I don't have a cross word to say about my neighbours

This is a very original way to entertain tourists in Lvov city in Ukraine, the questions are posted around the city in places of interest and if you return at night, the letters fluoresce gently and you can check your answers. The crossword buff in me suddenly wants to visit the Ukraine. More here.

Paper capers

Poring over my ABC3D pop up book has given me a new found respect for paper craft, so I started having a look around and came across this advert which I had previously dismissed. I like the Welsh as much as the next person, in fact more so, just ask me to do my Welsh impression the next time I'm in the pub, but the twee Welsh sprogs ruin this clever piece of paper art for me. Don't even get me started on their end line of 'every child has the right to a nicer world', so turn down the volume and enjoy the artwork, isn't it?!

Don't believe your eyes

First thoughts? Scale model? Photograph? Painting?
These incredible oil paintings may seem on the surface the homemaker idyll but all is not what it seems. Found via BOOOOOOOOM!

www.amybennett.com

Dan Haskett

I stumbled upon Dan's work while researching earlier, he's got quite a lot of editorial experience under his belt, I recognise some of his magazine work, I recommend downloading his PDF of work in print, it looks great in situ.

www.danhaskett.co.uk

Just my cup of tea

Lindsay Pemberton has created these kitsch wrist-janglers from old china cups, totally bizarre but quite the conversation starter, anyone fancy a brew?

M is for most original Christmas gift

Thanks to my brother for this wonder pop up alphabet book, ABC3D by Marion Bataille, M is clearly the best letter as shown, but you can enjoy the complete lexical loveliness thanks to this clip. Thank you to Paul for this lovely gift and the rubber duck ice cubes, well, that deserves a post of its own another time.

Illuminating ideas

I discovered the work of mobilet projects today, they create a charming mix of eclectic product design and graphic design, check out their quirky, beautiful milk crate covers in gemstone colours, you know you want one. As for this barcode light-shade there is a charm and abstract quality to this otherwise mundane collection of numbers and lines.

Unbox the box

Did you unwrap any lovely presents at Christmas? I discovered a gift of an advert over Christmas that starts with a cardboard box, it's for the Audi Q5 which ends with the tag line 'we've unboxed the box', and has a catchy little ditty by Woody Guthrie aptly entitled 'Car Song'.

The advert was developed by Bartle Bogle Hegarty London, Executive Creative Director Nick Gill, Creative Directors Kevin Stark and Nick Kidney. I couldn't help but think of the wonderful Saul Steinberg and the example shown above from 1951, it appears BBH may also be fans, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery as they say, thanks all the same, great advert!

Lost & Found

This is my last post for a while, but it's a goody.

Try and catch Oliver Jeffers' animated version of his best selling children's book 'Lost & Found', I was lucky enough to receive this book as my Digit Secret Santa present this year, it's a beautiful tale, a tale as old as time. Boy finds penguin on doorstep, penguin follows boy, boy sets off to return penguin to the South Pole. I won't spoil the ending for you, but try and catch it over Christmas, or yule be sorry, ho ho ho.

Channel 4, Christmas Eve, 2.30pm

Channel 4, Boxing Day. 12.30pm (repeat)

Created by the impressive studioaka who are also responsible for the Lloyds TSB adverts, which bear more than a passing resemblance to scenes in Lost & Found. Happy Christmas everyone, over and out.

Pencil prowess from Rachel Cattle. See more of her graphite greatness here.

www.rachelcattle.co.uk

Beardy Best Wishes

Christmas card design from my lovely Bearded friend, she isn't really a bearded lady, just a great illustrator. Thank you for my physical card too Miss Beard, I'm collecting the set; see you in the New Year.

www.laurenbeard.co.uk

Jingle (Microwave) Bells

Season's Greetings from AKQA.

Shake it like a Poladroid picture...

Just thought I'd show how the Poladroid sits on your desktop and what the development looks like. Give it a go, it's great fun, there's also a Flickr group you can submit them to afterward.

Shake it like a Poladroid picture...

As of 31st December 2008, the Polaroid will be no more, they will cease production, but worry not there are some new alternatives coming on to the market. However you can create Poladroids for free, FREE!

It's a downloadable application that you drag your photographs on to, hear the polaroid sound and watch them develop on your desktop, you can even shake them to speed up the processing! You can save the images to keep, you can also keep saving them as and when they're developing.

Here are a few of mine, I'm finding this app very distracting while at work, I keep processing polardroids, oops.

www.poladroid.net

This will make you feel very, very small

5 minute doodle Mistiletto

Happy Christmas!

Mistiletto and Wine

I had this idea the other day for alternative sexy Christmas cards, which are open to pun-age.
I give you Mistiletto (or Mistle-toe) and Christmas Stockings (not that it is THAT original). I never actually got around to developing this, maybe next year.

We wish you a chutney Christmas

Mmmm, simple, human, interaction.

Elly and Claire launched the inaugural Digit Chutney Christmas Lunch today with their homemade chutneys compleat with their own product branding. In summary we are now suffering a cheese coma, Elly's chutney was more spicy and Claire's was more tomatoey, both equally yummy.

Bored, cardboard.

Snappy little cartoon strips from Phillipa Rice, My Cardboard Life, enjoy.

Don't panic...

Only one earth week until Christmas! You still have time for last minute shopping and wrapping, but I shall take a moment now in the spirit of good will to all men and say smugly that I have completed all my shopping and wrapping with one week to spare. Hurrah! Some creative repositioning of old illustrations into gift tags was needed, but voila!

Bowerbird Barbie

Only joking, it's actually The Birds Barbie, created to celebrate the film's 45th anniversary, couldn't they have waited another 5 years? It seems an arbitrary anniversary, ho hum, here's the blurb, note the age restriction, brilliant. Also it was Zombie Barbie on Monday I wonder what's next?

In 1963, Alfred Hitchcock, the Master of Suspense, gave us a tale of terror not soon forgotten in his film “The Birds.” Dressed in a re-creation of the stylish green skirt-suit worn by the film’s ill-fated heroine in an iconic scene, Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds” Barbie® Doll celebrates the 45th anniversary of the acclaimed film. From the doll’s classic ensemble to the perfectly painted expression to the accompanying black birds, every aspect captures the film’s infamous appeal.

A Note to Parents: The Birds is rated PG-13. Consult

It's a collector's bargain at $40, bag The Birds Barbie here.

A good banner ad

I can not believe I have uttered those words, but every now and again a banner advert actually succeeds and engages you. I have witnessed such an event. Lo, I present the campaign for National Book Tokens.

"Because every book nut is different"

1. Select a book (that will become a book nut, it's a head, a nut geddit? Tenuous.)
2. Draw a head in the banner itself, hurrah I'm not taken elsewhere and it's not an expandable banner obstructing the content.
3. Download your drawing to your desktop.
4. Go along on your merry way.

This may seem obvious and banal but it's actually very clever, I've engaged with the brand in a lighthearted way and have remembered it most importantly. On the downside the National Book Tokens website is dry as dust, the drawing that you download is unbranded (as shown above) and I can't find the banner ad for you to play with now, but I did capture a few screen grabs; which only demonstrates how piqued my interest was.

Pixel Perfect Poster

A pixel poster, simple idea, you know you want to customise one...
Found here.
It reminds me of Graphic Thought Facility's Me Box, as shown above, mmm pixelly.

12 Days of Christmas

It's an over illustrated subject matter, but in the name of charity Studio 8 have collaborated with artists, designers and illustrators to create a lovely set of Christmas cards for Shelter. Here are four of my favourites, I posted my cards this morning so maybe some of you will be getting them shortly...

Congratulations to the super talented Zoe and her team from Studio 8, it was a lovely night at the exhibition in Poke's Gallery, lovely free booze from Stella Artois too, cheers all.

‘Five Golden Rings’ Michael Kirkham ‘Six Geese a Laying’ by Adrian Johnson ‘Two Turtle Doves’ by Douglas Bevans ‘Four Calling Birds’ by Tom Gauld

Sling your hook

While we're on ailments, I spotted this the other day and now can't remember where it's from, if anyone has any further information, it'll be gladly received. I love the idea of the sling telling the story for you, I went on a St John's Ambulance First Aid course recently so I could bandage you up good and proper. In a non S&M, purely medicinal way of course.

An unliving doll

I'm feeling a bit meh today, I'm trying to denounce a cold and a headache and any other ailment that is currently knocking at my door, so this post sums up my less than rosy outlook. Happy Monday everyone.

Make your own undead Barbie here.

Marc Johns can do no wrong

In my eyes at least. I have just discovered his work and have consumed his blog, site, Flickr and shop in one fell swoop, and just for good measure have bought his Bearded Bird. I think I got carried away with all the Christmas Shopping I've been doing this weekend!

Marc has a curious outlook on the world, a delicate touch and a keen sense of humour. I particularly like his set of Trappings, I'm a big fan of unusual media, so mousetraps and post-its are all good with me.

www.marcjohns.com

Lovely seed animation

Written and directed by Johnny Kelly, of Nexus Productions, paper models by Elin Svensson in collaboration with Goodby, Silverstein and Partners. Lovely, clean use of paper stop frame animation and 2D animation.

Watch 'The Seed' here.

Have a break...

Clever piece of outdoor marketing, as seen on Ffffound.
However, more inventive bench-vertising here.

The First Lady of Fashion

Oh what is a first lady to wear to the Inaugural Ball? WWD asked 34 designers to imagine what Michelle Obama could wear for the Inaugural Ball on January 20th, Christian Lacroix's images (pictured above) are the most impressive by a country mile and put the other designs/designers to shame frankly, see for yourself, more here.

Ahhh ink, I miss you

I was sent a link to some lovely Saul Steinberg illustrations today, he's one of my all time favourite illustrators, these images are over 60 years old and they still look contemporary.

I particularly like the hand drawing the drawing, ooh meta pictures* I've not thought about you for quite a while.

I miss the line quality that you can only get with ink and dip pen (or better still a stick/twig).
Mmmmmm.

See the full article here, thanks Ferg.
*"[a]ny picture that is used to refer to the nature of pictures is a metapicture"

Nice job!

An impactful campaign by Jobsintown.de, 'Life's too short for the wrong job!'
Wise words, campaign by Scholz & Friends, Berlin.

Wait a minute Mr Postman!

I just spotted this on Flickr and it tickled me, I like the idea of shocking, controversial postcards, because the good people of Royal Mail do read them right?

Image found here.

Ingenui-tea

Clever little additions to tea bags, designed by TBWA, thought I'd share.
Seen here.

A wordy sculpture

This is 'House of Knowledge' by Jaume Plensa, as seen in Chatsworth as part of the Beyond Limits exhibition, kindly sent to me by Trina.

It's an incredible sculpture that looms high above people, some 50 odd feet above, not that you can tell from this picture, also I believe the words are taken from a William Blake poem.

Some actual illustration

I realised that this blog is called bowerbird-illustration and it's somewhat scant in the illustration department so here is some work by one of my favourite illustrators Penelope Dullaghan. I saw her quote on Flickr this morning and thought I'd share.