FINTAGE

Quite recently I did a poster for Fintage; a Finnish vintage forum, community and blog. I tried to be somewhat active at the forum when it started a year ago but couldn't keep up as I just don't have the time to blog, tweet, update a facebook page and maybe even read some blogs every now and then... (and, you know, a have life off line too).

The theme of the poster was to be people on a certain bridge in one Finnish city. Can you tell which one? I'm not from around there so I had to rely on photos and google street view for some help :)You can click on the image for a larger view.

(As usual I always end up with two versions, the client's one and a more plain one I prefer, you can view the other one here.)

COME TO FINLAND!

Posters and postcards from the Come To Finland book; a book about vintage travel posters for Finland. I love old travel posters, and well, old posters in general. It's also interesting to see branding for Finland from back in the days.

You can browse the book as a whole online - I found some posters I remember form my childhood that were on the walls of our summerhouse (they still are actually). You can buy the posters and cards separately too, but I'll go for the book (and I actually intend to get it now, and not wait for some years like I unintentionally did with the Jaffas...)

EDIT : I have to add, as I realized many of you do not know; it's interesting and a bit sad too perhaps to see the poster for Wiipuri - Finland lost that big and old city to Soviet after the war, and tens of thousands of people had to leave their homes, buildings and businesses behind. Some of my family lived there in the early 1900's too.

THE BEGINNING, THE END, AND EVERYTHING THERE IN BETWEEN

You know I'm a big fan of animations of different kind, especially stop motion.
I'm also intrigued by so called street art; big fan of Banksy.

This is by Blu, and it's amazing:


It's a little long, I know, but worth watching!
(And as usual thinking about the making of gives me a headache...)

THE BOUDOIR SERIES

The result of the Atelieri shoot a month back, inspired by erotic photographs from the early 1900s (my hand however modestifying the photo a bit, for internet's sake..).

These can be seen along with the rest of the series at the "Alice in Wonderland"- exhibition about contemporary photography at Logomo in Turku, as part of the design capital 2011 happenings.
The exhibition will open on Friday and run until December.

THE JAFFAS

Some years ago I mentioned the Jaffa posters here on this blog; soda advertisements from the late fifties and early sixties that made the billboards again in a retro campaign a few years back. I've always wanted these posters and for some reason I kept on wondering how to get them until it last summer struck me - what the hell is wrong with me? Few things are ever further than a google away!
(Yes, really, sometime I am so old school I actually forget about the internet and think I have to find stuff in real life.)

A few minutes later two of the Jaffas where on their way home to me.

The posters are made by Erik Bruun, one of my favorite Finnish graphic designers (I really love this one too for example :). They can be ordered from his shop.

ATELIERI O.HAAPALA EXHIBITON

Most of you who read my blog should have become familiar with Atelieri Onyxei Haapala and their steampunk-y cabinet portraits by now. (Seen here, here and here.) Now you can see all the portraits taken during the project, over 800 pieces, exhibited at The Finnish Museum of Photography. The opening is on Tuesday night, the 26th!

If you're somewhere else and won't make you can view all of Onyxei's and Helmut's photos on the Atelieri O.Haapala Flickr page.

AMAZING

I found this one via Pekka. It's rather amazing.



Well worth the twelve minutes of watching. Can you believe all that was done by computer?

“One person's crazyness is another person's reality" - Tim Burton

Helena Bonham Carter and Tim Burton have to be my all time favourite celebrity couple.
I think its mainly because in my head they seem to be the coolest and wackiest parents in the world. On top of having awesome parents Billy Ray and Nell (their kids) are also lucky to have Johnny Depp as their Godfather. And not many people can boast about that.
Anyway here is the photos of the lovely Helena, Tim and Johnny last night at the opening of Tim's exhibition (which starts today) at The Museum of Modern Art in New York. They are showing a retrospective of Tim Burton's fantastic work which looks absolutely brilliant. I wish I could visit!
But for now here are some photos, enjoy-I am off to have some Sunday Dinner ;)

And here are all of the photos that Tim Burton did in a collaboration with Harpers Bazaar last month in anticipation of his exhibition. The photographs just show how much art, fashion and film can merge into one. Photographs by Tim Walker:

Beth xx

FRIDAY 13th : THE LOVING DEAD

Eddi & I at the Halloween Horror Cabaret by Atelieri O.Haapala (who says they will do one more gig still, November 28th! Keep your eyers open... ).

I'm wearing the long velvet 1930's evening gown that I picked up at my ederly relative some time ago.

(If you're in the mood for some zombielesque check this :)

"People say graffiti is ugly, irresponsible and childish...but that's only if it's done properly" -Banksy

Sorry I have only just got around to blogging about my trip to Bristol to see the Banksy exhibition...
It was brilliant and its not often that you go to a gallery and every single piece in the exhibit is at such a high standard. Seriously it was genius; witty, tongue in cheek pictures often with a political message behind it.

Needless to say it was extremely popular and some people ended up queuing for 7 hours to get in!!! Hehe we got lucky though because my friends Mum got up at like 6.30am to be at the front of the queue and save our places.

AND as a bonus, instead of being snooty and not letting you take photos like lots of other galleries I know (ahem...the BALTIC...) you could take as many photos as you liked so obviously I went snapper happy:

(Haha and excuse the very dorky photo of me above, I think I was just super excited!)

The reception of the museam was inside the icecream van! Haha it would be so fun to work in there...

Man 1: Who are all these people?

Man 2: Oh they're not people, hes just crap at drawing flowers

PRINT OF THE DAY

Peacocks by Klaus Haapaniemi.

A lot of illustrations today tend to have this folky, decoratvie vibe to it. I'd dare to say Klaus was among the first, if not the very first one, to start the trend.

LUNCHTIME

I love stop motion animations!
(And pasta and spaghetti westerns as well :)

But there's also something terribly wrong with me since I (like mentioned before...) just can't enjoy these without thinking about all the work behind it and that gives me a slight headache. And makes me a bit jealous too.

PRINT OF THE DAY

By Hennie Haworth.

PRINT OF THE DAY

Rob Ryan : Tears That I Cried Over You

PRINT OF THE DAY

Andy Warhol. Six Bags in a Frame 1958.

THE MASTERFUL LINE OF GRUAU

I'm continuing on my very un-chronological and no-logic-whatsoever series of featuring my favorite fashion illustrators. (Previously mentioned are Erté and Ohgushi.)

Today it's time for perhaps the greatest of them all; Renée Gruau!

I've always admired the 'less is more' when it comes to illustration (that is, if you know your way around the paper and pencil) and Gruau is a true master in the use of negative space, somewhat continuing the japonisme-inspired style of Touluse-Lautrec. Gruau was also a master with his use of color and patterns, but most of all, his trademark line - strong and simple but total perfection.

RenéeGruau (1909-2004) was a French-Italian artist and illustrator who worked mainly in Europe but also in New York. He did numerous high style magazine covers, ads and haute couture illustrations for such as Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, Flair, Balenciaga, Givenchy, Dior... He also did posters for The Moulin Rouge and Lido for years. At some point he even did some fashion design himself.

Gruau worked with Dior from the fifties until the late eighties, even at times when fashion photography and digital art had already taken over. Images above from the sixtes.



Obviously an inspiration for the iPod ads?


Great work of pattern and space from the sixties.



I had a hard time picking out images for this post leaving a lot unshown here, so be a darling and go google up images by Gruau! Do it! Now!