Some city councils get it, others don’t. Tapping the creative talents of street artists, illustrators and graphic designers is an effective and cool way to make bland public spaces, old buildings, bridges and car parks new again, and to freshen up the concrete jungle. It is also an effective way of keeping graffiti away. Plus it draws attention to the building or structure as “potential” not as something to be hated. Maybe it will even bring a buyer, a new occupant or additional creative ideas about how to revitalize the building? Anything but the current dilapidated state of abandoned spaces!

 
Street artists and muralists bring with them vibrant and a new perspective that architects or designers may not have. This does not mean that millions need to be spent to upgrade the buildings immediately, all you need is vision, courage, local creative talent some colourful paint like these perfect examples here. Our subscriber list reads like the Who-is-Who of city councils around the globe. So here’s a challenge to you: You need to step up and change the face of your city. There are way too many ugly, run-down buildings, bridges, tunnels and walkways that can be completely transformed into exciting and fun environments with some creative input.

Contact Access so we can help. - Bill Tikos

 

Lexus has taken its fifth hybrid, the compact CT 200h, on the road in more forms than one. This eerie and artistic sculpture, titled CT Umbra, was part of the Lexus debate series tour called Darker side of Green.

Created by Los Angeles-based Nondesign, the installation aimed to highlight the two seemingly opposing features of the vehicle - luxury and eco-friendliness – by changing colours from luxurious gold to earthy green and blue. This contradiction was also the underlying question during the debates.

The sculpture is based on a map of vertical lines created from the CAD model of CT 200h. It was built of 2,500 half-inch anodized aluminum bars cut to the exact measurements of the map.

Lexus introduced the debate concept in March with a celebrity-attended press event at Skylight West in New York just before the car’s launch at the New York International Auto Show.

In July, the debate travelled to Los Angeles, Miami and back to New York, and ended on August 5 in Chicago. Cool locations (Palihouse Holloway in L.A., Bowery Hotel in N.Y., Ivy Room in Chicago), music and art, and moderators (comedian Tracey Morgan and singer Mark McGrath and actor and comedian Jamie Kennedy), spiced up the 40-minute debate between two hard-hitters, one pro and the other skeptical about sustainable energy and the green economy.

The goal was to highlight these issue is general and to seek common ground between the two sides. The discussions highlighted the question Can green and luxury go together? In Miami, almost 750 people attended and enjoyed the pre-debate cocktail reception sponsored by Patrón.

After the debate tour, Lexus will take the CT 200h to each of the tour cities to offer local customers and VIPs the chance to test drive it. - Tuija Seipell.

***UPDATE****

A year before the Lexus launch, London-based designer, Laura Micalizzi, created a similar-looking “car” installation called 10M3 DI PAUSA for the Milan Furniture Fair

Micalizzi’s car-shaped sculpture aimed to draw attention to the value of space in the city and to the growing necessity of cars.

Tomokazu Matsuyama’s work -- mostly acrylics on canvas or paper -- has a sense of intrigue, mystery and secrecy that draws the viewer in and demands a further look. There is also a feel of lightness, floating and movement that seems to suggest fleeting glimpses of something impermanent. At the same time, his art carries a strong implication of tradition and of enduring order.

His colours are subdued but lively, and much of the work suggest a paper-cut collage. Humans, mostly men, and animals, especially horses, populate his art, and even in the abstracts, there is a hint of an eye, a wing, a presence just beyond the immediate first glance. The implication of story and the touch of subtle whimsy make his work accessible and inviting, yet the viewer is not hit with rigid answers. One is left with an oddly comfortable sensation of incomprehension.

Tomokazu Matsuyama was born in Tokyo in 1976. He is a graduate of the Pratt Institute in New York and the Sophia University in Tokyo. He lives and works in New York City. He has held solo exhibitions in San Francisco, New York, Tokyo and Osaka and participated in numerous shows and installations around the world. He has also worked with well-known brands including Levi’s and Nike and Adidas. Tuija Seipell

Brands are tapping into the art space and we are, perhaps surprisingly, noticing some pretty awesome art installations as a result. It is a precarious feat for a brand to attempt because it can easily go wrong and have the exact opposite of the desired effect. A branded piece of art can be viewed as too promotional, too gaudy, too imposing and an intrusion into “public space.”

 
But done right, this kind of branded experience can work wonders for a brand and achieve the desired kind of street credo. Of course, brands such as Absolut, BMW, Nike and Adidas have been doing this for years quite effectively. These brands nurture new and up-and-coming artists and also garner huge online buzz for the brand, for the art piece, for the location and for the artist.

 
We’ve gathered some examples of both branded and non-branded cool public (and private) art in the hope that great branded art will replace the already-so-boring pop-up shops and flash mobs.

 
Nike’s 20-meter-high, 4.75-ton Ball Man made of 5,500 Brazilian Skill Balls was a huge hit during the FIFA World Cup in South Africa. It was the centerpiece of a Nike installation Carlton Mall Atrium in Johannesburg. Leicester-based Ratcliffe Fowler Design created using a 3d image of Carloz Tevez. The Man was designed so that the balls remained virtually intact and can be donated to the community after the closing of the exhibition in August.

Also at World Cup, Coca Cola took advantage of the Crate Man craze and installed 54-foot CrateFan in Cape town at the Victoria an Albert Waterfront/harbor. It was built of 2,500 Coke bottle crates and weighed 25 tons.

At the BMW Museum in Munich, the Kinetic Sculpture of 714 metal orbs seems to float in space. The orbs hang from thin steel wires attached to individually controlled motors. The orbs animate a 7-minute “mechatronic narrative,” starting from chaotic and settling at the end into the six square-meter “flying carpet.” The installation, developed by Berlin-based ART+ COM is to be “metaphorical translation of the process of form-finding in art and design.”

When it is original, fresh and fun, this kind of public art is cool because it creates real viral attention. As actual live pieces, even if seen only online, they are exciting and seem real for the viewers who feel they are sharing it with those who have actually experienced it live.

There are also many ways of enhancing and expanding the live experience with online and on-site kiosk applications. As a way to create viral buzz, brand recognition and positive impressions, they are an effective marketing tool for the brands. - Bill Tikos.

Yes, Advertising can be beautiful

For more info contact our marketing agency ACCESS

The stunning elegance of Jeff Nishinaka’s paper art calls for a new definition of paper. His meticulous sculptural 3D work appears to have been created from marble or extremely fine sand or vanilla ice cream or thick foam — definitely of something other than “just” paper. The Los Angeles-born artist works mainly with white, which makes the exquisite play of light and shadow a large part of the appeal of his work.

One might assume that there is very little demand for work that uses one medium and one colour. Not so. Nishinaka’s work pops up everywhere in the most unexpected places, from medical illustrations of the structure of the eye, to private portrait commissions, to a life-size garden for a hotel.

He has a prolific career working in advertising, fashion and fine art, and also creating some larger installations. His commercial work includes commissions for fashion catalogues for Bloomingdales and Galeries Lafayette, advertising work for Visa, Coca Cola, Playboy, American Airlines, Toyota and Mattel. Even the colourful characters of Disney’s Lion King — Pumbaa, Timon, Rafiki et.al. — look absolutely stunning in Nishinaka’s white paper world (image below). If you want to see a lot of Nishinaka’s work in one place, you need to talk to his personal friend, actor Jackie Chan, the owner of the largest Nishinaka collection. - Tuija Seipell

New from our favourite French artist - Francoise Nielly

 

We have a hunch we will be seeing much more of the work by the young, London-based graphic designer and illustrator, Nikki Farquharson.

 
Her ongoing project, Mixed Media Girls, gives the viewer a lot to look at. The collages appear innocent and sweet but at the same time exude sharp, pent-up energy that does not feel altogether safe. The title of the work is also wonderfully suggestive – or not, depending on how the reader wishes to understand it.



Farquharson’s work extends from the one-dimensional world to book projects and 3D pieces in which she often ponders and twists the meaning of words and proverbs, spies on conversations, and questions established truths.

 
In 2007, she started the website Random Got Beautiful that is open for anyone to submit images focused on a specific colour. - Tuija Seipell

We are currently working on some projects (still under wraps) with a 23-year-old London-based illustrator, Dan Stafford. Born in Manchester, Stafford graduated this year from Loughborough University School of Art & Design with First Class Honours in Visual Communication. He is now busily producing slightly mad illustrations for clients such as Who’s Jack Magazine.

 
Stafford says filmmakers such as David Lynch and Stanley Kubrick influence his art, but we detect a Tim Burtonish sense of the bizarre — an aggressive duality of sweet and sinister, meek and macabre. In Stafford’s work, the dark side is mostly up-front in the subject matter while the softer side is represented through the choice colors and the softness of edges.

 
Indications of his future success include confirmed participation in 2010 in exhibitions in at least London, San Francisco and Glasgow. We believe that we will all see a lot more of his striking art in the future. - Tuija Seipell.

Minjae Lee is a young South Korean artist whose work expresses a semi-disturbing inner tension that is tough to ignore, even if you feel that you'd like to. It draws you in with its powerful colours, halting imagery and clever juxtaposition of beauty, innocence and fragility with brash, loud and aggressive.

The 19-year old artist is mainly self-taught and uses old-fashioned tools — such as markers, pens, crayons, acrylics — to create his illustrations. He has yet to break into commercial success, but as his style is developing and improving each time new images appear, we will likely see a lot of him in the future.

What characterizes his work overall is drama. The ethereal females that populate most of his work exude a dark, organic tension, and it seems that even the brightest marker colors do not quite manage to save them from some sort of looming peril. Or are we, the viewers, in fact, the ones who are in danger? Whatever the case, we are drawn in, interacting on an emotional level, surprised, looking for something.

Minjae Lee’s penchant for dramatic expression is clear also in the work of those he admires. His favourite photographer is the 55-year-old Japanese Hiroshi Nonami, whose women are equally capable of telling a dramatic, dark story. Not surprisingly, Lee’s favorite fashion designer is the king of runway drama, the Gibraltar-born, 49-year-old John Galliano. - Tuija Seipell

Robert Bradford creates his life-size and larger-than-life sculptures of humans and animals from discarded plastic items, mainly toys but also other colourful plastic bits and pieces, such as combs and buttons, brushes and parts of clothes pegs.

Contrary to some reports, he’s not a self-taught artist who tinkered in his shed one day and suddenly decided to create something out of his kids’ discarded toys. He is a London-born and U.K. and U.S.-trained visual artist who, like many artists, also had another career on the side. His was that of a psychotherapist.

In 2002, he started to consider the possibilities that his children’s forgotten toys could have as part of something bigger. Bradford says he likes the idea that the plastic pieces have a history, some unknown past, and that they also pass on a “cultural” history as each of the pieces represents a point in time. Recycling is not his primary concern, but each sculpture certainly keeps quite a few pieces from becoming landfill. Some of the sculptures contain pieces from up to 3,000 toys and sell for £12,000 (US$19,000). - Tuija Seipell

Françoise Nielly’s massive, colourful portraits are delicious to look at. Even more wonderful – and particularly infuriating to those of us who have timidly dabbled in painting – is to watch her create them. In a beautiful video posted on her site, she, in her confident, strong hand, wields her painting knife shaped like a miniature garden trowel, and makes painting look easy like cake frosting. She paints her vivid, passionate canvases — some as large as 78 x 25 inches (195 x 62 centimeters) -- from black-and-white photos, further proof of her unfailing ability to interpret light, shadow, hue and tone by applying brilliant colours and daring strokes. 

Born in Marseille, brought up near Cannes and Saint-Tropez, and now living in Paris, Nielly is at home among bold contrast and dazzling light. To add to her likeability, here is the list of her loves: Life, wide open spaces, sushi, blue lagoons, the Internet, humour, books, Paris, New York and Vancouver. - Tuija Seipell 

We believe you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but you can judge your favourite drink by its label. Vitaminwater is crowdsourcing its next flavour through the launch of their Flavorcreator app on Facebook, marking the first time that fans of Vitaminwater can collaborate to create the next flavour.

Vitaminwater enthusiasts will have the opportunity to name the flavour, write the bottle copy and design the label via a contest with the winner or winning team receiving a $5,000 prize from Vitaminwater.

Bottles designed by TCH Design

We are excited to soon be launching TCH customized designer car wraps, so that car can really feel they  a cut above everyone else on the road. We are imagining the fun that owners will have in selecting their favorite design for their very own car.

 
We would love to hear from designers/illustrators/art directors who would be interested in submitting a design for consideration as one of the final 25 options. If you are interested, please email us and we will give you the details on how to submit your design. Have you seen our Mini in Neon colours?

Other TCH initiatives by our new marketing agncey - ACCESS include - McFancy McDonald's - POP UP Skate Ramp, Virgin Atlantic by TCH, TreeLife by TCH, Puma Spinstar by TCH

1948 is Nike’s creative playground-retail store in the old brick railway arches of Shoreditch, London. In addition to displaying and selling shoes, 1948 offers an entire art floor for events, installations and assorted fun.
 
The installation created by Finland-born illustrator/artist/designer Kustaa Saksi is all about the historical fun journey of the Nike running shoe. Typical for the currently Amsterdam-based Saksi, the sprawling scene has a pop-art, retro feel that fits Nike’s history as a brand. Saksi’s Volkswagen van and psychedelic colors illustrate the pre-swoosh era in an earnest and deliberately clunky way.
 
Saksi’s last name translates as “scissor,” or it could also be “Saxon,” depending on your preference. He is proficient in many media, including print, sculpture and now also more frequently 3D. Saksi has also designed massive building wraps, and even clothing and wallpaper. His book, Offpiste (2008), is a visual feast of his recent work. In addition to Nike, Saksi’s client list includes Comme des Garçons, Citroen, Diesel, Issey Miyake, Lacoste, Levi's, New York Times, Mercedes Benz, MTV, Playboy and Wallpaper. - Tuija Seipell

Eclectic, electric, electrifying and energetic are words that describe the work of art director and designer Pedro Vilas-Boas. Stationed in Lisbon, the Portuguese-born Vilas Boas collaborates with a variety of complementing talent and comes up with fascinating web sites, online and offline projects, graphics, posters and even T-shirt designs for A-list clients such as Nokia and Carlsberg.

His work is characterized by a mix of contrast, electricity, motion and bold lines. The result is an effective blend of energy and punch. Lucky for his high-energy clients that Pedro Vilas-Boas chose this type of punch as his preferred medium, and did not fulfill his childhood dream of becoming a policeman. - Tuija Seipell

Welcome to Matt W Moore's world. His retro, abstract inspired graphics with a steely, graffiti-edge have seen this young Portland-based artist's work traverse the globe. Moore's vast commercial portfolio includes gigs for mega brands including Burton, Nike, Wired, Citroen, Vodafone and many others. Fascinated with symmetry, geometry and saturated colour, he creates retro-spirited, abstract graphics with a wild, graffiti edge. 

A process of experimentation led to Moore's lauded signature "Vectorfunk" style of digital illustration, inspired by abstract geometry, vibrant colour combinations, dynamic compositions, depth and contrast. He also works across the spectrum of design and art disciplines - from canvas paintings to textile/apparel design and to logo/identity work. His typography, type treatments and icons are featured in his annual monochrome series, and in a comprehensive solo book called Vectorfunk by ROJO. - Lisa Evans

The Mini Cooper has been created for a TCH Special Mini Cooper project which we will unveil soon.

Take a look at these incredible abstract and retroesque pieces by designer and illustrator Andy Gilmore. Born, raised and based in Rochester, New York, Gilmore applies the understanding of one practice with the other - applying the proportions of harmony to form and colour - colours as chords - and scales as tonal gradations, in order to create these geometric works of art.



His clients include: the new york times, foursquare outwear, seed magazine and the webby awards. If you love his work as much as we do, you can get your hands on a print (or even a t-shirt) over at Etsy


Andy was also the first illustrator we contacted to design a poster for our first offline event - TreeLife

Never before has your brand's visual language been so crucial to your business. In the age of "blink and you'll miss it" attention spans, your visual identity acts as a shorthand, expressing your brand's personality and values literally at a glance.



Brands are like us, they don't just want to be heard, they want to be understood and embraced, they want meaningful connection. Our global team of innovative creatives will bring your brand to life. The Cool Hunter Design represents a paradigm shift in the creative process.



Why use one studio when you can draw upon a global community of creatives - the international roster of collaborators who inspire hundreds of thousands of The Cool Hunter readers every day.     Click here for more info

Gianluca Fallone is a designer/illustrator from Argentina, currently based in London. At only 23 years old, he has managed to build up an impressive folio that includes work with clients such as MTV, Nike and Cartoon Network.

Fallone’s stance is simple —’I love type and design, and I particularly like when both are present — and evident in much of his work. He is inspired by Japanese animation and comic books that also triggered his ’illustration-design rollercoaster,’ and his pieces are beautifully crafted and extremely detailed. Fallone is putting his mark on the Argentinean design world, and we are expecting to see great things from this young and amazingly talented artist. - Brendan McKnight

It is tough not to stare at Susy Oliveira’s clunky, 1980s-video-gamish polygon sculptures. Of course, sculpture is created for gawking, so clearly Oliveira has reached at least one of her goals with these large-scale pieces made of color photographic prints (c-prints) on archival card and wrapped onto foam core. Clockwise, these pieces are called Bird on a Log, The Living Boy, Time Is Never Wasted, and The Girl and the Bear. In her description of her 2008 solo show at Toronto’s Peak gallery, Oliveira wrote about examining “our preoccupation with replacing nature with fabricated versions of itself.” Fittingly, she adds that these sculptures express an “opposition between the round aspects of sculpture and the flat aspects of photography, much like bringing a virtual model into a real space.” Oliveira is a graduate of the Ontario College of Art and Design (2000) and the University of Waterloo (2006). - Tuija Seipell