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.

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. 

North Island Typographical Tour Part 2: Taranaki

I had to finish with one of Cardiff. Dim unman yn debyg i gartref ♥

North Island Typographical Tour - Manawatu and Wellington

This Summer I went on a North Island road trip with my partner. We had a wedding to attend in Greytown and I had a big open water swim in Taupo so we decided to spend some time on a friend’s Taranaki dairy farm in between. Inspired by some nice typography on some signage in Greytown a little holiday photography project was born. I started to look out for different type (at first, Art Deco) on the buildings as we travelled through the Manawatu (found some beauts in Whanganui) and on to Taranaki. It eventually turned into a bit of an obsession which probably made for irritating slow progress as far as my partner was concerned, as I requested we pull over so I could take a picture of yet “another building”.

I’m not sure where the resulting images sit. Somewhere between a collection of type, Victorian and Art Deco facades, shop signage or a few snaps of small town New Zealand? Perhaps it doesn’t even matter. It’s certainly testament to how much fun a little project can be and the different things you can see if you look up, instead of straight ahead as you walk down the street.

Sydney - Potts Point Deco

I love Sydney. There’s a ton of cool swim spots, great places to eat out and some lovely architecture if you like Art Deco, which I do. According to Wikipedia Potts Point is the site of some of Australia's earliest apartment buildings so as a result has the highest concentration of Art Deco buildings in Australia. I took these pictures as I wandered through the suburb using type as a loose basis for a project but then segueing into taking a few snaps of the gorgeous geometric doorways and foyers of these buildings.

I love that many of the buildings have names and not just adjective-driven ones. Perhaps giving buildings nice names is something we should do more in Christchurch as the rebuild ramps up.