POP ICON: Clifford Richards
NO, NOT THE WIMBLEDON SINGING SIXTIES POP ICON. Clifford Richards - the famed graphic/paper products designer, who created cutting-edge London store Paperchase’s key products back in the day - is a whole different pop icon altogether. And now, at age 73 - and a grandfather many times over - his profile is on the rise again.
Cliff’s new moment in the spotlight comes courtesy of the V&A museum, who bought much of his paper work from the 1960s and 70s for its permanent collections a couple of years ago. It has since commissioned him to produce exhibition graphics for its Sixties Fashion show, as well as a number of graphics for the recently reopened V&A’s Museum of Childhood in 2007. (Their shop currently sells several of his exclusive print products.)
Posted 2 September 2008 in Art + Graphic Design, Designer Profiles
PARENT PROFILE: Corinna Dean
FOR AUTHOR AND CURATOR Corinna Dean, 42, [pictured left in her kitchen], family life and modern art aren’t mutually exclusive. Her latest project, Bankside-on-Call, which runs until 4th July 2010 at 7 Chancel Street, London SE1 OUX, is a sonic landscape celebrating the past and present life of this newly regenerated part of London (thanks largely to the Tate Modern).
Corinna lives in a 1970s house in South London with her husband, furniture designer Matthew Hilton, and their son, Lucas, aged 6.
LittleBig: Describe your latest work project in layman terms!
CD: Bankside-on-Call is a response to all the commercial development going on around Bankside as a result of the success of Tate Modern. It is a pop-up parlour which acts as a salon where residents and passers-by can add to a sound recording leaving behind a record of their voices and opinions on the once rundown but much loved neighbourhood. The souvenirs on show are an imaginative response to the area’s grittier details. I have commissioned the textile designer Charlene Mullen to design a beautiful table cloth based on an 18th-century banqueting cloth which she has appropriated with details from a local caff in the area.
Posted 30 June 2010 in Art + Graphic Design
WALL STICKERS COMPETITION: sweet as chocovenyl
HOW TO MAKE now ubiquitous wall decals more enticing? Employ some of the best children’s illustrators out there and pick a sensuous fabric finish for your re-useable art.
That’s exactly what Nataly Nir of new decal outfit Chocovenyl has done with her range of art-based illustrations for walls, featuring the likes of illustrators Adolie Day (creator of Fairy, left), Jillian Phillips, and the Canadian Helen Dardik (who designed Red Riding Hood, below).
“I’ve followed the decal market for some time,” says Nataly from her newly adopted home in the north of England. “Yet I had my own vision of how they should be - I felt there was much room for creative exploration. I’m inspired by the richness of the best of children’s book illustrations, and I wanted to do more than decorate - there being enough flat colour vector cutouts on the market. I wanted to create a universe full of character, depth and colour. And with the matt, slight fabric texture, the [tear-resistent] decals look as if they belong to the wall.”
Graphic designer Nataly - mother to Troy, three and a half, and Mia, 18 months - chooses her artists on the basis of intuition alone: “We love whimsy!” she says, and there’s certainly something whimsical about LittleBig’s current favourite, Adolie Day’s Fairy. “Yes, she gets a lot of attention,” admits Nataly. “But she’s certainly isn’t sugar, is she?”
*Order at www.chocovenyl.co.uk
GIVEAWAY: We have two sets of Adolie Day’s Fairy design to give away (approximately 400 x 600mm). To have a chance to win, simply send us a quick email with Fairy in the title - to mail@littlebigmagazine.com. Winners will be picked at random on 15th October and notified by email.
Posted 14 September 2009 in Art + Graphic Design
DESIGN HERO: Alexander Girard
THE WORK OF MID-CENTURY design hero, Alexander Girard (1907-1993), is getting harder and harder to ignore. The latest Girard re-edition is a set of new trays for Vitra, the company that has been working on reissuing designs from Girard’s archives since inheriting them upon his death. But then again, why would you want to ignore it?
With a folky take on modern, Girard was well before his time. A contemporary of Mies van der Rohe and the Eames, who when his friends were pioneering Modern furniture design and architecture in California, moved from Michigan to New Mexico to focus on a wholly new type of design.
Girard was into loopy-loo, vital colour and ethnic pattern and themes - such as the Mother & Child motif seen on the Vitra tray above, and the Madonna Plyprint, pictured right - before it was considered acceptable to indulge in such things, and on his death he left over 100,000 folk objects to the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe. It was Girard who coloured much of Charles Eames’ work, becoming Herman Miller’s textiles director in the 50s under creative director George Nelson.
All but forgotten for a number of decades, Girard is back in the spotlight thanks partly to Eckart Maise, the enthusiastic director of interiors at Vitra - who says that going through Girard’s archives was like “a discovery: his work is immensely rich and vibrant.” The first Girard-Vitra reissue was a collection of hand-painted wooden folk ‘Dolls’ inspired by Girard’s own hand-made personal collection created for his own home. The three Vitra tray designs, meanwhile, including Eden below, £44 from The Lollipop Shoppe, all showcase Girard’s way with both figurative ethnic themes and pure colour. Read the rest of this article
Posted 20 August 2009 in Art + Graphic Design
SIGN OF THE TIMES: abcs
THERE’S A PLETHORA of stylish, graphic ABC posters and prints this season - all of which are spare and beautiful enough for anywhere in the house and not just the baby’s room.
And in fact, thinks KinderGallery’s Fiona Lang, the impetus behind the likes of alphabet-inspired work from Gregoire Ganter, Charley Harper et al (what Lang calls our current “design fetish for showing off different typographies”), is as much adult-informed as it is for the kids. Many of us have fallen back in love with the retro typography of our childhoods and the last century: “as a great contrast to the internet/computer age - or perhaps as an extension of it.”
“These are design works appealing to modern parents who travel to New York or Berlin, and have a bit of ‘urban cool’ about them,” she adds. “Perhaps it’s that nostalgia that makes me buy “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” and Dr Seuss books for my 2-year-old when it’s really me that loves the typography, illustrations and stories. I justify the purchases as worthwhile because ‘it’s good for kids to read.’”
Having said this, ABCs are still functional pieces of artwork. A friend who is currently fulfilling her three-year-old son’s desire to be able to read his favourite book titles, and so is tackling the alphabet for the first time, relishes every opportunity to talk letters - and the more visual, creative or super-cute the raw material, “the more enthusiastic my son is about learning and reading.” Read the rest of this article
Posted 30 May 2009 in Art + Graphic Design
Loading... 
