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“Chloromgonfus detectis, a dragonfly that can detect volatile pollutants.” A speculative insect by artist Vincent Fournier. The annual review of artists/designers/photographers featured in the weekend posts should have run at the end of December but MR James got in the way. Big thanks, and happy new year to Form is Void and Beautiful Century for […]

Scarfolk, as was noted here last month, is a home from home, especially if you grew up in the 1970s. The mayor of the rabies-afflicted town, Richard Littler, talked to Creative Review about his unheimlich design project. • Ensemble Pearl, an album stream of “cosmic psychedelic space-doom minimal drone soundscapes” by Atsuo, William Herzog, Eyvind […]

It’s not cheap but it’s rather tasty: The Changing Faces of Bowie, a limited print at the V&A shop produced for the forthcoming David Bowie exhibition. One hundred artists and designers were asked to choose or create a Bowie-related type design, the collection being printed on holographic paper. Creative Review looked at some details. Related: […]

Labyrinth (Westminster) by Mark Wallinger. A mandatory post, this one, seeing as how it combines two continual sources of interest: labyrinths and the London Underground transport system. Transport for London commissioned artist Mark Wallinger to create something for the 150th birthday celebrations of the Tube, the result being a series of 270 different labyrinth designs, […]

Johnny Trunk of Trunk Records reissued the soundtrack to The Wicker Man in 1997. Mr Trunk’s latest delve into the cultural past is Own Label: Sainsbury’s Design Studio, a book from Fuel examining the supermarket chain’s packaging design of the 1960s and 1970s. Creative Review shows some examples while I have to note the uncanny […]

Things I was working on late last year continue to percolate or, if you prefer, build a head of steam. My cover for KW Jeter’s Morlock Night appears in a short piece by Rick Poynor in July’s Creative Review. That feature is prompted by the British Library’s Out of the World exhibition. Nice to see […]

Marian Bantjes designs the cover of the latest Creative Review and there’s a feature about her work inside. • “…the question: ‘was Shakespeare gay?’ strikes me as so daft as to be barely worth answering. Of course he was. Arguably he was bisexual, of sorts, but his heart was never on his straight side.” Don […]

The Drought, 1968; design by Richard Hollis, photography by Dr. J Comroe. James Pardey contacted me earlier this week announcing his site devoted to Penguin Books’ science fiction covers. I posted some of my own dishevelled copies a while back and this news gives me an excuse to throw up another Ballard cover. Pardey’s site […]

Lord Horror (1997). Time for an end of year news round up. • As mentioned earlier, issue 11 of US horror magazine Penny Blood features a look at Savoy Books and David Britton’s Lord Horror mythos. The magazine is now on sale and includes comments from Savoy’s Michael Butterworth and myself. • I was interviewed […]

A 250 guilder note. Robert Deodaat Emile Oxenaar, aka “Ootje”, was responsible for the design of the Netherlands’ guilders before they were swept aside by Euro blandness in 2002. In an interview with Creative Review he describes how he managed to hide secret references and little jokes in the designs, successfully evading the magnifying-glass scrutiny […]