Le Shouvre

For the most recent pair, I was asked to adapt another famous Banksy image to a pair of shoes. Not wanting to cover the entire canvas in off-white cracked bricks, I decided a patchy approach would effectively get the point across, while leaving plenty of blank space for the canvas to breathe.

The initials “A.D.” were painted on the backs of the shoes, as requested by the customer.

More pics here

UPDATE – I only just found this out, but this pair were featured on banksy.org back in December. Should really keep an eye out for these things…

How. Cool. Is. This.

…well, apart from the Age of Empires music in the video. Found through Abduzeedo.

So this is just a quick post about an illustrator I came across while perusing the blogosphere, as you do.

She’s from the west coast of Canada, and basically her watercolours are awesome. It’s a very defined style, and I like the way she’ll stick to a certain colour scheme, and rarely seems to mix hot and cold colours.

Click here to visit her website

So I’m back in Paris now, after a nice relaxing week in Provence. While there, I came across an excellent local artist who calls himself LEXA. His gallery is in Ménerbes, a really picturesque hilltop village that looks out over the olive groves and pear trees in the valley. Sadly he himself was not in town when I visited, but I did meet his mum, who was very nice!

His style is very modern and distinct, so I’ll let the work speak for itself. His website is here

I’m not sure if many (or any?) Australians have found themselves browsing through Le Shouvre, but if anyone reading this is indeed from down under, I came across this Australian brand recently, and some of their designs really caught my eye. I have no problem admitting that I’m a sucker for paisley, so it’s no surprise that I liked the design shown above, but a quick browse through their collections show proof of some other really interesting designs.

I prefer the pattern-based designs over the choices of cut, etc., and I love some of the hoodies that look like they have been hand-drawn. Plus, the website itself has a really cool layout.

One Teaspoon

The lovely people at POP were enthusiastic about having a pair made to honour their magazine, so I wanted to create a design that was as colourful and vibrant as the publication itself. I opted to stick to primary colours, but work in light pastel shades (after all, it is July). The background on the front of the shoe fades from a pasty white-yellow through to a light salmon pink, whereas at the back a soft blue is punctuated by strips of light red.

The two main motifs in the design are the POP logo itself, which is built around the Escher  or “Impossible” Triangle, and the isometric cubes that often feature in my other designs. The latter morphs into the former, which then becomes part of the POP logo.

More pics here

This isn’t really related to Le Shouvre, but the band Air have a new album coming out in October, and thus far all their website has on it is this – which has got to be one of the coolest animations I’ve seen in a long time.

It’s simple, I know, and not much happens, but it looks amazing. Very effective short; I find it hypnotic. I’d love to see them take that and turn it into a full-length music video, with the letters slowly morphing into different words, and the reflections changing to keep up with the song.

Awesome.

Wimbledon started this week, and all the white clothes and green grass has inspired me. I want to design some tennis shoes – and who better to look to than the godfather of British Tennis (don’t laugh!), Fred Perry.

After a successful tennis career, Fred Perry invented the wristband, co-created his own fashion brand, and popularized the polo shirt. His brand has remained popular from its conception in the early 1950′s through to today. 

So, taking influence from classic Wimbledon images like the one above, and using Fred Perry’s own plain white plimsoles, I want to make a crisp, clean, summery design that makes you feel as though you’re setting foot in the All England Club itself… 

As for colours, it seems like the classic greens and purples of the Wimbledon emblem could work nicely – as well as a healthy dose of white, obviously. As yet these are “concept” shoes, but I’m going to start drafting designs soon and see how they look…

“Bananaz”, the film that documents the Gorillaz phenomenon from its conception and through its consequent successes, was released on DVD on June 1st. But, for those who weren’t aware, the entire film is still available to view online through Babelgum. Definitely worth checking out for anyone who’s a fan – the music seems to get more emphasis than the artwork, but I suppose they were a band, after all.  Maybe its just the footage they ended up using (which spans 7 years), but Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett are both portrayed as completely bonkers, which makes it seem even more amazing that the whole project got off the ground in the first place, let alone that it achieved international popularity.

Not sure how much longer the film will remain online to stream – I remember hearing that it was only going to be for a month, but so far it’s been up since late April, so who knows.

Watch it here

Pencil Squeezing is the blog of contemporary artist Michael Gillette. He’s perhaps most well-known for his recent series of covers for the new Penguin editions of Ian Fleming’s James Bond 007 novels (link here). Several years back he also designed the artwork for the Beastie Boys’ album, To the Five Boroughs (link here).

A quick browse through his blog, which he basically uses to showcase some of his work, will reveal how varied his work can be. He’s had a considerable amount of commercial success, illustrating for a wide range of professional clients, including big names like Microsoft and Apple. He uses a lot of watercolour, and his portraits in particular can be really vibrant. Plus, you gotta love those rock-star insects.