that is very simple but very effective. ‘A Grotesk love affair’ is a short but beautifully crafted publication focusing on the relationship between designers and typography. The work can be likened to the info-graphics work of Nicholas Feltron (a graphic designer who creates an annual report every year on various aspects of his life), but it’s still fresh and isn’t something out of the recycle bin.

Designers: Ryan Atkinson, Stephan de Lange

It is a really striking and effective way of displaying the interesting facts and figures surrounding the subject. The simple colour scheme really gives it clarity and helps it to stand out in an already over saturated design industry. The fact that the pages work together as a PDF / publication but also as separate entities is a true testament to the simple unified design.

My favourite sans will have to be Helvetica. After realizing what a beautiful typeface it is in my second year, I am now in a position to appreciate its craft and use, when executed well. With this said it is not the only adaptable and beautiful typeface out there, and using it does not mean something is good design.

On Saturday I got to experience behind the scenes preparation when I lent a hand to my sister and her colleagues from Todds Botanics as they painstakingly erected their exhibit of prudently groomed drought tolerant plants. A 10 ft squared handmade wooded container houses each considered species of the design, including the oh so cute Ivory Queen Allium and my favourite, the Langport Wren Bearded Iris, with a striking ancient Spanish Olive tree taking centre stage. I may be biased but this is a design that deserves gold!

The reverse, I have to say, has to be said for Diarmuid Gavin’s sky garden, inspired by the film Avatar, and sponsored by Cork City Council. There’s no denying that the landscape of grasses, topiary and bamboo is impressively executed and appealing but, just like the film this garden is more about big budget effects than style and substance. The centerpiece of the £250,000 design is a bright pink flying pod (below) that is elevated into the air every hour and suspended at 82ft by a gigantic crane. With the crane itself costing £5k a day this seems an unnecessary feature and a colossal waste of money, especially as it’s being financed by a government who I would have thought could ill afford such extravagance, and the only one given the opportunity to enjoy the view from above is Gavin himself and a string of celebrity friends. Some may describe this as cutting edge garden design but personally speaking I feel it’s just another opportunity for Gavin to exhibit an already inflated ego.

Thankfully elsewhere the gardens are more modest in their approach. It was good to see The Times and Kew Gardens coming together to showcase The Eureka garden designed by Marcus Barnett which celebrates the importance of plants to human survival. Each element has been chosen either for its medicinal, commercial or industrial use, such as; Foxgloves and Geranium which are used to treat heart and kidney conditions respectively; and, a Rosa Glauca which is used by both the cosmetic and drinks industry. The central pavilion structure represents the cellular nature of plants and is constructed from sustainably sourced timber and bio-plastics.

With the culmination of a year’s planning, planting, and pruning, mixed with late nights, early mornings and the physical exertion that goes into every exhibit, it’s easy to see why a Chelsea accolade means so much in the wonderful world of horticulture.

www.studio8design.co.uk

That Ben managed to create such drama and interest through the video updates and blog posts he sent back without ever stepping foot on the ice are testament to his enduring ability to engage and inspire. Temujin Doran’s video shorts have been compelling, this one documenting Ben and Andy’s meticulous weight saving measures was probably the pick of the lot – a truly fascinating insight into the planning and build up to an expedition such as this.

www.bensaunders.com

A picture of us all suited and booted, with Jon Hill, Alex Breuer and Matt Brown from The Times.

A great night was had by all, completely worth the bleary eyes and thumping heads this morning.