Doritos Hotel 626

This new site from Doritos USA got sent around work this morning (as we made Doritos UK it's quite appropriate). It's genuinely the scariest thing I've ever seen on the web! It's quite mysterious too, I can't find any press about it online so don't know quite how it's related to the brand (presuming some new 'dark' flavour a la the Dark Whopper). Fantastic work though, including interactive video from brilliant agency B-Reel. Shame I'm too scared to play it to the end!

Famille Summerbelle

I found this darling shop Famille Summerbelle through quite random means - I saw the link to their blog on the W+K blog, and my company Collective has occasionally worked in partnership with Simon on some Honda projects so it's all a bit incestuous... Anyway, aren't these childrens' posters gorgeous? They remind me of Rob Ryan's work. I want one even though I don't have a kidlet.

Google vs UK Kids

This is quite sweet - a contest for UK kids to design a special edition Google logo. I like the things some have chosen as quintessentially British - the Queen, football and red buses.



Check out all the entries here.

Folksy blog/website buttons

Boredom and a desire to promote the excellent Folksy led to me create these buttons. Use as you wish! (Right-click the image or link to save to your computer.)


234 x 60


125 x 125 100 x 100


120 x 90 120 x 60


120 x 240


Round (transparent background)

Autumn already

Google might well be getting into the spirit, but I'm so not cool with it being autumn already. We had no summer in Britain, I feel cheated! It's already started to get dark much earlier at night and there's a chill in the air - despite a freakishly lovely weekend just gone which I missed out on due to being ill.

One thing I don't mind is I don't need an excuse to stay inside and get up to some gentle pursuits:


Windowsill gardening. We got these chilli seeds from a visit to the brilliant Mexican restaurant Wahaca; I hope they grow as I adore anything spicy.


Getting lots of watercolour practice in for my 'favourite things' illustration.

House of Illustration competition

To give my illustration skills a boost and encourage me to keep drawing, I'm entering this competition, hosted by House of Illustration and judged by Quentin Blake amongst others. The brief is to illustrate 8 of your favourite things in categories like Food, Clothing and Animal. It has a nice long deadline (December) so I can really give it some thought and produce some good pieces, I hope. Here are my initial thoughts for 4 of the categories. I think the final piece will be a montage done in watercolour.



Must go check out the exhibition for inspiration, too.

Schtock

Schtock has been getting a lot of love over at ffffound today, it's it's a fantastic site. The creator works for a stock photo company and uses unwanted stock photographs, blended with graphic shapes and bright colours, to make gorgeous montages. The images very often turn out surrealist, and sometimes poignant or political. Will definitely be keeping an eye on the site for new images.

P.S. There seems to be a conspiracy theory doing the rounds that 'Anonymous' isn't the amateur designer he says is. I hope it's not a clever ad campaign!

Day job

In case you've ever wondered what I do when I'm not doodling or blogging, for my day job I'm a designer at Collective (I also write on their blog). I'm slowly trying to get a portfolio together of everything I've worked on here; the beginnings can be seen in this flickr set.

New tote bags in store

Super cute tote bags from my drawings in store now - Etsy, Folksy and All Things Original.

Alphabet - O

New Letter O print is in store now - it's one of my favourites yet!

Illustration

Simply gorgeous illustrations from French 'Lapin' - Illustrations de Lapin. I love that all the work looks like a peek into his sketchbook.

Nokia Music Almighty

I don't often blog about Flash/animation (too much like the day job) but I adore this Nokia site, Music Almighty. Great elastic physics effect on the wires and brave use of interactivity. You might have seen the cool 3D-animated TV spots by Tokyoplastic, too.

Letman typography

I love this vibrant, colourful hand-painted typography from Letman.

Camera love

It's quite important that I get one of these cameras in my life as soon as possible.

Via QBN (is it bad that I'm a designer and had never heard of this site?); more info here.

New Alphabet letters on Etsy

I'm nearly a qurater of the way through illustrating the alphabet. Here's the set so far:



I'm glad I finally got the K done, so it can go on my wall!



As ever, they're up on my Etsy and you can see more pics on the flickr.

LOLart

LOLcats make the leap into fine art! This is hilarious. I might make one out of this photo of my neighbour, Mr. Tabby:



I need a funny caption though..?

Seniorita Polyester

Loving these cute-but-sinister illustrations from Seniorita Polyester. I know nothing about this lady but I love her flickr stream!

Emma Smart

I love the work of recently-graduated designer Emma Smart, it's so playful and funny. She uses so many materials across many disciplines - a talented lady.

New on Etsy

Totally forgot to say that I've got a new print up on Etsy and Folksy, as well as some bags and pouches that I sewed a while ago and just found!

You can see the latest newsletter for my shop by clicking here (if you want to sign up for email news, pop your address in the box on the right).

HouSe of Viktor & Rolf

I finally managed to get to the House of Viktor & Rolf exhibition at the Barbican. It's a brilliant show, definitely worth going to see. The first thing you see on entering is the massive white dolls' house with miniature versions of some of V+R's couture outfits on porcelain dolls. You can climb a flight of stairs to see the second and third floors.

Following this is an installation piece of V+R dressing a model while she's on a rotating platform, in layers and layers of clothing, ending in a fabulous high-necked bell-shaped glitter-encrusted burlap coat. The individual layers of the outfit are displayed on rotating platforms, too, creating a serene yet creepy effect.

Upstairs are cubby-holes each showcasing a different V+R collection. A video is playing on a background screen while the clothes themselves are on a 'catwalk' on life-size porcelain dolls. It was quite amazing to see all of their work in one place, and showed how inventive and creative they are season after season. My favourite collections included Flowerbomb, Silver (with real silver-plated garments) and last season's sculptural typography-led dresses and coats.



If you can't make it to the exhibition, you can see slideshows of their couture shows at style.com, and their official site is worth a look too.

Couple more pics from my crappy camera phone on Flickr.

Geraldine Georges

Geraldine Georges has updated with some gorgeous new work.