Ireland vs Georgia

Weekend weather warning

Snowy day in Dublin

Chinese New Year

I was walking along Parnell Street yesterday afternoon when I ended up in the middle of a ceremony for the Chinese New Year. There were around thirty people out on the street in traditional costumes and dress, holding banners, flags and banging drums and cymbals. In the midst, a dragon danced to the beat and the procession moved from door to door of each Chinese premises along the road, stopping at each entrance to perform the ritual. The same set of red and gold banners were moved along, hung from each doorway as the party moved from door to door. First the dragon would enter the premises and dance around inside. It would rub and dance against the door on its way in and out, as if marking the door with luck or blessing for the proprietors and customers. From the top of each entrance hung a cabbage on a piece of string; after coming back onto the street the dragon continued to dance before turning back and reaching up to take the food in its mouth. Now the rhythm really intensified, a tumultuous, rumbling din of drums and cymbals as the dragon crouched down to eat the food and then leapt up, throwing it out of its mouth in all directions. People were clapping and smiling, and the party then moved behind the dragon as he danced to the next doorway, where the banners had already been hung and the ritual would be repeated. It was spectacular.




2009 is the 4707th Chinese year, the calendar dating back to the crowning of the Yellow King in 2697BC. 'New year's day' changes each year: the Chinese calendar is based on cycles of the moon rather than set dates, so new year is celebrated on the first day of the first Chinese lunar month (the next cycle sees 2010's new year fall on 14th Feb). 'New moon time', the equivalent of midnight of New's Years Eve, fell at 15:55 in China this Monday, 07:55 in Ireland.

One, two...

I ran the Raheny 5 earlier today, good buzz.

Tighten your belts

Recession-conscious denizens of Abbey Street are 'dying for a smoothie' no longer. Jaaaas!

Synth Eastwood 'Cycles'

All of the print, music and motion work submitted to last month's 'Cycles' exhibition in Dublin have gone up on the Synth Eastwood website. The poster I sent in was produced for the show and now is available to buy with all of the others in the print submissions section.

ICAD Awards 2008

A guide to the advertising, graphic design, film and radio work that won various things at last week's annual ICAD Awards has gone up here.

The Resistable Rise of Arturo Ui

I went to see yesterday's matinee at the Abbey Theatre. The play is set in 1930s Chicago, amidst the insecurity and uncertainty of the economic slump. Arturo Ui is a small time hood who sees his chance to muscle in on a fire-sale warehouse deal between a hard-up vegetable import/export firm and a local businessman. A meteoric and bloody rise to domination through corruption and protection rackets begins.

Written by Bertolt Brecht in 1941, the tale of Arturo Ui is a reflection of Adolf Hitler's earlier rise to power in fascist Germany. Set in the environs of the Chicago warehouses, courtrooms and labour meetings, the story mirrors events in Hitler's ascent such as the burning of the Reichstag and The Night of the Long Knives. Arturo Ui's sinister evolution into the dictator's mould, growing unchecked in power and bloodlust, is Brecht's message: how easily such a thing can happen, and happen again.

The play runs until the end of this week, 6th of December.

An Pholainn

Some photos I took at last night's friendly between Ireland and Poland in Croke Park. There was an enormous Polish support at the game, outnumbering the bemused Irish fans by 2 or even 3 to 1. Red and white Polish banners hung all around the stadium and on the empty Hill 16, many with the names of the towns back home. I picked out some others: 'London', 'Edinburgh', 'Waterford'. A large Polish flag hung from the Cusack Stand on the halfway line: 'Dublin Brigade'. A collosal banner was held slightly longer over the token line of Gardai deployed to the midst of the lower tier clamour as it was passed from one side of the Cusack to the other. And as the remaining Irish supporters trudged to the exits after the final whistle, Polish pop tunes blared round the stadium (after a blast of 'Teenage Kicks' which we were told was recorded 30 years to the day previous) - triggering another huge roar from the visiting support who were in no rush to go anywhere. The Polish who travelled from near and far whipped the night sky over Croke Park into as intimidating an atmosphere that no away support are ever likely to match. Ask Stephen Hunt - his ears are probably still ringing from the deafening whistles as he stepped up to pull a late goal back for Ireland from the penalty spot.

ICAD Awards set-up

I was lending a hand at the set up of the ICAD Awards exhibition 2008 yesterday afternoon. The show is a pre-cursor to the annual ceremony run by the organisation which presents awards across a range of disciplines such as print, advertising, film and new media. The exhibitioin opens this evening in the sleek surroundings of the Lighthouse Cinema in Smithfield, and is open to the public for the next two weeks.





The exhibition layout has been designed by Conor & David.

Upstarts' Last Stand

I was in at the Rothco gallery this afternoon to help take down the Upstarts exhibition. A few last shots taken before we got to work:





All gone, and all done for another year.

ICAD Upstarts Exhibition, 2008

Exhibition set-up

Yesterday afternoon in the Rothco gallery.

Synth Eastwood 'Cycles'

This is a poster I sent off this evening for the upcoming Synth Eastwood 'Cycles' show, at Filmbase in Dublin on 24th October.


It is a tribute to the 2007 Tour de France which passed through Dartford and Gravesend, and is entitled 'Fast-track' after the dubiously-titled bus link that runs between the two towns. It is based on Kraftwerk's Tour de France videos, and is composed in a similarly geometric hand-drawn type style that I have been experimenting with in a series of greetings stamps for An Post.



Whether or not the Synth Eastwood crew have any interest in the poster is another question altogether.

Gomorrah

I went to see Gomorrah this weekend, my first visit to the new Lighthouse Cinema in Smithfield.



Gomorrah exposes the breadth of Camorra gang feuds in the Campania region of southern Italy. It is a film that holds a knife to your throat and presses a gun into your back for the duration: a bleak portrait of life for those in the sprawling Neapolitan suburbs where escape from criminal rackets and the bloody reality of life is not an option. "[Director, Matteo Garrone's] film is populated by characters who neither rise nor fall, remaining instead in the same patch of dirt for generations, however many bodies pile up, or bags of heroin get sold."

The film is based on the controversial expose by Roberto Saviano, who is now under police protection in Italy following the novel's success. "As a young man, Saviano's father, a doctor, was savagely beaten by members of the Camorra for saving the life of a man they'd shot. Saviano Jr waited decades to exact an elegant revenge, but it was worth it. He infiltrated the mafia-like crime organisation and in May 2006 exposed their workings to the world." (Quotes from Ellen E Jones' Gomorrah article 'Into the Darkness')

Exhibition latest

Maintaining its hard-earned reputation for bringing you the very latest Upstarts news, the Officeless blog today presents an exclusive lowdown on the Exhibition proposals discussed with (Design Factory Honchos) Conor Clarke and Sinead Doyle, and (ICAD Gaffer) Elaine McDevitt at the Factory Space Gallery on (ahem...) Monday night.


Some interesting and unusual concepts were presented. Themes within included explosions, popcorn, lion tamers, kites and strings.

After a two-hour-ideas-blitz-marathon, the Design Factory curators retired back to their creative caverns to mull over the fare, while everyone else retired to Nealons. We expect to meet again this week to finalise the concept for the exhibition and get cracking on its realisation.

Unlike your intrepid reporter, the Officeless photographer missed that morning's flight back from London. For photographs of the presentations, please contact Fiaz Farrelly and Elaine McDevitt.

One absentee on Monday night was Austin Maguire, who was stuck at home working hard on the new Design Week website. The site is now up and running, so now there can be no more confusion as to when the big week is.

Walks, pt 1

Looking at a computer screen too long, thinking about humanitarian aid graphic design briefs too much. And no rain for more than a couple of hours: time go for a walk. Last night, Dollymount.


Looking towards Howth.


Irish Ferries on the Irish Sea.


No Kites tonight.

Gorta brief

This week’s brief concerns a logo design and poster campaign for Gorta, the Irish charity for famine relief and long term development. I think it is fair to say, judging from emails exchanged between the Upstart group over the course of the week, the task has emerged trickier than first thought. Without losing sight of the objective goal of the brief, it certainly raises wider questions.

The concept in this brief presents a challenge in itself. Standing on the outside, detached, uninformed, and slapping up a swanky new logo on such vital humanitarian projects seems very cynical. Do you think that Humanitarian Aid lends itself to branding exercises in the same way that a new business, product or service does? A reputable designer or studio assigning kudos to a charity from the safety of their desks adds a few brownie points in the eyes of our material culture.


Consider too the grubby Gorta shops in Dublin city centre:


Does everything have to look stylish, ‘designed‘ for people today (especially young people) to take it seriously? I think it is the 'audience response/perception' to the work of the charity that this brief attempts to address and this must be kept in mind; it will certainly be interesting to see the different approaches presented by the group on Monday night.

But a few other questions… do you think aid work is enhanced - and if so, in what way - with the acquisition of a new logo? Does the concept of identity function in overseas aid areas in the same way it does in the high street or online? What about the mark of the Red Cross, or ‘UN’ daubed on aid convoys, how would you classify these in this scheme of things?

In a practical design sense, a can of worms is opened too. In terms of the poster campaign alone, take the hideous search for stock imagery for starters, 'Starving African Children' or 'Third World'. Or devise icons, colour pallettes or fonts for concepts like 'Saving Lives' or 'Creating Hope'. Dismissive assumption, even arrogance are easy frames of mind to - unintentionally - adopt when dealing with this topic.

Questions raised approaching this brief reminded me of a Design Observer debate from this time last year. The initial article by David Stairs was titled ‘Why Design won't save the World’ and discusses an exhibition that had just opened in the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York City. Worth a read; interesting points bought up, far better put than mine here:

Lots of things to think about over the last few days.

Reduce, re-use...

Recycle. Piles of boxes taped up for collection outside Spar on Capel St yesterday afternoon... beautiful juxtapositions of logos, type, colours and creases up close.