..OUR HOUSE IS A VERY VERY FINE HOUSE.....

 

 

 Well , its Christmas and with five granchildren its difficult to avoid having an Advent calender , so we thought we might as well get a decent one ; this one is lazer cut from ply and arrives ready assembled, complete with LED lighting , and the boxes are just the size for a chocolate...........just wondering now whether to sprinkle some icing suger on as snow........................  

 

 

 Merry Christmas and a happy New Year

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

...AND IT's BEEN A LONG LONG TIME.....

.....Design Classics : I suppose at the mention of the phrase , the usual suspects leap to mind - the Zippo lighter , the Jeep , the E-type Jag , the Parker fountain pen , the Barcelona chair and the Charles Aimes chair , various Apple products , all examples of industrial design . Graphic design , not so many , possibly because of the more ephemeral nature of graphics . The question of typefaces aside , I suppose you are left with the London Underground map , David Gentleman's stamp designs for the Post Office , some of the Penguin paperback covers from the 1960s - iconic images all , but mostly of their time . Can graphic design - more specifically packaging - transcend its time ?

This thought wandered across my mind recently when I was in my local art shop buying some Winsor and Newton drawing inks for my MA course work, and it occurred to me that I had been buying them in the same bottles , same labels , same boxes for what seemed like ages - and ages and ages and ages and ages......was I really buying them in this self same packaging when I was last at art college - in 1970 ?.......the best part of forty five years ago ?..........and it's still the same packaging ?  No tweaking ?........even Coca-Cola/ Oxo / HPsauce logos get tweaked......

 

 

 

If they can remain unaltered since 1970 , still in production and still the same packaging then surely they rate as design classics. They were designed by Michael Peters , who won a D&DA design award in 1973 for his packaging design for Winsor and Newton , so they must have been on the shelves before then . Check out the interview with Michael Peters at

www.winsornewton.com/resource-centre/product-articles/michael-peters-interview/

 

........and after all that , I realised when I got back to the studio that I needed a couple of shades darker . Oh well , another couple of really nice little boxes to add to the collection.

...AND LET THE LIGHT , THE CANDLE LIGHT, SHINE

Late November and we brave the Christmas shoppers and the Christmas Markets in central Manchester - row upon row of brightly coloured sheds full of christmas cheer , selling mostly stuff that you wouldn't buy at any other time of the year.......

........and then we come across this shed..................

 

.......and it's lit inside by candlelight..............

.......and it has illustrations inside.......icons..........mysterious  eastern European icons...

.........and they are wonderful.

This particular shed is tucked away inside that enclave of peace and sanity known as the John Rylands Library on Deasgate in central Manchester , well worth a visit in its own right. The illustrations are purported to be the work of one Herman Inclusus , a name that comes from the Codex Gigas ( a medieval manuscript also known as the Devil's Bible ) that is said to have been written by a Herman Inclusus ( Herman the Recluse ). The overall occult mood of the works with their images of plague and misery blended with a more contemporary style of illustration make for a quite impressive visual representation of doom and death , and I really liked the way they were presented , in a quasi eastern european chapel complete with onion dome.

Herman Inclusus is the alter ego of illustrator Stuart Kolakovic : the web site
www.stuartkolakovic.co.uk/hermaninclusus.html
Stuart's own website is www.stuartkolakovic.co.uk - and the John Rylands Library is definately worth a visit.

..INTO THE GREAT WIDE OPEN.....

 

..Into the great wide open
  Under them skies of blue
  Out in the great wide open........

One more piece from my current MA work . One of the Context lectures we had earlier this
year took as its starting point Wittgenstein and the period he spent in Manchester early on in
the last century , something I wasn't aware of . A student at Manchester University studying aeronautics , he took to flying large gliders out on Chunnel Moor up beyond Glossop in the Peak District - an area I know well . Taking this as a starting point , the Context group organises a kite flying day up on the moors , followed by a theatre evening down in Glossop - all good fun.

My own knowledge of Wittgenstein was essentially of the building he designed and built in Vienna for his sister and I was fascinated by the structured thought and discipline that he brought to the design process ,  clarifying his own philosophical ideas whilst resolving the formal arrangements of internal planning and detailing. Records also exist of where he lived whilst in Manchester , both at the Grouse Inn out on the moors above Glossop and the house in Palatine Road in Didsbury.

 So, Wittgenstein , kite-flying , houses , constructions.......................

The premise of the piece of work illustrated is that our hero the Book Lover , with his own house in the centre of Manchester - the ' House Of The Book Lover ' - is intrigued by this and decides as a homage to Wittgenstein and writers in general to build a Kite Flying Platform on the roof of his building , to enable ideas to escape , to float.................pamphlets , notes , sketches are launched from here to find their own way out into the great wide open.......

..TUNNEL OF LOVE...

..I can feel the soft silk of your blouse
 and them soft thrills in our little fun house
 then the lights go out........

The Tunnel of Love - another piece in the on-going story of four buildings in my MA course. There are a lot of things going on here , but then this piece exists in two states - the ' Study/ Work in Progress ' piece , illustrated here , and the final completed work , still in construction .

 


The ' Work in Progress ' piece deals with and illustrates  the ideas , the possible futures for this piece ; the work is still ' open ' at this stage  . The  ' completed work ' will deal with just one of those possibilities , taken to a formal conclusion .

The starting point here is of course the idea that the ' Tunnel of Love ' , the fairground ride , is indeed an actual tunnel , running between the basement of the Art Lover's house and the House of the Dominatrix .

Our Hero is intrigued by the possibility that he can pass from the Art Lover's house to next door unnoticed , the idea being that the tunnel becomes a changing room , a 'Rite of Passage ' . Our Hero is of course in love with his alter ego and emerges from the tunnel in his female persona - the ' Reveal ' . The piece of work contains many points at which decisions must be made ; for our Hero , decisions on the colour of lipstick , the colour of nail-varnish. For me , decisions on what to include in the ' final ' piece , what to leave in , what to take out. References are many - fair-ground rides , pop-art ,  magic , transformation , penny-in-the-slot machines , the Hoerengracht ............

 

HHmmmm ..........decisions , decisions........

..I WAS SO MUCH OLDER THEN.............

........Ah , but I was so much older then........
         I'm younger than that now

One from the archives this week ; I was clearing out one of the drawers in the plan-chest , sorting out some interior sketches to take in to Stockport College for the Interior design students , and came across some photos of old projects. Once in a while - if you are lucky - you absolutely nail a job . For some reason everything comes together - the site , the location , the brief , the client , the time - and , putting no small part of yourself into the job , when it arrives , when it's finished , you know that it could not have been any better . If you are lucky you maybe get five or six or these in a professional career ; I can probably still count on the fingers of two hands the projects I am really , really proud of...........so that's eight fingers , then.

 

 

This one dates from 1974; yes, that long ago . I was still wet behind the ears , only four years out of college , and was asked to design a traditional London wine bar - in Manchester . God knows how it came together - it was all assembled on site , by eye , from reclaimed screens and panelling that at that time were being stripped out of traditional pubs all across the city . A wine bar - no beers , draught or bottled , just bottles of wine , and forty years ago Mateus Rose and Hirondelle were all that anyone drank - well , ok , maybe the occasional Blue Nun - so to design a proper wine bar selling Bordeaux , Burgundies , all chateaux bottled was another world to me 

 

Still remembered today with great affection , it had a wonderful atmosphere , suddenly appearing yet feeling as if it had been there for decades. If it was still there today it would make a fortune - only be duplicated , sold on , rolled out , the energy gradually

dissipating as it becomes just another high street brand. One-offs should be remembered for being just that.

Goblets , Bridge street, Manchester , 1974

 

     

..NEEDLES AND PINS......

Following on from last week's posting re the Art Fair in Macclesfield , I should note that I actually ended up buying three pieces , not two . Our time on the saturday was cut short as we had a train to catch , and I didn't have time to purchase the third piece when it caught my eye on the friday .

Fortunately through the catalogue I managed to track down both the piece and the seller , Louise at
www.drawntostitch.com  and the piece duly arrived , safely packaged , at the weekend . Its a small work in mixed media - ' Cottage on the Moors ' , really nice and moody , delicate stiching over brown paper . Check out her website and her page on Facebook for more examples of her work .

 

 

Many thanks , Louise