Under this motto, the online art show »Buy Some Damn Art« every week brings a new hand-picked selection of independent original art directly to buyers. The initiator of the site, Kate Singleton, wants to offer art at affordable prices for a new generation of art buyers. Since the beginning of November, each Tuesday at noon a new show launches featuring six originals for sale from $200 to $500.

This week it is Rachel Sitkin’s turn. Her landscape paintings quite unexpectedly show surface coal and copper mines in West Virginia and Arizona.

On New Year’s Eve 1956, Czech illustrator Zdeněk Miler stumbled over a molehill in the woods west of Prague. This incident gave him the idea for an animated cartoon character that has become a dear companion of our childhood days: The Little Mole. Since the Fifties, the little creature appeared in more than 40 books and 50 cartoon episodes, uttering not much more than an emotional oh-oh or a welcoming ahoi, but always cheerful and eager to help his friends. Zdeněk Miler died yesterday, aged 90.

All images by Zdenek Miler
Photo of Zdenek Miler taken from www.felsofokon.hu

Thanks to everybody who joined to celebrate the release of Π#2 at voo store. And a special thanks to the wonderful Almdudlerdern for yodeling along!

Photos: Christian Smirnow

We´re just back from the press proof of the second issue of Œ magazine. It´s printed at printing house Heenemann and we´re very satisfied with what we saw. We can´t wait until it returns from the bookbinder! The images show contributions by Yves Borgwardt, Rachel de Joode, Jette Stolte and Jan Mielke,  for a copy and a list of all contributors check out www.oe-magazine.de. The issue will be out on November 18th.

This funny sign is a winner – Bäckmans shoe repair in Stockholm, established in 1922.

Lying in bed with an unseasonal flu has its good sides, too: The last two days I browsed through the Prints and Photographs Online Catalog of the U.S. Library of Congress. It contains an unbelievable amount of digitized images and offers you an insight into U.S. history in a very direct way. It includes everything you might think of, just go ahead entering some keywords into the search field and you’ll get hooked! I was amazed by the photographic footage of the encounter between settlers and Native Americans in the 19th century, Civil War photos and the oil rush in the early 20th century.

Of course, the well-known images by Walker Evans for the Farm Security Administration are included, depicting life in rural America between 1935 and 1944. But until today, I had not seen the color series from this huge collection of 175,000 images.

Another tip for your next flu is the Picture Library of the Royal Geographic Society. These pictures will take you on a journey round the world in the footsteps of famous explorers and travellers.

Pics: Library of Congress, FSA/OWI Collection

The website we designed for one of our favourite Berlin fashion designers Sonia Boessert of Boessert/Schorn is now online! The design process was a little accidental: the grey patchwork-pattern in the background originally was composed to visualize a grid system we wanted to lay behind everything and fill with different content and images. It happend that Sonia liked it so much that she wanted it to actually be the design for her website. And as client is king we implemented this idea.

This is the CI we developed for and together with our friend Hanna Pordzik, who designs the most amazing things for her new jewellery label. Now we are convinced that Pantone metallic colours can look great on uncoated paper!

On our trip to South-Germany and especially at Lake Constance we saw a lot of beautiful inscriptions and signs. The technique is special: the names of places, maps and little drawings are carved into the walls and then painted, all in a typical traditional illustrative style.

The next flyer we did for TGA is announcing the show of allrounder and power woman Polina Lapkovskaja and her partner – come and see on thursday, 28th july 2011 at Bethanien!

A little potpourri of things we saw last week during Fashion Week in Berlin. We complemented Reality Studio’s presentation on Alte Schönhauser Straße with a closer look at the collection in Arne Eberle’s Collect Showroom. After some more stops we congratulated Alfhild Sarah Külper on her grand graduation at Central Saint Martins, which made Lady Gaga instantly order one of her 3D-dresses. On Saturday our Fashion Week excursion was rounded off with a Œ Magazine get-together at ninety-five gallery on Torstraße.
As lovers of printed matter we like to take along the publications accompanying Fashion Week, first of all DERZEIT fashion week Berlin daily.

…and we gave it an outfit to get started on its way through Berlin’s nightlife.

Flyers and posters for the Grand Opening of the TGA party series have just arrived. The opening will take place on 2 of july, 2011:

19-22h Exclusive Barbecue Dinner on the Terrace of Bethanien
(rsvp: lamansarde@hotmail.de)
Pianoconcert by PETER LUDWIG BEIERLEIN, „All On Me“ Fashionperformance by KRIWO (Paris),
Magic Wood Visuals by MELLA OJEDA
Dancefloor: JUSTUS KÖHNKE, JULI HOLZ live, BONNIE, MS ELBE, BUGGY, TDAANCE

…and NO, we have not had enough of triangles yet!

For the second time Corbis awarded a prize for the best cover in corporate publishing media at BCP. We are really happy that our cover for »The Romantic Issue« of Electronic Beats Magazine won this special prize! The image of the romantic German shepherd was shot by Mikael Kennedy. »The cover is the perfect adaption of this issues’ topic romanticism. A strong and exceptional image that intentionally breaks with the viewing habits of its target group, the ‘Digital Natives’.« Yay! Photographer: Mikael Kennedy / Art Direction: Lisa Borges / Editor-in-Chief: Viktoria Pelles / Publisher: Commandante

It’s been a while since we designed this wine etiquette for our client Achteinhalb. So it was a nice surprise when the final product was delivered by a messenger today.
Achteinhalb has a great collaboration with German vinegrower Tesch and they get their own bottling once in a while. For this 2009 Riesling we finally adapted the new Achteinhalb Corporate Identity to the label. It integrates nicely with the black bottles and of course the honorable Mr. Tesch himself!

As usual, the weather was great at the Berlin design exhibition DMY 2011. The exhibiting designers were inspired by nature, raw materials like wood, wool, hemp and concrete and sustainability can no longer be considered as a »trend«, it is a mindset that is here to stay. You don’t see very much of this in my pictures, though, my day apparently was more about colours and funny animals…

This was long overdue: Berlin-based publishing house Gestalten finally opened a shop/exhibition space! But the waiting was worth the while: Situated in Sophie-Gips-Höfe in Mitte, »Gestalten Space« spreads over more than 300 square metres and offers all the great books by Gestalten, covering everything relevant in the international design scene. Besides, you can buy selected products by designers & artists who have been previously published by Gestalten. The gallery space is inaugerated with the exhibition »Cutters Edges« displaying contemporary collages by 50 international artists.

It somehow did not really fit the season but was wonderful nevertheless: Timber Timbre were playing in Berlin yesterday and we got lost in spooky bluesy sounds and Taylor Kirk’s Gothic-Elvis voice.

A small bunch of this beauty is sitting on my desk right now.
Via Lemmemakeit.

»Monki!«, I’d say if you asked me for a fashion brand that uses a strong and unique visual language in its communication. Just think of their website, magazine, store interiors… And once more the Swedes show us how to maximize corporate consistency designwise: Stockholm based architect studio Electric Dreams recently completed the project »Fabricville«, which is the name of Monki’s (and Weekday’s) headquarter in Gothenburg. The corridors were transformed into a busy village street and the meeting rooms are colorful little cottages. You get carried away to Monki world, when you look at the pictures, don’t you? I really like the playful approach and story-telling of Monki’s creatives, but I was also relieved when I read that the people’s work places have »basic, neutral colour schemes«…

Photos: Electric Dreams