DesignYak

New Cardiff Design Festival website

The Cardiff Design Festival is gearing up towards another year of celebrating the best of Welsh design with this new website, take a look here...

Is university culture dead?

I visited my girlfriend's sister's art foundation exhibition in Bristol last weekend, and it was a great show. Lots of exciting work and it got me thinking about my foundation year. I loved art foundation as did everyone on my course, art and design at school can be a bit restrictive at times, but art foundation allows you break free and have a good time whilst creating a massive amount of work. I think there is an expectation for art foundation students to attend class all day everyday, it bridges the gap between school and university. I think this creates a good working culture and as a result, a lot of good work. I never found this to be the case though for most of my time at university. Try as the tutors did to get people in to work, this never happened, and not much of a working culture ever developed. In my opinion, this impacts on the quality of work produced. I just wonder if this is a nationwide trend in art & design courses. I talk to people higher than myself in the industry and they say they worked really hard and attended university all day everyday. I think the impact of the personal computer has something to do with this, students find it convenient to come in, pick up their brief and go straight home. I think the sense of privilege and opportunity is missing in some students who attend university.

We had someone in for work experience recently, and set them a brief that we had worked on and they asked if they could go home to work on it. I craved for a working culture at university, and there was many a time I'd be at uni on my own. If any art foundation students happen to read this, eagerly waiting to go away to uni, remember you art foundation, by all means have a great time, that's what your there to do, but also remember that your time in university is an opportunity to better yourself both personally and professionally, a unique time that can really pay off. The phrase has never lost it's impact, work hard, play hard.

Ruiz+Company

I've seen this Barcelona based agency doing the rounds on a few blogs, and I thought I'd join in as their work is extremely good, I love the work they've done for the Chocolat Factory, so here's a taster but be sure to visit their website.

Graduate Rebekah Burke

Rebekah Burke has been in contact, she's graduating this summer from The Arts Institute at Bournemouth. She's got some really interesting and quite conceptual work. Visit her new website to see more or her blog! 

 

Banksy's Park Street mural vandalised

Banksy's Park Street mural has been paintballed. I walked past it on Friday so I'm glad I saw it again undamaged. But then again, some might argue that his murals are just graffiti themselves, so are open to this kind of thing happening. Still though, it's a shame, I used to work in that building and enjoyed seeing it everyday, I wonder if Mr.Banksy will respond in some way?

The Bristol City Council ran a public vote in 2006 asking whether the mural should stay or go, with 93% voting that it should remain. 

New website for Dirty Design

Bristol based Dirty Design have a new website, stroll on over and take a look!

Funemployed

Know anyone who's lost their job but has a sense of humour? Probably not, no. Here's a collection by Irina Blok, gifts you can buy for people. You can even get a custom made resume t-shirt! 

Via Swissmiss

Teepay staff pick

Some of you may have been following the progress of Howies new venture Teepay. I have as yet failed to get a t-shirt printed, I got close with 20 orders but not close enough. Plans are afoot however to creating a 'buy now' shop where people can buy t-shirts straight away and not waiting, and to this end Howies are picking one t-shirt everyday where you can buy one straight away. Yesterday's choice was asteroids by my good friend Aron, so get on over and pur-chase!

Toilet signage

I love a bit of toilet signage, here's some from São Paulo!

Type Tart

“Type LLP - in conjunction with Wallpaper* and St Bride Library - asked designers from students to superstars, to find the tart hiding in every type and provide their own graphic content. More than 400 cards will be on show at KK Outlet, from 22 June, including designs by Erik Kessels, Anthony Burrill, Neville Brody, NB:Studio, Value and Service, Fernando Guiterrez, Ian Wright and Noma Bar.” This was my contribution; see if you can spot the (probably too) subtle reference to a Beach Boys album. You can view all 450 entries on the Wallpaper* website.