small stakes

With a name springing from a song by Spoon (how cool is that, just by the by?), The Small Stakes is the studio of graphic designer Jason Munn. He is most famous for his band posters, and when you take a look at these witty gems it will be easy to see why. Jason is releasing a book of his posters, and I think it might just be a coffe table essential. Awesome design + awesome bands = right.up.my.alley!

all images from The Small Stakes.

PS: If you enjoyed these, two more designers working in the same niche as Jason Munn and producing equally awesome posters are Delicious Design League and Spike Press.

why i love photography: water//eau//acqua//wasser

Because three photos all on the same topic can nonetheless be:

abstract

geometric

and documentary

images from The Big Picture@Boston.com's post for World Water Day.

PS I am throwing three more in because they are just so damn beautiful and moving that I couldn't restrict myself to the initial three.

a bit of Balla

 Giacomo Balla, Bankruptcy, 1902

I am struggling away trying to have a draft of the first chapter of my thesis ready for Wednesday, and all I want to do is get out of the house...to the art gallery, to a cafe, more than anything else to take a walk with my camera. For now I am making do by enjoying the gentle stillness and poignancy of some pre-Futurist Giacomo Balla goodness. Isn't it exquisite? Can you belive that it was painted in 1902? It wouldn't look out of place at some trendier-than-thou Flinders Lane art gallery, methinks. Good ol' Balla.

your everafter

A Love Letter For You  is a project created by artist Steve Powers, entailing series of fifty sign-writing inspired murals running along a train line in Philadelphia. Ex-graffiti artist Powers began the project by putting out an open call for people's thoughts on the rewards and complexities of relationships. Now, I like to think of myself as fairly no-nonsense and unromantic, but even I can't resist the sentiment here. Plus there's all that juicy typography to boot.

Posts about the murals have been floating around the net for a while now, so apologies if you've seen this all before - frankly, given how cute the whole project is, I just couldn't resist sharing. I am feeling pretty worn out from an excessive combination of work and study at the moment, so the thought of having my morning commute pepped up by these babies is appealing to me in a very big way. Take note, Melbourne (well, I guess we do have Crateman...maybe I just need to spend more time west of the city...).

Enjoy. 

between the salt and stars

A few weeks ago (ie pre house-imposed-internet-silence), ABC arts covered photographer Murray Fredericks' project Salt. For a number of years, Fredericks made an annual pilgrimage to South Australia's remote, moon-like Lake Eyre. The lake is bare, and featureless, yet this very featurelessness makes it a blank canvas for the shifting colours of light throughout the course of the day and into the night. Salt is both an ongoing photographic project, and a documentary of Fredericks' time at Lake Eyre. As several reviewers point out, the resulting film becomes as much about Fredericks' emotional journey as it does about documenting the lake. Breathtaking natural beauty is juxtaposed with extreme isolation, not to mention the challenges posed by environmental conditions.

In addition to documenting the lake via still photographs, Friedricks also made several time-lapse films. Timelapse photography has always been a favourite of mine, and when you combine this with racing clouds and spiralling star streams the result is nothing short of amazing. I can't embed the snippets of time-lapse, but you can check them out via the website for the Salt documentary. Highly reccomended. At risk of sounding very lame indeed, I got that 'you-are-small-and-insignificant-punch-to-the-gut  feeling from them, well and truly. And, on that note, enough of me; time to be mesmerised by Fredericks' photography. If you scroll down to the bottom I've embedded the trailer for the documentary, which is also worth investigating.

images 1-3 from Arc One gallery's website
images 4-8 from the Salt website

diversion

This video from London based singer-songwriter Alessi's Ark is made up of hundreds of photographs taken on Lomography cameras. Just the nudge I needed to take my Holga out for a walk again.



Found via Meet Me at Mikes. Thanks for sharing, Pip!

Back in the world of the living

Or rather, back in the world of the web. You really don't realise how much of your life is tied to the internet until circumstances take it away. Finally the net is up and running at my new house, and I can start to feel like I'm connected to the outside world again.

It's good to be back. Expect more arty/photographic goodness soon.

030910

Broken Bells is a collaboration between producer Dangermaus and Shins frontman James Mercer. Given that the release date of their self-titled album also happened to be my birthday, it's really not too surprising how awesome it is. Anything that happens on the ninth of the third is clearly destined for greatness.


The High Road

Broken Bells | MySpace Music Videos

My favourite track is The Ghost Inside, but it doesn't seem to have a video released yet. You can listen to it here though. Soooo good.

The cover art Broken Bells is by the very talented Jacob Escobedo. The more ritzy, deluxe versions of with the album feature even more of his work, which is in equal parts trippy, colourful and amazing.

 all images from http://jacobescobedo.com/

PS: The Broken Bells album launch? Oh, you know, just a casual rooftop laser party. I'm not jealous at all, Los Angeles.

(video found via Jacob Escobedo's website)