Ballistic: new banner

Whipped up this banner for our new ESSENCE book... mmm flowery

Logo is liked

Happy to say that my BigFatRobot logo has made it to the members' favourites section on LogoPond - yay!

This made me think how important these peer networking sites are. Designers are oft isolated souls, working in dusty little industrial-chic garrets, pulling vectors and pushing pixels, with only an overlord (who is usually an accountant) or a client (who is usually an accountant) stooping behind us, saying things like "it just doesn't feel right" and we are always subject to their outrageous whims and “minor tweaks”. By the way, the phrase “minor tweaks” is kryptonite to even the most super of designers, when muttered at the wrong time it can reduce us to a shakey souffle of our former selves. But these peer to peer sites give us an opportunity for encouragment and constructive critique. I say "Rock on, LogoPond!"

BigFatRobot logo

Just popped my new logo up at LogoPond for the world to pick apart. It's part of my soon-to-exist online store, which will have custom tshirts, badges and various goodies of a pop-culture/low-brow nature.

Here it is ...

Latin rocks! #2

Anton's favourite...

Si Hoc Legere Scis Nimium Eruditionis Habes
If you can read this you're over-educated

Latin rocks! #1

Sona si Latine loqueris.
Honk if you speak Latin.

Haikus for nerds #1

Hal, open the file
Hal, open the damn file, Hal
open the... please Hal

Clever chums #1: Dan Reid

My good friend Dan Reid is proving to be quite the auteur with his very ace clip for Bit by Bat's One Six One. The band was recently named a Breaking band by NME. Check it out here...

Favourite Bushisms #2

"This notion that the United States is getting ready to attack Iran is simply ridiculous. And having said that, all options are on the table."

George W Bush
Brussels, Belgium
2005

Reviews from the Crypt #3: Zita Weelius

Title: Blood and beauty
Artist: Zita Weelius
Exhibition: Is there life after size 16?
Where: Annex Gallery, Lion Arts Centre
When: February 1994

The Annex Gallery is a small room within the Lion Arts centre. Zita Weelius has used her limited space well for a pithy installation.

Dolls, of various sizes, hang from the ceiling by fishing wire. Most of their limbs and heads have been torn off. Surgical cut-marks are rudely sketched around the dolls’ genitals. All of them are draped in green surgical cloth. On the white floor, in a chess pattern, are photocopies of breasts. Above the surgical table hangs a light which has been encased by the cover of a Cleo magazine: the misguiding light of stereotypes, perhaps? The room is full of smoky, pungent incense.

Weelius, who has worked as a general and psychiatric nurse, told me that a “new age of aesthetic surgery is upon us. Females read women’s magazines as Bibles, which promote eternal beauty as possible, through aesthetic surgery; a new religion has begun.” Seemingly, the surgical table has become an altar, and like angels, its subjects float either to, or from it. The Barbie doll, that icon of unattainable beauty, hangs whole; the Archangel of the religion of beauty, with her luminous blonde hair crowning her empty head like a halo.

This work intrigued me. I found myself constantly going back to it. It was so simple, so eloquent and concise. Her message, a topical one, has been successfully conveyed.

-- Wow! Great conclusion Mike!

Reviews from the Crypt #2: Kawasaki Takayasu

Title: Complete visual abstraction
Artist: Kawasaki Takayasu
Exhibition: The Subconscious Moment
Where: El Space, LAC

Kawasaki Takayasu is from Kyoto, Japan. He has been painting for 17 years, and has exhibited often in his homeland. The Subconscious Moment is his first exhibition in Australia.

Kawasaki’s 40 or so paintings use complete visual abstraction; an art form rarely explored in contemporary Australian art. All of them explore shape, colour and the simplification of form. He told me that he freed himself from conscious intervention through his painting, and allowed his instinct to guide the brush. It is through his subconscious that his joy in colour, spontaneity and freedom is expressed. He attempts to harmonise colour and form; harmony that is created through his, and the viewers’, inner spirits. It is only after the painting process when he stands back and ponders, that a meaning arises.

These works are certainly colourful; however they just seem to lack something. They failed to move me. They are not refreshing reinterpretations of what can be a powerful medium. There was an awful stench of corporate art surrounding them. They seemed ideal for colouring up a drab wall and to hide behind a plastic pot plant. This could have something to do with the small scale and easily marketable canvases that he used. He told me that this was because he was not sure of the size of the gallery. I would like to see him work on larger canvases, where his potential may be unleashed.

Favourite Bushisms #1

When discussing with Blair the decline of the French economy, Bush garbled this pearler ...

"The problem with the French is that they don't have a word for entrepreneur."
George w. Bush

New CGSociety feature #5: Grindhouse

Just whipped up an article about the Quentin Tarantino / Robert Rodriguez splatterfest - Grindhouse. Click the drops of blood ......