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Murray Tennis Final

Warnings from the Future #01

Dear readers, I'm looking for a bit of feedback.

I'm about to place an order for more Gift Cards but I'm struggling to narrow down the list of cards to print. All my different stockists currently like and stock different cards but to make things simplier I'd like to reduce the range down to 20 or so instead of the current 40+. If you have a minute to spare, please have a flick through the images on my flickr and leave a comment (below or direct on the image) to say which ones get your thumbs up to be kept in the range. The ones with the most votes will make the final cut. The ones with the least will go retire on a farm in the country.

As a wee incentive to give your opinion, everyone that comments will get put into a prize draw to win a print and cards from my Etsy.

Get the flash player here: http://www.adobe.com/flashplayer

New Glasgow Society

Sounding like something from a retro imagined future the "New Glasgow Society" is relaunching this weekend in its little premises at 1207 Arglye Street. They are a good an interesting bunch of characters and highly reccomend going along or catching one of their upcoming future events.

The New Glasgow Society is an organization established in 1965 for the general betterment of the urban environment of Glasgow. The birth of the Society coincides with proposals for the insertion of the M8 through the Victorian fabric of the city. But it’s never been purely a preservationist group, the Society has a long history of supporting and actively promoting new projects which were seen to be of benefit to Glasgow, and, during the 1960’s and 70’s, used their considerable influence and membership of over 1500 to make their thoughts known to the powers that be.

"The aims of the Society are;

• To promote, encourage and stimulate public interest in, and care for, the beauty, history and character of the city of Glasgow and its surroundings.
• To encourage high standards of architecture and town planning in the Glasgow region in co-operation with other interested organisations where appropriate.
• To encourage the preservation, development and improvement of features of general public amenity or historic interest.
• To pursue these ends by means of meetings, exhibitions, lectures, publications, conferences, publicity and the promotion of schemes of a charitable nature"

To find out more go here - http://www.newglasgowsociety.org/

C is for Cat

The third in my alphabetical series of all things great on Etsy. As usual there is a very easy hidden shape above to spot. Virtual High 5's all round to those who spot.

"C comes from the same letter as ‹g›. The Semites named it gimel. The sign is possibly adapted from an Egyptian hieroglyph for a staff sling, which may have been the meaning of the name gimel. Another possibility is that it depicted a camel, the Semitic name for which was gamal."

C is for Cat




B is for Ball

The second in my series of alphabetical treasuries.


"B is the second letter in the basic modern Latin alphabet. It is used to represent a variety of bilabial sounds (depending on language), most commonly a voiced bilabial plosive." I have no idea what that means...

Hope you can tell the word in each choice above. You should hopefully also be able to spot a pattern in the layout of the coloured items. First to spot wins a virtual thumbs up.

Here is the link: B is for Ball

28 seconds in

http://vimeo.com/19628026 from Tomi Vollauschek on Vimeo.

Adventurers' Club - Soldier

A retired major from Victoria's army? A bit of a aged Flashman type, full of stories of his heroism and adventure in far off lands though I think we might have him being a little less Caddish than Flashman and a little bit braver.



Etsy: A is for Apple

I've decided to put together a treasury once a week on an alphabetic theme. First up funnily enough is A.

"A is the first letter and a vowel in the basic modern Latin alphabet. It is similar to the Ancient Greek letter Alpha. It can be traced to a pictogram of an ox head in Egyptian hieroglyph."

Hope you can tell the word in each choice above. You should hopefully also be able to sport a pattern in the layout of the coloured items. First to spot wins a virtual high five.

Here is the link: A is for Apple

Adventurers' Club - Safari

Next figure down will be an Alan Quartermain, Dr Livingstone type character all dressed is beige and yellows ready to face any perils that the desert or jungle might through at him. Armed with his trusty blunderbus I think he will be pretty safe.

Adventurers' Club - Arctic Explorer

I've started work on a new set of Russian Dolls called the Adventurers' Club. As it might be a while before I get them all finished I thought it might be fun to show some of the process and thoughts as I work my way through their design. Also think it would be fun to come up with a little bit of back story and names for each of these characters so will have a play with that too.

First up is the character I think will be the biggest figure, the Arctic Explorer. Really like the idea of making a new set which uses a minimal pallette of colours and I'm always a sucker for Arctic Blue, just looks so peaceful.



Folksy Interview

The nice people over at Folksy HQ did a little interview with me the other day and they have justed posted it onto their blog site. Click here to have a read.

The Folksy Blog is full of interviews with talented makers of interesting things, so I was delighted when they asked me to join their list. Have a wander through some of the other interviews and find out more about the people behind your favourite shops.

Godwin's Law - Religion

Godwin's Law - Religion from Allistair Burt on Vimeo.

The film is titled Godwin’s Law and was made for an exhibition at The Arches in Glasgow in 2010 reflecting on ideas of belief and belonging.

Godwin's Law states that the longer an internet forum discussion continues the likely hood of someone mentioning Hitler or Nazi's increases. The first person to mention either loses the argument.

This film is a religious "discussion" between atheists and some theists using Speilburg's 1993 hit movie Jurrasic Park as a framework. Neither group do themselves many favours and reveal more about themselves and the way humans are willing to interact when there are no personal reprecussions.

The film was one of the central pieces in our 2010 exhibition Himptology. 

"Bringing their thoughts on faith, belief and belonging to The Arches, Hole in my Pocket form their own religion and ask you to become a true believer. Our religion stole parts from all the popular religions but explored art/ design and creativity rather than creation."

The Worlds strongest man

The Shop of Interest

A selection of my cards and prints are now on sale in the Westend of Glasgow at the very lovely "The Shop of Interest" under the supervision of the equally lovely May and Martin.

Its a very new shop, only opening its doors at the end of last year but its already chock full of interesting and unusual things and is well worth a browse.

 

The Shop of Interest
1058 Argyle Street
Glasgow
G3 8LY

Surrender

EDIT: People were having trouble seeing the below so I've added and adapted into a portrait style above and added some colour. Think I still like the landscape one best though.

"OK I'll give you one last chance to surrender."

[ Might need a little click on the image to actually see it properly. ]

Not long until the above book of 3D type (which will feature my Ice-letters) will be out. Both creators FL@33 and publishers Laurence King have developed little websites to promote the book with the latter showing off a few sneak preview spreads. There is a bit of blurb about the project below. My name seems to have been accidently missed off the list below - think I was supposed to be sitting between Milton Glazer and Alvin Lustig! Some of the names invovled are brill and looking forward to seeing what everyone came up with. Will post more images and news about the book when I get it. www.3d-type.com/

"This book is the most comprehensive showcase of three-dimensional letterforms ever written, featuring over 1,300 images of more than 300 projects by more than 160 emerging talents and established individuals and studios including Sagmeister Inc, Vaughan Oliver, Milton Glaser, Alvin Lustig, Louis Danziger, Roger Excoffon, Paul Elliman, Marian Bantjes, Geoff Kaplan, Clotilde Olyff, Italo Lupi, Marion Bataille, Antoine+Manuel, Frost*Design, Mervyn Kurlansky, Non-Format, Oded Ezer, Rowland Scherman, Post Typography, Rinzen, Underware’s Type Workshop, J. Kyle Daevel, Ji Lee, Pleaseletmedesign and Strange Attractors Design.

As well as pioneering milestones from as far back as the 1940s, this book focuses on recent and brand new typographic projects. 3D type specialist Andrew Byrom explains the context and motivation behind these innovative works in an insightful foreword.

FL@33 is a multi-disciplinary design studio for visual communication based in London. Founded in 2001, it is run by Agathe Jacquillat and Tomi Vollauschek. FL@33 work, profiles and interviews have been extensively featured online and worldwide in over 160 magazines, books and newspapers. The duo is also responsible for the popular online sound collection bzzzpeek.com and stereohype.com, a platform for designers and artists around the world. FL@33 also conceived, compiled, wrote and designed two other books: Postcard and Made & Sold, both also published by Laurence King."

The Dust Mite might if you gave him a chance

Our homes are full of lovely interesting creatures like the Radiator Beetle, the Rice Worm and the Dust Mite. Its enough to make you never want to go home.

Superhero Russian Dolls

Wee sneak preview of one of the new russian doll sets that I'm in the process of making. Its or a little superhero, his alter-ego of a mild business man and the radioactive meteor which gave him his super powers.

Buy of the Day

My Eat Haggis Print is the Buy of the Day according to the Guardian website. and was featured in Folksys newspaper of lovely things to buy for Christmas.
And my Russian Dolls were also a Fab find on the furnish website and got a small mention on the Decor8 blog.

Which is all very nice news to come home to after a wee adventure in India.

As a celebration we have decieded to have a prize draw of a selection of my work and that of my girlfriend Ann. You can enter a competition to win the goodies on http://www.southsidehappenings.co.uk/. Its kinda only really applicable to people living in the southside of Glasgow but I guess if you've ever visited or have friends in the area you might be in with a chance too, so click here and see how to enter.