23
September
2013
Piers Faccini - Songs I love
posted in Print | Music
at 9.10 PM
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Home ! Maruéjols Les Gardons
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listening Piers Faccini !
When I met Piers Faccini, he was on the process of making this book/CD project. I love his music for years and behind involved in his creative process is an honor. He asked me to shoot the book for him and I asked to describe it with his words, much better than mine...
The idea behind 'Songs I Love' began as a way to interact with the people that follow my music on a level that wasn't purely reliant on an album release, I began giving away a cover every two months or so back in 2010 and with it I would post the story behind my choice of song.
Back in the days when I was signed and before I started my own label Beating Drum, I found it frustrating that the only object I could propose was an album of around twelve songs every two or three years. Being free now to make the creative decisions around what kind of object to make, I wanted to propose something a little different using the seventeen songs that I've recorded so far for this cover series.
All the images for the album were made using cut up paper, it's a technique I've been refining since my collages of cut up maps for the album 'My Wilderness' in 2011. I love the instant graphic quality I can get from the sharp lines of cut paper and from a controlled and reduced palette of colours and paper textures. Creating the artwork and images for my albums over the years has made me more and more interested in graphic design. With every album release now, I find myself daydreaming and mulling over all the different ways one can create visual concepts to accompany songs and music and Uncle O is a great sparring partner during this process.
We spared no detail and no expense in making this book, it's a clothbound hardback with 92 pages of text and illustrations, the cd is included in a sleeve on the inside back cover. I signed and numbered all of the 400 copies of this first edition of the book. I'm really hoping that the book will go down well, it's been a great way for me to experiment with the new label and present an object across various disciplines. I love the idea of making hybrid objects that link Art, music and writing. If it goes down well, I'm looking forward to creating similar experiments around the releases we'll be putting out in the future with Beating Drum.
A lot of artists and labels today present "deluxe" and limited edition versions of the albums they put out to accompany their standard digipack or jewel case cd releases. With my own label Beating Drum, we wanted to avoid making any kind of cheap version of the album, for example, the vinyl release of the album is a gatefold with lyric sheet with a cd of the album included in the package whilst our cd version of the album is a a digisleeve 3 panel with booklet, printed on 'carton retourne'.
So instead of sexing up a 'deluxe' version of the album, we decided to push the boat out even further and make a book/cd around my project of covers, 'Songs I Love'. The book was designed by Olivier Carrie aka Uncle O who I've been working with since the album Two Grains of Sand, I provided the artwork and images and he came up with the design concept and typeface with which to put it all together.
The new Piers album went out today, and you can now order the book and find different collector bundles to accompany the new album in a vinyl or CD format at www.piersfaccini.com
23
September
2013
Shave & Blade by Pavel Emelyanov
posted in Identity
at 8.41 PM
from
Home ! Maruéjols Les Gardons
(near Alès / Nîmes / Uzès)
/ France
listening Piers Faccini . Between dogs and wolves
Another great project by Pavel Emelyanov which follow the F61 project presented last month... and the others before ! In back to the future 2, in 2015 they imagine flying cars and the Overboard... not sure as in 2013 there is a revival of vinyl records and barbers !
19
September
2013
Anton Corbijn Studio
posted in Interior | Music
at 9.05 AM
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Home ! Maruéjols Les Gardons
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listening Sting - The Last Ship
Do I need to present Anton Corbijn ? Today, it is his studio that catch my eye ! He invited BOS ALKEMADE Architects in the autumn of 2011 to create a studio for him in the Netherlands. This studio needed to be integrated in an ancient city coach house and meet a complex programme of requirements. Separate spaces were to be created for photography, the processing of films, the production of graphic art and the safekeeping of photography archives.
STUDIO
Studio before
Pictures © Herman H. van Doorn
I am fascinated how Anton Corbijn follow artists like U2, Depeche Mode or REM over the years... For exemple, it is him who suggest U2 to take picture around The Joshua Tree and Bono want to name the album like that after the shoot ! Anton Corbijn also design all the Depeche Mode sleeves for years... Small selection...
U2
Some of the pictures taken between Dublin, Rio, Tokyo & Marroco for the Achting baby sleeve...
This one is one of my favorit, as it was at the end used as the 4 sleeves for the Achtung baby front cover and few people notice...
REM
Depeche Mode
17
September
2013
Helvetica wood words
posted in Mr CUP News | Design
at 12.22 PM
from
Home ! Maruéjols Les Gardons
(near Alès / Nîmes / Uzès)
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listening Blur
It was exactly one year ago today that we arrived in Bali to move there for several months. This was the beginning of an amazing creative adventure. I started the project "wood letters" a few weeks before, during our first visit to the country, and I could see the letters on my return. There I developed a 3td collection (wood + recycled metal) in collaboration with "Mr. Eka", drinking super sweet "bali kopi" !
Today, there are a few letters left, but it is difficult to compose words as it was the case when the whole alphabets werre available. If you are like me, I never liked (and so one been good) at playing Scrabble, so it is hard for me to compose words when some letters are missing ... Seeing the success of wood blocks last week (sold out in less than 24 hours) I now offer you words...
COLLECTION 3 : Wood + recycled metal
Collection 1 : recycled teck
Collection 2 : raw suar wood
It also remains the numbers and I wanted to use them to decorate my new office. And frankly, it does great ! The Raw wood letters are really light and are easy to fix with some home decoration glue.
My cat is not for sale, but he really wants to be on the picture...
You can always buy the letters to the unit but few are available : Collection 1 - Recycled Teck, Collection 2 - Raw Wood, Collection 3 - Wood + Recycled Metal.
some pictures of the "making of".
