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Articles by Ruby Boddington
"Real life" Lego House to open in Denmark this month
After seven years, the new Lego House will open its doors to the public on 28 September 2017, finally realising everyones’ dream of entering a ‘real’ Lego building. Built in Billund, Denmark (the “Home of the Brick”), the Lego House will provide a range of creative experiences for both adults and children. The creation of the new educational space is another step on the brand’s quest to support “Learning Through Play” by allowing children to use their creativity to stimulate their development.
Nicolas Bernklau on the unending life span of typography
His practice, which operates under the title Bureau Bernklau moves between type design (custom typefaces, custom letterings, and logotype drawing), and graphic design and art direction for identities and editorial projects. In reality, though, Nicolas tells us, he’s open to any work as long as he identifies with it in some way. “I am very happy and privileged to be able to work with people I share similar values with. That, for me, is very important to achieve satisfying results,” he explains.
Tradition and technology combine in a book of fully AI-generated Irish poems and imagery
The book features a series of poems and images, produced when Kristian trained a GAN on hundreds of Irish poems, folk songs, plays and myths, from The Táin to Seamus Heaney. “I wasn’t aiming to create an AI system to generate poetry that was grammatically perfect or convincingly human,” he explains.
W Studio’s 2022 calendar features and is in support of our furry friends
In all of their work, Victor and Vérène strive to have fun and be experimental. “I would say [our visual language is] rich and colourful and kind of humorous,” Victor outlines. Oftentimes the word “pop” is associated with what they do, although they’re not a huge fan of the term, says Vérène. Instead of chasing a specific aesthetic though, the duo simply ensures they never take themselves too seriously – “not that good design isn’t important, but we’re not saving lives either,” Vérène remarks.
Photography and film duo The Masons tells compelling stories of human existence and beauty
Donna-Marie and Maruska Mason, AKA The Masons, are a creative duo in every sense of the phrase. Working with photography and filmmaking, the pair, who are a couple outside of work too, bring their distinct backgrounds together to create a unique style and narrative.
Graphic designer Emma Dragovic on finding her niche in the food and drink world
Also in the field of natural wine, Emma has been designing posters for Dalston Wine Club, a group founded by Hannah Crosbie, aimed at bringing young people into the world of wine “by demystifying a topic that is often seen as profound,” Emma explains.
Mooni Studio aims to break rules within the Southwest Asian and North African region and beyond
Mohammed and Tal rely on these wide-ranging influences whenever a new brief comes in, explaining “we have a very associative process. When a new project starts we immediately have some connections, stories, images, or quotes in mind.” They, therefore, “tend to follow that initial intuition and challenge it,” a process they coin “unfolding our inner compass” in order to reach new and exciting revelations about a topic or theme.
“Is it moral to pay people less than what we know they need to live?”: Chase Castor photographs the Fight for $15
“It’s a cliche,” says Kansas City-based photographer Chase Castor, “but a picture gives a face to an issue; it kind of forces the viewer to reckon with the morality or fairness of the person in the photo’s situation.” It’s this that draws Chase to photojournalism and documenting social justice movements, namely, the Fight for $15, an American political movement advocating for the minimum wage to be raised to $15 per hour.
Andrea Alfonso Trabucco-Campos utilises typography as “a vehicle to articulating identity”
Brooklyn-based graphic designer Andrea Alfonso Trabucco-Campos understands the concept of identity on a deeply personal level. An Italian-Colombian, he grew up bouncing between Tuscany and Bogotá. Then aged 16, his family moved to Miami and, a few years later, he wound up in New York. “As a kid who grew up in-between different cultures (compare Tuscany to Bogotá, Miami to NYC), I’ve had to rediscover my identity with each relocation,” he explains.
Hato Press releases a cookbook of recipes from 46 international chefs, inspired by iconic films
Cooking with Scorsese and Others: The Cookbook feels like somewhat of a culmination of the project and sees Hato collaborating with some of the most exciting names in the culinary world. “Some have attempted to recreate memorable on-screen meals, adding their own twist. Others have opted for a more abstract approach, taking cues from cinematography, set design or the emotions felt during a certain scene,” Hato says.
Kindling magazine explores the fresh perspectives that come with having children
Kinfolk, the magazine dedicated to all things home, work, style and culture, is known for being sharp and refined. It’s astute and adult – serious even. Kindling, the magazine’s new sister offering, takes a totally different approach, however, and offered Kinfolk design director Alex Hunting and art director Staffan Sundström a chance to be more playful, loose and youthful – quite literally. “Kindling is a magazine for ‘People with children’,” Alex tells It’s Nice That.
Aiqi Zhang on the benefits of working in multiple dimensions
Originally from Beijing, Aiqi Zhang is a multidisciplinary designer obsessed with extremes. Be it through scale, multiple dimensions or complex concepts, she constantly looks for ways to push her work beyond the screen or printed page. A recent graduate from ArtCenter College of Design, Aiqi tells us her approach is “about extensive research, interpreting information into inspiration, and making thoughtful design decisions.
Apple announces the winners of the 2021 App Store Awards, highlighting those who brought people together
Apple has announced the winners of the 2021 App Store Awards, which recognise the best apps and games of the year that, as a statement explains, “helped users tap into personal passions, discover creative outlets, connect with new people and experiences, and simply have fun”. The winners fall into ten different categories spanning apps and games, with Apple also recognising a trend of the year: Connection.
Diego Flores Diapolo on learning from YouTube and the importance of “acting on instinct”
Today, Diego is based in Italy and works as a freelance CGI designer, creating “carbon copies of objects and environments one might find mundane” and turning those everyday things into “visuals of desire”. In between his commercial projects, he works hard to push himself technically and visually, and the fruits of that labour can be found on his website under the humble title “things”. Here, you’ll find graphic design, 3D works, film and motion design, and illustration.
Fight from the inside-out or boycott brands? How graphic designers shape a more sustainable and ethical food system
We are living in a bittersweet moment when we consider how the production and consumption of food are contributing to climate change. We have enough information to know what the healthier, more ethical and sustainable choices are but we’re far from a place where those options are widely accepted or readily available to most people. We’re seeing plant-based products fill up supermarket shelves, for example, but they are often more expensive than their planet-damaging alternatives.
Monotype’s Tom Foley on an “emotional topic”: Helvetica
There’s not much that keeps the Nicer Tuesdays audience on the edge of their seats like a talk about design metrics such as UPM sizes (we’re not joking). So when Monotype’s creative director Tom Foley took the stage at October’s event to discuss “an emotional topic” – ie Helvetica – the room was filled with anticipatory energy. Tom began by taking us through a condensed history of the typeface which began its life in the Haas type foundry in Switzerland.
Alessandro Prepi Sot on creating strong but timeless designs rooted in systems and storytelling
Looking at Alessandro’s broad range of projects is a testament to the fact; he flits between demure photobooks, bold websites, humorous publications and more with ease. A recent project which he’s particularly fond of is titled Andante – a book he designed for photography collective Cesura, art directed by Arianna Arcara. Alessandro works regularly with Cesura and also designed the collective identity and website.
A historic day in the fight for climate justice - photographs from Cop26 protests in Glasgow
On Saturday 6 November, a day that marked the halfway point of Cop26, protests were held across the globe by those demanding faster and more decisive action against climate change by world leaders. On the streets of Glasgow, the climate change summit’s host city, organisers estimate over 100,000 people marched the streets, starting in Kelvingrove Park and ending at Glasgow Green. Their demands were clear and loud: place the planet over profit and take action now.
Yosh Schreiner and Tim Lindacher create a “humorous, almost naive” identity for an electronic music festival in a castle
Sometimes the strongest visual identities are borne from juxtaposition. The contrast of a theme or venue with a visual style provides a pleasing surprise, some irony even. That’s certainly the case with Yosh Schreiner and Tim Lindacher’s identity for Bau Mich Auf, an electronic music festival held on the grounds of a grand building. Both Yosh and Tim are currently studying for a BA and MA respectively, and also operate freelance design practices on the side.
Céline Raffy uses her illustrations like a diary and her senses as inspiration
Despite having a deep connection to illustration, Céline didn’t consider pursuing a creative career for a long time. “In my society being an artist was not considered a good career,” she explains. Luckily, though, her parents saw her talent. They were “very supportive and encouraging of my passion, always buying me art supplies to encourage me to draw more,” she tells us.
How do you coherently present a lot of content online? Five designers of archive sites explain
Archives and online exhibitions require thinking beyond simply how a site looks. Often involving collating content from various sources, they present problems when it comes to data management and designers need to figure out how users navigate that data, rather than how they view it.
Eike König on artistic freedom and creating work with meaning beyond income or likes
Of all the names that have been featured in this series, German designer, educator and artist Eike König has one of the broadest portfolios. He’s turned his hand to everything from branding to painting, sculpture, typography and printing. And has tackled each with a clear love of craft and creativity and a good sense of humour too.
Jaenam Yoo’s illustrations are surreal “but in a simple, intuitive way”
Through instinctive experimentation, the universes inhabited through drawing evolved into “a more dream-like world where things are misplaced and mixed together in a surreal, but in a simple, intuitive way.” Thematically, the imagery represents Jaenam’s desire to capture the fleeting moments of nature that we often miss. Whether that’s “the way the morning dew glistens on a flower petal,” or the moment a plant unfurls its leaves to the sun.
Gonzalo Menevichian’s short animation Time is a “contemplative and calm” visualisation of a daydream
At the end of 2019, Gonzalo Menevichian was working as an animator, bringing other peoples ideas and storyboards to life. He was working long hours yet still, the pull of creating something just for himself – “thinking, designing and having my own voice” – proved strong and he began to sketch in his evenings and free time. Although sporadic and unrelated Gonzalo found “that some of the drawings were making sense to me,” he tells It’s Nice That.
From “friendship campaign” to a symbol of counter-culture: An ode to the Smiley, on World Smile Day
The story of a low-profile creative producing something that goes on to become an iconic symbol is one we hear time and time again. The Nike swoosh, the Smiling Sun, even Harry Beck’s original Tube map. All have humble beginnings but went on to shape culture, be recognised worldwide, and take on a meaning well beyond the creator’s original intentions. One symbol that follows a similar rags-to-riches narrative is the Smiley face.
&Walsh creates an identity for “designer proteins” brand Geltor inspired by “biodesign, science, nature and art”
HumaColl21®, for example, is the first-ever biodesigned vegan human collagen for skincare – usually, collagen contains animal products such as fish skin. So &Walsh chose various “elements to show the concept of youth, moisture, firmness, or dew inside the orbs.” The “Collume® images, on the other hand, intentionally incorporate marine-inspired elements, to reflect the fact that Collume® is a marine collagen.
“We had to be authentic and truthful”: Havas Lynx’s powerful campaign encourages drug users to carry anti-opioid overdose medication
They spent time with each subject as they shared stories of how naloxone has impacted their life. “When we met up with each person, Harry didn’t take a single shot until we’d sat and chatted, learnt more about the people, heard some of their stories and then went to a spot they might have mentioned that was personal to their story,” Rob says.
Ali Hanson designs an identity for Hyht that references British design heritage without falling back on nostalgia
One example of design “revival” can be seen in the logotype, which was directly inspired by a trip Ali took to St Bride, a library primarily devoted to printing, book arts, typography and graphic design. “[It] allowed me to look through over 30 books of past British type foundries, some dating back 100s of years,” he explains.
Mark Corfield-Moore eschews the traditional weaving technique of ikat to explore his dual Thai and British identity
On what he loves about the process, Mark describes its “blurred or glitchy appearance, or what I like to call a ‘fizzy heat’.” This gives the outcome a feeling of transience, something that is paramount to Mark’s practice which explores the concept of fabrics as nomadic objects; he investigates “the historic use of textiles in the production of rugs and tents, items that are portable and attached to no specific location, my understanding of fabrics and my practice at large is rooted this...
Football, music and Punjabi culture combine in Raj Dhunna’s textural illustrations
For Raj Dhunna, a London-based creative working within illustration, design and education, drawing is a way for him to channel his identity; a way for him to let people know who he is. “I want people to view it and get a sense of me as a person knowing that I’ve made the work because it’s important to me, opposed to it being a fad or flavour of the week,” he explains.
Introducing Circus, an “obnoxious, vibrant, raw and unkempt” new anti-beauty mag
With such an open brief and range of contributors, it’s a testament to Jackson’s eye for art direction that Circus feels incredibly succinct. There’s a visual style that pervades all of the work; a certain anarchy and disorder that pushes against the traditions of beauty and fashion publishing. “I love love love going against the grain and doing things that I’m told not to,” Jackson responds when asked about this topic.
Photographer Laurel Golio on her decade-long documentation of queer youth in the US
Back in 2010, photographer Laurel Golio and her childhood friend Diana Scholl, a journalist, noticed a significant lack of representation of the queer community in mainstream media. Stories relating to queer youth were even scarcer. “Most of the stories we were seeing on a national or even regional level focused on adult queer folks and were centred mostly around cis-white-gay men and the fight for marriage equality,” Laurel recalls.
Dystopian narratives, nostalgia and love reoccur in multidisciplinary graphic designer Basile Fournier’s portfolio
Basile Fournier’s path to graphic design was set when, at around the age of ten, while tagging under a bridge, he met a fellow graffiti artist. Basile, who grew up in a small village in the south of France, was obsessed with graffiti and spent much of his time reading magazines about street and hip-hop culture. “I remember asking him what job would allow me to do graffiti for the rest of my life, and he told me that it was graphic designer,” Basile recalls. And so that was that.
Zhiqin Lu investigates love and sex through “AI porn” in her project Synthetic Eros
A fascination with technology guides much of the work in designer Zhiqin Lu’s (written 卢芷钦 in Chinese) graduate portfolio. Having studied graphic communication design at Central Saint Martins (CSM) in London, her works traverse the boundaries of several mediums but are first and foremost concerned with creative coding.
Through atmospheric and scientific photography, Maewenn Bourcelot tells the “tragic story” of the decline of pollinators
Photographer Maewenn Bourcelot creates and always has created, entirely instinctively. From the moment her parents (both artists and designers) gifted her a camera aged seven, she’s allowed intuition to guide her decisions and outcomes. Put simply, she just knew what she wanted to make and never questioned it. This process proved problematic when she enrolled on the visual communication course at ECAL.
Peony Gent’s six-month documentation of Kings Cross examines how layered connections, associations and memories make a place
Her intentions from the offset were to create something incredibly subjective, and she’s keen to impress the notion that “this was always a body of work that would be a documentation of my experience of a place, not an objective documentation of all that Kings Cross is and has been.
“Concept, art direction, attention to detail and typography”: Meet Studio Marcus Kraft
A real strength of the campaign is its art direction, and this alongside strong concepts, attention to detail and typography is what Marcus believes is his signature. Crucially, the studio is run on the premise that design should be more than just beautiful or aesthetically pleasing, but should: start a conversation, further businesses, be simple, unique and honest, think of the audience first, stand the test of time, be accessible to all, and be fun.
“The power of language really catches me”: Eager Zhang on what draws her to experimental typography
Garden in the Air, on the other hand, is a Risograph-printed book with a red velvet cover to mimic a family photo album. Based on another poem Eager wrote, it simulates how she and her mother interact over text – by sharing images of flowers with one another. “I’m playing around with the texture between analogue and digital mediums under the narrative of this book, too,” she adds. Eager also made use of Riso in her project Family Portraits which once again deals with language.
Explore the web in the palm of your hand with these five experimental mobile sites
We all spend an increasing amount of time browsing websites on our phones. So when a site has clearly not been adapted to suit the smaller size, it makes for a very frustrating experience. Clearly, mobile sites are not simply an afterthought nowadays, a project to be tackled once you feel the desktop version of a site is finished. The two should be considered in tandem – some might even argue that today, a mobile site is actually more important.
Lily Kong on bringing themes of loneliness and vulnerability into her work since the lockdowns
On how she straddles sensitively telling difficult stories while attempting to make people laugh, Lily says it’s all about empathy. She adds that you have to design the process for how a piece is going to be received, not just what it looks like. “It’s like having a conversation with your mates in the pub,” she says.
Ruby Sguelia physicalises feelings in their textural, colourful illustrations
When working on a new piece, Ruby will spend a lot of time thinking before anything else. “I’ve got to roll the brief around in my head for a long time before I’m ready to start putting pen to paper, and when that happens I basically scribble out a bunch of stuff and then my real ideas come from interpretations of those sketches,” they explain.
Kezia Gabriella and Nicholas Oh visualise feelings of isolation and melancholia in their latest music video
This non-linear flow is one of Nicholas’ favourite parts of the film, he adds: “It was more of the idea of being engulfed in a moment and letting that feeling carry you, hence floating away.
Zoe Lowdermilk-Oppenheim’s moving project documents young Chinese women adopted into British families
Like many other transracial Chinese adoptees, Zoe tells us she grew up in an environment where she was the minority meaning “identity is something that I have always had to think twice as hard about.” When she would talk about her adoption, people would always enquire about her birth parents as the narrative around adoption presented in the media focuses so heavily on this connection.
Art or memes? Times New Roadman creates hilarious paintings out of cultural phenomena
When asked to describe his work, Times jokes that he actually attempted to do this the other day to his friend’s mum – and, needless to say, it was a struggle. “I always feel it’s pretty much the opposite of me: It’s pretty loud, pretty in your face and pretty funny. However, I’d sound weird if I said that aloud to someone, so I just say ‘Words and weird homages to music that came out in my teens’ (and pretend that doesn’t make me sound weird).” One such homage, for example, is to La Roux.
How growing up multilingual influenced Orysia Zabeida’s decision to be a designer
Orysia Zabeida grew up speaking multiple languages – Quebec French, Ukrainian and English – and she credits her multilingual youth as being the reason she found her way to design. “Each language has its distinct universe, and each influences how we perceive the world around us,” she remarks.
Sara Hylton on how a portrait shows “the truth of a character or community”
Photographer Sara Hylton has been based on and off in India since 2010. Having left her birth place Canada the previous year to undertake an MA in International Conflict Studies at King College London, she has spent the past decade or so documenting human rights issues the world over as a freelance photographer, but has found herself drawn back to India time and time again.
Maggie Shannon photographs the “resilience and creativity” of prom season during the pandemic
The prom is a quintessential marker of adolescence in the US. It’s the moment teenagers come together to celebrate finishing high school and moving onto pastures new. They get ready together, hire lavish rides to the venue (usually a done-up PE hall) and dance and sing all night long with the pals they have seen nearly every day in the hallways and classrooms of their school.
Tom Adam Vitolins on imbuing the concept of family into every aspect of his fashion brand
This thread continues through to the visual identity of the brand. For example, the typeface is Lyon from Commercial Type which while suiting the aesthetics of Tom Àdam was also chosen because the type foundry’s co-founder Paul Barnes had a long-time collaboration with Peter Saville, a designer Tom is particularly fond of. “I think that’s how it all connects, by researching and digging deeper you establish certain connections, which then come back as an inspirational boomerang,” he says.
Digital artist Laurent Allard takes childhood objects and places them in “dark, solemn environments”
A recent commission of Laurent’s which is a testament to the fact was for Nike, made in collaboration with the agency Convoy. Manifesting as a triptych of images, each features a distinctive Nike shoe rendered as a chintzy teapot in Laurent’s signature gloss.
Eliza Hatch’s latest series focuses on the overlooked harassment routinely faced by key workers
During the pandemic, “when there was a particular focus on key workers and the pressures they were facing,” Eliza Hatch – the founder of Cheer Up Luv, a platform highlighting stories of sexual harassment across the UK, the US, Japan, Holland, Sri Lanka and Mexico – started hearing stories “of a different kind of pressure from the frontline.” Specifically, she received two story submissions of sexual harassment among key workers and so, she put out an open call to see if anyone else had...
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