Work and Play

Last night saw the opening of Alan Fletcher: Fifty Years of Graphic Work and Play, a touring exhibition making its latest pit-stop at Manchester’s Cube gallery (only £4 entry, get some cheap flights, or train tickets, immense amount of inspiration, well worth it).

 

 

 

 

Talking to Alan Fletcher at Pentagram, Peter Saville said.
 

 

“One day I saw him crouched over a piece of paper with a paintbrush. Trying to ignore typesetting, he was putting down a message onto the paper in his handwriting. I stood over him and asked ‘Alan, can you remember typefaces? Or are you too old now?’, to which Alan smiled and replied: ‘Yes, I remember them, they’re a crutch for designers like you.’”  

 

piece of work with a little sketch by fletcher read:  

 

“the sun always shines  

 

its our fault if we dont think so!” (…handwritten of course).  

 

  Described as 'the best ever graphic designer' by the observer and 'one of the giants of 20th century design' by the guardian (both newspapers in UK, if unknown).   

 

  Excellent show (GO see! took 2 years to get it up-north at cube) me leant over with the bag and friend/tutor (many thanks too for informing and inviting me to the show, we should cash-in on those model releases for that drink hey... even after he just got peter drinking it ;o) ). Many thanks to peter saville for indulging me by signing my Communicate: independent british graphic design since the sixties, book. shame was too packed to have a chat with him, but for me a graphic designer, wow. dont meet many that well known.  

 

  factory records, joy division, new order, how to design without losing your soul in creative review article.  

 

  The Art of Looking sideways by Alan Fletcher is a must read for any creative, not just graphic designers. in the foreground of this pic was a glimpse of the volume thats in the book as he compiled it.  

 

   

 

    I finally got out to a gallery, only decided to go tues 19th, i think it was. very good!   

 

  fletcher, forbes & gill + theo crosby (good work also). loved some of the letter head examples, especially the cut off edge-of-paper silhouette shaped like a face.     

 

22 January—03 April 2010  

 

Cube Gallery, Portland Street, Manchester, M1 6DW www.cube.org.uk  

 

  Photograph by Mat Thornton (nice guy, if it was who we chat too). check out the Corner House restaurant not far, i think it was, nice soup, i know, extravagant! photos from here: http://www.grafikmag.com/index.php?m=GR&sub=GRdetail&id=238
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12 Great Music Visualisations

 12 Great Music Visualisations

Musician visualisations are great for finding links to artists you had never heard of and more often than not they are just as brilliant as the band, singer you originally searched if not better.  

music landscape   I like that it shows the musicians a whole in one look, terrain. It also has this great zoom in the top left to go into further depth like the first image. It still has a search engine to search musicians individually. Not sure who decided what musicians go on to the map.   http://www2.research.att.com/~yifanhu/MusicMap/index.html   Another good music search visualisation that has been around for a while previously blogged   http://visualisationmagazine.com/blogvisualthinkmap/2008/03/music-plasma.html   Illinois: Visualizing Music [jaxdeleon.com] consists of a collection of visual interpretations based on Sufjan Stevens album titled Illinois .   from: http://infosthetics.com/archives/2009/06/illinois_visualizing_music_the_infographic_interpretation_of_sufjan_stevens_music.html   an online music recommendation visualization, based on Amazon.com's Similarity API. the application allows a user to search for music via graph diagram representing the album's relationship to similar albums, based on Amazon.com buying history.   technically, the application is based on JSViz, a Javascript based library to generate 2D, dynamic force directed networks & tree graphs.   see also: musicovery & music plasma & color music & mystrands. From http://infosthetics.com/archives/2007/03/visual_music_recommendation.html   [link: kylescholz.com & kylescholz.com]   a visually impressive & fluid interface for discovering new music melodies. users can search, refine & explore new tunes according to style, mood or instruments. [link: burstlabs.com & burstlabs.com (blog)|via notcot.com]   From: http://infosthetics.com/archives/2007/06/burstlabs_visual_music_search_interface.html  
Very basic map, they do one for movies and literature. http://www.music-map.com/   Nice visualisation of music by Alex Chou Visualization of Piano Music   see more projects from havard: http://visualisationmagazine.com/blogvisualthinkmap/2009/09/cs-171-visualization-2008.html   Find inspiration from what is been listened to globally. Interactive Map http://www.gracenote.com/map/