Since a couple of months our studio at the Pootstraat has some new residants, one of which is Olivier Otten. Olivier has been active under the alias Selfcontrolfreak, making witty interactive flash/video projects featuring himself. (check out www.selfcontrolfreak.com and do interact with the movies!).

His current project is a cooperation with artist Baschz, called Masterpiece 2.0. You can order Baschz to create a T-shirt, encorporate an image or even yourself (cameo appearance) into the artwork, if you pay a small fee. The result is a multilayered artwork, made visible as an animation. Go to Masterpiece20.com to join in the fun!


Masterpiece 2.0, a social media art project by Baschz and Selfcontrolfreak.

Synth Eastwood (great name!) is a Dublin based independent publishing project. It was brought to my attention by my good friend Taco, who also made some brilliant poster works for them. This issue their theme was ‘Homemade’, and I made a full color re-design of the meccanoo inspired poster that I did for WORM. Thankfully the guys at Synth Eastwood printed it to be exhibited as an A1 size poster. Next to illustration and graphic art they also accept music for their issues… their collaborative spirit is inspiring and they stand out for the high quality of the participants works. Go see their show if you are in the neighbourhood, and buy a poster!
check out Synths website
check out Taco’s work

We’re on to the next big thing baby, get Fluttering.

After having worked my a*! off (for the last couple of years basically). I have decided to take it easy for the next couple of months. Untill the end of summer I will be very reserved about taking on any new work (If you’re a potential customer you can always try though. I really won’t say no to something very cool :-). Instead I will be focussing on research and development. I plan to do a bunch of Arduino projects, develop some new web-techniques, maybe write some objective C for an Iphone app, catch up on media-design-related-reading and of course enjoy the summer! The idea is to come out of this sabbatical all refreshed and inspired.

Two weekends back I visited the Colophon festival in Luxembourg. Colophon is an independent magazine festival that was first organized in 2007. In a way it is a continuation of the CMYK fest in Barcelona, which I visited too, when I brought our magazine Stereo publication no. 3 -then just freshly printed. With these good memories in my mind I invited Joris* to come along for this fest, expecting it to be just as good.

Indeed it was inspirational to see the independent publishing scene still going strong. Some nice lectures (pity the speaker about digital publishing didn’t show up), meeting friendly people, and the Stereo publication was part of the main exhibition of Colophon (and the book). We also enjoyed strolling through Luxemburg visiting the smaller exhibitions spread throughout the city.

I was particularly taken by the magazine Karen from the UK. Her magazine and exhibition is about the ‘normal’ stuff in life. It’s a really witty, funny little mag about extremely British daily-life stuff (think shopping-lists, potato’s, pets etc). I think it was her mum who apologized to us for Karen not being there at the exhibition when we dropped by, offering us to have some tea and bisquits. Brilliant. (the ‘advertisement’ picture above is from the Karen magazine exhibition.) The ‘greyscale’ bar was good too. When we walked in we were asked what we like to drink; ‘black or white’? ‘White’ turned out to be Vodka… we opted for ‘black’ (coffee), cause the previous night proved that Colophon can serve up a pretty good party as well. In 2011 Colophon will organize another event. Visit Colophon site here.

* I initiated the Stereo publication together with Joris van Ballegooijen in 2004.

While scavenging across the blog-o-sphere I read this age old wisdom. I post it here so I can refer future clients to this post when neccesary.

The old maxim about Cheap, Good and Fast design goes like this:

You can only have 2. If you want it cheap and fast, it won’t be good. If you want it fast and good, it won’t be cheap. And if you want it good and cheap, it won’t be fast.

This one is true, believe me I tried.

cheers,
Arjen

When I was in Thailand two months ago I came across these great pest control posters in Chinatown, Bangkok.

I came across this inspirational simple idea. Why think ‘old media’ when dealing with music video’s? At a time when the music industry and it’s media output are at crisis with (and because of) the internet, the great band Arcade Fire commissioned an interactive music video.

check it out.

http://www.beonlineb.com/click_around.html

the next half of 2008 the Secret Cinema bandwagon will be all over Holland again. For these events i’ll be doing som new style flyers & posters again. We’re also working on a brand new website for S.C. since the old flash site has become slightly aged. So many good things coming up! Below a reject, though a pretty one.

Voor bevriende band AC Berkheimer heb ik de eer gehad om de hoes te ontwerpen. Dit ontwerp moet ik snel eens op mijn portfolio site zetten… de tijd de tijd.
Anyways, dit is wat mij betreft nu de beste band van Nederland, met muzikale referenties als My Bloody Valentine, Sonic Youth, Blonde Redhead is het right up my alley. Natuurlijk ben ik geheel objectief met deze waardering. De release van het album ‘In a series of Long Days’ is in Rotown (Rotterdam), en ze zitten inmiddels bij het Subroutine label. Dus checken deze shit… er bestaan bandjes in Nederland die echt de moeite waard zijn (en nee, Kane hoort daar niet bij…), dit is er een van!
Jammer dat al die Nederlandse radiostations daar trouwens niets mee doen. Met Kink.FM en geneuzel in de marge op 3voor12 (hoe geweldige dit initiatief ook is - hulde vpro) komen we er op de een of andere manier niet met die Nederlandse indie scene.
Dus dan maar live, stap op die fiets of in de trein en kom geheel GRATIS! deze geweldige band zien en beluisteren (vooral dat laatste, want ze nemen het ’shoegazen’ letterlijk). Neem meteen een paar eurootjes mee om meteen het album te kopen! In de Reload al getipt als HET debuut van 2008.