Hard Format
Monday, December 31st, 2007
Hard Format is a design blog that catalogues interesting examples of music packaging…
“It seems like everybody’s talking about the end of physical music media. Who knows whether they’re right or not, but Hard Format is a little place we’ve set up to celebrate our love of brilliant music-related design. That means we’re going to focus on records, CDs, cassettes and their like. However, Hard Format isn’t intended to become a dusty museum devoted exclusively to past glories, though there’ll certainly be some of that, we also want to highlight the brilliant new design work being produced right now.”
Great inspirational resource, especially if you work in this area.
Pixel Notes
Wednesday, December 19th, 2007Pixel Notes by Duncan Wilson and Sirkka Hammer.
“A wallpaper consisting of four layers of varying grey tones on a bright primary backing. Each layer is perforated in a grid format and backed with a tacky adhesive similar to ‘post-it’ notes. Pixelnotes is inspired by the way we work within a space. The walls become functional, an integrated noticeboard that documents our activity within the room. Pixelated formations and shapes develop according to our patterns of use.”
Very nice!
Goneloko radio
Tuesday, December 18th, 2007
We’ll be starting a series of podcasts here in the new year but in the meantime you’d do well to check out these guys.
Info on Amp Art Recordings is currently a little thin on the ground and maybe that’s intentional, after following a lead from a couple of months ago I still haven’t come up with much other than this page full of various audio to stream and download. It does a nice job of letting the music speak for itself so I’ll follow suit and let you go see what’s there for yourself.
The Public Life mix from 2001 and MXMs Move Me are current favourites.
Masataka Nakano: Tokyo Nobody
Monday, December 17th, 2007
Staying on the Japan tip from last Friday, here’s another nice photo set to peep at.
For 11 years, photographer Masataka Nakano has kept watch for the most impossible of scenes: central Tokyo street scenes inhabited by nobody. These aren’t manipulated composites but rather the result of a dedicated opportunist. There’s something very eerie about these desolate moments and their startling absence of congestion, usually so integral to the portrayal of this environment.
This is just a sample selection but you can pick up the complete series in this 96 page book published back in Sept 2007. If you’re into this check out more of Masataka’s work at his online gallery.
Hats off to Matt from Samurai.fm for pointing this stuff out to me.
Studio Rarekwai (SRK): RackGaki
Friday, December 14th, 2007We ran an article about these guys and their film ‘Scratching The Surface: Japan’ back in Feb 2005 as part of the first pdf issue we put together. Having shaken off their old ‘Kwai Lo’ guise, the two main guys behind the project moved to new HQ in London where they’ve been busy producing some tasteful work under the new alias of ‘Studio Rarekwai‘. May 2007 saw the release of their book ‘RackGaki’; an eye popping showcase of Japanese graffiti that comes bundled with a stunning DVD produced in collaboration with Cinema Iloobia (another name that may be familiar to long time multilink readers). Check the trailer below…
Iloobia has passed me an article on filming this that I’ve put aside for the new issue early next year but you might want to think about picking up the DVD/book now as it’s been around for a while. Available from Laurence King Publishing in all good book stores…



















