»Bildungsmeile Wutzkyallee« is a collaboration of six educational institutions in Berlin Neukölln. Now the first applications of the CI we developed for the Bildungsmeile start to drop in. Amongst others we did a spontaneous photoshoot with children of Martin-Lichtenstein primary school – school can be fun!
Looking for a new office space.
Last weekend, the renowned book shop Motto Berlin and the neighbouring Chert Gallery invited once again to »Unter dem Motto«, a fair for contemporary art publishing where they displayed the works of more than 70 publishers from over 17 countries. New for this year was a programme with films, talks and readings.
In mono.kultur‘s Design Talk Kai von Rabenau very briefly introduced all 24 issues of his magazine mono.kultur, NODE talked about the two issues they designed and Mario Lombardo showed us nearly everything he has done so far. After that we were overwhelmed by the quantity of special interest magazines, fanzines and other independent publications. Puh, there´s so much out there, but we´re still dedicated to add some more!
Since in our (physical) letterboxes we hardly find anything but the utility bill these days, a pleasant surprise was the latest issue of LICHT magazine by dkdl that arrived today. A visual interpretation of creative and other accidents.
And also this post is about paint, nail polish, to be precise. I like to add a splash of colour to my daily routine which otherwise can be quite grey/beige/black (sartorially speaking). And it’s always inspiring to see some more advanced nail styles with, yes, style. A great example for elegant nails is the YSL Couture Manicure, here you can read a DIY tutorial. In questions of nail elegance you might even consider Anna-Sara Dåvik’s fingertip rings or her gloves with metal nails, but here we leave the field of nail polish, of course. Another way of achieving shiny silvery nails is the new Minx technique which works with plastic foils and also comes in fierce animal prints. And apropos animals, why don’t get inspired by your favorite runway look, the Miu Miu swallows from the blog Stop It Right Now are a nice example.
Walk-or-drive-through-paint-art seems to be quite popular these days: In Berlin some buckets of paint were emptied on the very frequented crossing of Rosenthaler Platz and the bikes and cars did the painting. The agency DDB China used the idea in a campaign for the Environmental Protection Foundation. We found two completely uncommercial versions just around our corner…
The latest issue of Electronic Beats Magazine is all about »down under«. Having done the Art direction of the magazine for quite a while now I was happy to make some adjustments to the layout, first and foremost to the cover! Another highlight apart from the redesign is Robin Jonssons fashion story »Along a trail less travelled«, the amazing styling is by our dear friend Rainer Metz! If you want to have a look at the whole issue: klick! and also past eb issues: klick!!
Everything is melting so we took off … to the garden-office!
We are so proud of our friend Arne, who for his showroom not only managed to COLLECT some of the most interesting fashion labels from Berlin, but also to present them in an inspiring location. In the black concrete L40 building you feel as urban as it gets while watching at fashion right in the middle of the intersection of Tor- and Rosa-Luxemburg-Strasse. Labels on display are Burkhardt / Möllmann, Esther Perbandt, Hien Le, Howitzweissbach, Juliaandben, Maiami, Mono.gramm, Starstyling, Tiedeken and Reality Studio, whose models arrived as »A moving Fashion show on bicycles«.
Browsing through footage on the internet can be a delightful way to spend a lazy Sunday afternoon. Especially when you find an ambitious, mono-themed blog like »Feasting never stops« by Naz Sahin. It is all about food, but it opens up a much wider view on the field of culinaria than most of the standard food blogs do. Smashing food photography from 1940’s Vogue, a post about the culinary delights of the Apollo crew members and reflections about the food industry result in a fascinating blend of visually appealing and sometimes thought-provoking food-related footage.
This weekend is »Langer Tag der StadtNatur« (Long Day of Urban Nature) in Berlin. More than 500 events invite all city dwellers to discover Berlin’s green side. Some highlights are the nightly observation of foxes, boars and racoons in Charlottenburg, a guided tour to medical plants along Landwehrkanal and of course the urban gardening project »Prinzessinnengärten« at Moritzplatz.
On our way out of Tempelhof airport we met this guy.
We were welcomed by »Death in Disguise« a porcelain-statue by Hans van Bentem and as we climbed the striking staircase we realized that this is just the perfect place for the encounter of design, illustration, art & craft which is the concept for this new art space in Berlin. Seeing the drawings of one of our all-time favourite illustrators Olaf Hajek is always great but »Das Direktorenhaus« with it’s sunlit rooms, not-too-big and not-too-small appartment-like feeling and views to the river Spree provides an extra-good framework.
In comparison to other design exhibitions, Berlin’s DMY is a lively display of overflowing creativity where you still feel involved into the process of making and developing. Loads and loads of new design ideas are spread out on 11.000 square meters in the two hangars of Tempelhof airport, which by the way is an appropriate new location for the DMY. A lot of the displayed objects are more grown up than in the years before, a bit more ready for the market, but in a positive way. The Maker Lab, a playground with several Open Design workshop stations where you can build your own material and practice new techniques, seems now to be the main place for experiments. This feels more cleared up and by incorporating presentations by 17 international design schools, the DMY runs little risk of missing the future of design nor its conceptual approach. The DMY 2010 runs until Sunday.
Finally we made it and visited Olafur Eliasson’s exhibition at Martin-Gropius-Bau. The most important thing to be said is: Don’t miss it!, because everything you might have heard about it being mind-expanding, fantastic and thrilling really is true.
This book about the person we got to know as Marilyn Monroe is heavy read, Joyce Carol Oates leaves no room for joy or hope while telling her story (and all of us know the ending already). Anyway, you keep on reading in horrified fascination about Norma Jeane Baker’s transformation into the artifial Hollywood product called Marilyn Monroe. Oates makes no difference between facts and fiction when she builds her story out of inner monologues, narratives by different people, real and fictious quotes of books Norma Jeane read, poems she wrote and comments by contemporary witnesses. This is definitely one of Oate’s best books (it made me for the first time think about Marilyn as a real person and not just the cliché of a blonde) but maybe it is not your next holiday reading.
Not the easiest task to redesign www.fluter.de, the magazine of the Federal Agency for Civic Education (Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung) since it´s really content-heavy and has grown over the last 8 years. We had to clean up and restructure quite a bit to achieve a straight layout. It was a fruitful coproduction with Redaktion und Alltag who are still working on technical improvements and we are happy that the beta-version is finally online.
After having seen Björn Richie Lob’s bubbly documentary »Keep Surfing« about river surfers in Munich I just wanted to grab a board and throw myself into the next wave, well, at least in a figurative sense. For besides showing stunning footage of the river surfing itself (I think by now you might have heard about this phenomena?) Björn focuses on the life scripts of his six protagonists, all of them characterized by a „Just Do It“ attitude. Keep Surfing is a both entertaining and touching movie that animates hopes and dreams out of the ordinary! Besides the great shots the movie’s splashy sound design by BASISberlin really is worth mentioning.
Elle UK lately really makes a difference with its collector’s covers. Here’s the June cover, a blurry Kylie shot by David Slijper. And some more beauties from earlier months.
