On the 15th of September during the London Design Festival, The Map House, London's oldest seller of antique maps, relaunched their Mews Gallery with a beautiful exhibition of new work by prizewinning artist Kristjana S Williams, in a contemporary exploration of the traditional art of cartography which they named 'Art Cartography'. For this exhibition Williams brings incredible historical works of art back to life using her eye-catching signature style, by featuring new vibrant digital collages on historical maps of locations such as London and China as well as maps of the world. Alongside these intricate prints, the artist will also present her first ever three-dimensional hand cut paper collaged maps, and a series of her incredible designs superimposed on to globes of the world. Beautiful! [ Continue reading ]

Last week, on the 25th of September, the beautiful and inspirational second issue of Libraryman's Dogme Magazine was released, which again is of the highest standard. The magazine created by the very talented Tony Cederteg finds its key inspiration in the fact that a lens transmits and refracts light, but at the same time also often is used to focus light, which he translated to the magazine's ambition to take a closer look through the creative lens of film, fashion, and photography. Always presenting lucid portraits of their favorite creative subjects. The first issue featured impressive names like Anders Danielsen Lie and Harmony Korine, for the second issue Cederteg and his team focus on for instance the amazing actor Denis Lavant, filmmakers Apichatpong Weerasethakul and Isabel Coixet and composer Mark Mothersbaugh. The list of contributors also shows many new names among which are the incredible photographer Lena C. Emery and returning name Ola Rindal. [ Continue reading ]

Due to busy schedules on both ends, the collaboration between Our Current Obsessions and the very talented Ramon Haindl was realized only two days before the opening on Friday the 5th of September. On that grey Wednesday we got in the car at the end the of morning in Utrecht and drove to Ramon’s hometown Frankfurt, with the GERTRUD & GEORGE Overnighter which just had arrived a day earlier in the trunk, filling in the only shared gap in our agendas to get together. Ramon had been working early and long hours in Stuttgart the days before, and arrived back in Frankfurt only a few moments before we got there, which didn’t temper his or our enthusiasm to make it happen, no matter what was needed. The piece created by Ramon exemplifies his unpolished collage/mixed media approach in his free work, which we particularly love and special features his young dog Vila. The key inspiration for the piece lays in Ramon’s observation of a sharp parallel between the dog’s fur and the grain of the Buffalo leather used by GERTRUD & GEORGE, which he caught beautifully in this collage of analogue and digital photography plus handwritten text. [ Continue reading ]

Cycling is a very significant part of the Dutch culture and it has been for many decades. However, an affordable, contemporary Dutch bicycle disappeared from our streets a while ago. The explanation is reasonably simple; a bicycle is a labour intensive product, and for this reason, almost all bicycle manufactures, and with them a lot of other fields of production, moved their production to low-cost labor countries, mostly in South-East Asia. This impressive graduation project by Design Academy Eindhoven alumni Bob Schiller, which he named Epo, aims to revive the local industry and bring production back to the Netherlands. We are very impressed by his design and attached ambition, which also gained him a nomination for the Keep an Eye grant which will be awarded to one graduated student on the 18th of October. [ Continue reading ]

Editor's Index is an ever-expanding independent studio project with a focus on artisanal aprons, started in 2010 by the very talented Kimmy Eliot Fung, who at the very start only possessed primitive seamstress skills. Hobbled from a few school classes and her mother's excellent but fluctuating influence. The first apron Kimmy created was as a nameless endeavor for a printmaker, which eventually was used and loved for four years, marking the quality of the products from the beginning. Later approaches for aprons were received in a similar fashion: working friends, and even Kimmy herself, looking for something useful, aesthetically appealing and industrious. Working in wonderful places with beautiful interiors and carefully crafted details asks for something paralleling this grace and actually keeping clean and functional: the clear focus of Editor's Index, which Kimmy has slowly been expanding since. [ Continue reading ]

'Faculty Department' is a beautiful personal photography project and visual journey by the talented Justin Chung, focussing on the lives, spaces and stories of talented and noteworthy individuals worldwide. Chung’s interest in photographing creative people came alive when he moved to New York City to pursue a career in commercial fashion photography and portraiture in 2011. Chung found that while he was inspired by the work these creatives were producing, what he felt most connected to was their process: how the smallest intricacies in their daily lives contributed to making them the most effective, most happy, and most real. It is these intimate details Chung hopes to capture in the pages of 'Faculty Department'. [ Continue reading ]

Eleven-time world champion surfer Kelly Slater has just released the name and first imagery of his new, and highly promising looking, ready-to-wear brand named Outerknown. The name Outerknown references the furthest reaches of our knowledge today. It challenges the people behind the brand to build better, more sustainable products. It asks to lift the lid on the supply chain bringing the consumer along on our journey to transparency. Slater has put together a world-class team that includes co-founder John Moore as Creative Director overseeing product and marketing. Moore has collaborated with Slater in the past, and was recently named as one of GQ’s best new menswear designers of the year for 2014.  [ Continue reading ]