Keek, Twinstraat, Utrecht

Above and below are pictures of the window signage for Keek, an independent bakery on Twinstraat in Utrecht. This approach of simple, mono-tone graphics, hand rendered in white paint seems, I noticed, to be favoured by a number of businesses in Utrecht. These ones in particular being painted by a friend of the business owner. I really love the effortless feel of these illustrations.

60 years of Miffy – The Miffy Parade

Utrecht is the home of graphic artist, dick bruina, and 2015 is the 60th anniversary of his most famed creation, Miffy the Rabbit. I also visited the dick bruina huis whilst in Utrecht, was amazing to see more of his work and also the technique and process when he creates images of Miffy. More on that in another post though...

Miffy, or Nijntje in Dutch, was created in 1955 whilst bruina was on holiday in the north of Holland. He sketched a little rabbit that kept hoping into the garden of the family’s holiday home and each evening would make up stories about the rabbit to entertainment for his young son.

To celebrate 60 years of Miffy, 60 artists were approached and asked to decorate a statue for the Miffy Parade. The artists, working in many disciplines, drew their inspiration from the world of the Miffy and each decorated a 1.8m high statue of her. The status are on display throughout The Netherlands and Japan and below are some of the statues I found on display in Utrecht. The statues will eventually be auctioned to raise money for Unicef.

Village Underground

These re-purposed tube carriages have been photographed loads but I was particularly excited to see them as I bumbled through Shoreditch en route to Hackney Central one Saturday afternoon. The Village Underground project was featured on George Clark’s Amazing Spaces which was a Thursday evening favourite of mine and my flatmate’s in Christchurch, New Zealand. So as I rounded a corner in London I got that jolt of eek-I’ve-seen-them-on-the-telly excitement!

I’ve always found the space on public transport interesting. These tube carriages re-purposed as artists studio reminded me of the bus journeys of my youth on the Cardiff Clipper P7 service from Cardiff to Barry via Penarth, where I’d day dream about how I’d design the interior of the bus were it my mobile house!

As well as being a cultural space and an artists’ community the Village Underground is an ecology project. In a society that is so wasteful it’s always heart-warming to see things recycled and given another lease of life.

Nice to see Nathan Barley is still knocking around. 

Garage Project Beer Cans

Garage Project, what great beer and what great artwork. I think there is hardly a beer in the Garage Project line where I don't adore the artwork. Their approach seems to have been to just take inspiration from the beer name; as opposed to a fixed look for the entire range that gets adjusted accordingly for each product. 

The result is a plethora of brilliant and often humourous designs with influences that include vintage advertising, Jamie Reid, Film Noir, vintage computer games, Arts and Crafts, and Godzilla.

As well as being seduced by the beautiful artwork I chose these two cans due to their contents; particularly La Calavera Catrina which is brewed with maize, habanero chilli, watermelon and rose water!

That's whole lot of creativity in a can.