I was shown this the other day and wanted to share it with you. A Korean artist called Seung Mo Park - a wire sculptor who's work, i think, is beautiful. He creates giant portraits by painstakingly cutting layer after layer of stainless steel wire mesh sheets. His care, patience and artistry delivers stunning pieces of art that i'd love to see for real. Not only beautifully executed portraits, but the technique he uses to achieve them - AMAZING! Worth checking out - the images below take you to a (4 minute) YouTube movie of how he does it. (sorry about creepy music).
Having being appointed Team GB's Creative Director for the 2012 Olympics, British fashion designer Stella McCartney has unveiled some fantastic new outfits to unite our athletes. Showing that we're right on-trend with our own Barker and Stonehouse Summer campaign, McCartney has used the graphically striking Union Jack as the emphasis of her design.
The Olympic Torch will be passing through Newcastle on Friday 15 June with a 4:45pm start on Jesmond Road. I'll be hoping to catch a glimpse of its journey. It's a way for everyone to get involved with the event; especially as the last time London hosted the Olympics was way back in 1948. Not even my parents had been born yet!
I for one really enjoyed the success that Team GB had in Beijing 2008 and can't wait to cheer our athletes on this summer!
This weeks favourite illustrator is Fernando Volken Togni, a 28 year old graduate from Brazil. He has a beautiful style, clean lines, unexpected colour combinations and intricate compositions. His work is used over a wide range of commissions from books to sculptures, iphones cases to wall murals. Check out his website: http://www.fernandovt.com/
On Thursday evening myself, Marko and our new designer (and drummer!) Annie went to Newcastle College to see an old friend of mine Doug Aldrich from rock monsters Whitesnake and his bandmates Michael Devin and Brian Tichy play at a Marshall Amplifiers event organised by the college's music department.
We were expecting a fairly quiet affair, being shown what the knob that goes up to 11 does, etc but we weren't expecting to be treated to a jaw-dropping 90 minute set by the 3 guys performing as SteamRolla, with songs by people as diverse as Led Zeppelin, KC and the Sunshine Band and Michael Jackson!
Here's some pics I took on the night and also, should your fancy like to be tickled, a bit of video I shot too!
The car? That's the Marshall JCM800 limo, obviously!
Today we pay tribute to Mr Phil Wright, Creative Technologist, and his ridiculously impressive monkey's tail moustache/beard combo - a work of art if ever we saw one. Now we have to persuade him to dye stripes in it to produce a full-on toon army lemur's tail!
March the 2nd is ‘Wear Something Yellow To Work’ day, in support of Marie Curie Cancer Care. As you can see, we had a rather decent turn out. Some items, however, were questionable; post-it notes do NOT count Mick and Joe!
Matt’s ‘shan’ Simpsons tie, Carmel’s pastel skinnys and Lara’s on-trend bright yellow nails have helped us raise £40 (and counting) – with everyone donating £2 each to the cause.
Those who ‘forgot’ their yellow item have a forfeit of donating as many Easter eggs as they can (Tesco’s 3 for £2.50, wink wink!) to Sophie’s Easter egg collection, which will be delivered to sick and terminally ill children in our local hospitals.
Daffodil broaches with also be on sale in DiFFERENT reception as of next week!
The cream of North East football was assembled last night in Gateshead when several of the Different team had their first 5-a-side match at Power League. Several Premier League scouts were spotted checking out the talent on show - then walking away shaking their heads in disgust! With an age range from early 20's to late 40's it really was men v boys and we were all very excited to be playing alongside ex-Argentina and Tottenham star Ricardo Villa (pictured below).
To kick off the new year, we've been holding 'mind and body' sessions at Different - here's some pics from the body session. It's our first fitness class or maybe we should say unfitness class!
Thanks to Sophie for organising - a no show from Quigs/Yousaf/Millen was noted - double session next week for them.
No prizes for guessing what the world's cheesiest headline is about! This weekend my wife Angela and I were lucky enough to go to the Formula 1 British Grand Prix at Silverstone in Northamptonshire. Despite following F1 for 35 years or so, this was my first "live" race and watching on tv does nothing to prepare you for the mindblowing experience of standing trackside as the cars rocket past at 200 miles an hour! The incredible volume of the engines hits you in the chest and is one of the best adrenalin rushes I've ever had.
The race was the first F1 Grand Prix since the opening of the brand new Silverstone Wing designed by renowned architects Populous. It was also my first opportunity to try and take photographs of cars (and planes - the Red Arrows did an amazing display) travelling at such high speed so I was pretty happy with the results from my Nikon D7000.
We walked the entire length of circuit after the race in blazing hot sunshine and were amazed to see that far from being the pristine, perfect tarmac you would expect, the road surface was pitted and crumbling in lots of places. Huge respect to the drivers who risk their lives every time they get into an F1 car and even more respect for the way they handle themselves in front of the media - so called "professional" footballers could learn a lot from these guys.
Oh, and Fernando Alonso won the race for Ferrari. At least it wasn't Vettel again!
Matt
p.s. here's a little clip of the cars flying past us near the start of the race!
The usual morning chorus of phones and email alerts was drowned out by mass crunching this morning as Different started the day the Dorset way. I'd entered a competition on the Dorset Cereals website (great design, in case you haven't seen it) weeks back, to win breakfast for the entire company, and promptly forgot all about it, so when Sophie rang to say there was a large and incredibly heavy parcel waiting for me on reception I just assumed my internet shopping habit was getting seriously out of hand. But no, inside was enough Good Honest Crunch to keep us happy bunnies munching for a week! Cheers Dorset, and if anyone knows of a competition where you can win thirty or so full Englishes, just wing the details my way.