Made By Heath Killen

February 1st, 2010
Roundup
#3—

Three days between posts feels like an eternity for this young blog. I’d love to say that the radio silence has been due to some exotic adventure or fantastic event, but unfortunately there are no such stories to regale you with. I’ve simply been doing all the things you do as summer enters its last month, not the least of which is spending the whole day in the pool, avoiding the computer completely.

While there isn’t that much in the way of news to share, I do feel compelled to show off this breakfast that C and I made yesterday, which is a stack of corn-cakes, bacon, rocket, balsamic and a fried egg. It was truly sublime.

It’s back to work for the rest of the week though, time to finish off some long gestating projects and to get started on some new ones. One project that I completed towards the end of last year has started to appear in the wild— a signage system for Ipera and their new Wi-Fi hotspots around Newcastle.

These have begun to pop up in the Hunter Street Mall, and should soon be appearing in other areas throughout the city. Thankfully Ipera have that brilliant orange in their corporate colours, so it made my job in finding an eye-catching design solution much easier. For those of you playing at home, the font is Lineto’s Gravur Condensed.

It would appear that over the last week I’ve been listening to a lot of music with black & white cover art.

The only splash of colour in that sea of monochrome is from a stunning photograph of red blood cells colliding, which is the face of Peter Gabriel’s new project ‘Scratch My Back’. I haven’t listened to Gabriel for years, but this album caught my attention. It’s a collection of covers, all recorded by Gabriel with a full orchestra. I’ve enjoyed it a great more than I thought I would, particularly his take on Elbow’s Mirrorball and the show-stopping My Body Is A Cage. Apparently this will be followed up at some stage with an album by the artists Gabriel has covered, all reciprocating with their versions of some of his songs. Listen to an inverview with Gabriel about the project here then here.

I’m truly in love with Hort‘s ongoing work for Booka Shade too. The music’s great, a perfect soundtrack for design work, but the designs are some serious eye candy.

Music video directors H5 have made a short film set in a world made up of logos and trademarks. In this world, the police are Michelin Men and Ronald McDonald is a criminal on the run. It appears to comment on both the consumer culture and the archetypal Hollywood blockbuster. Adrian Shaughnessy had this to say about the project, and a small taste of the film itself is below.

The always amazing We Buy Your Kids collaborated with Mighty Nice recently, and together they’ve brought to life the captivating, vintage sci-fi paperback inspired artwork for Paul Dempsey’s Everything is True. I love seeing designs translated into different formats and mediums, and this example is superb. Check it out.

On the other side of the coin, is this an early contender for the most ridiculous album cover of 2010? Possibly of all time? This is in-your-face patriotism taken to mythological levels. Defying the laws of both physics and good taste, it really is a sight to behold.

In other news, apparently Lady Gaga is an Illuminati puppet, the influence of Roger Dean extends much further than James Cameron’s appropriation in Avatar and new research shows some dinosaurs may have been orange. ABC Arts have taken a look back at Australia’s post-punk scene and you can now view New York through the ages via interactive arial maps and vintage photography.

Coming up this week, expect to see a few snippets of some of the projects I’m working on, the penultimate entry in my Massive Attack design series with 100th Window, and my continued explorations in the rich world of Australian design.

As always, I’m avaliable to meet new clients and collaborators, so don’t hesitate to get in touch!