design: Thomas Heatherwick to design London 2012 Olympic cauldron.

Beijing 2008 will go down as the Olympics of spectacle, but already the London 2012 Olympics could be billed as the design Olympics.  With the Olympic park masterplanned by ForeignOfficeArchitects, the Olympic Stadium designed by HOKsport, the aquatics centre by Zaha Hadid, and the velodrome by Hopkins Architects.  It seems Locog have left nothing to chance by working with the best in their field . . .

It seems they have wanted to push this even further though by the appointment of Danny Boyle he of Slumdog millionaire fame to oversee the Opening ceremony, ensuring they are both artistic and relevant – promising to be “epic and intimate“.

Organisers have also announced the designer of the iconic Olympic cauldron.  The cauldron is the iconic emblem of the games, ensuring the spirit of Olympus watches over every modern games, and usually becomes the very symbol of each host city to the millions of television viewers across the globe – step forward to the challenge then Mr Thomas Heatherwick.

You may recognise Heatherwick from earlier projects including the British pavilion for the Shanghai expo (above) or the sculpture ‘B of the Bang’ erected for the Manchester Commonwealth games (below) – if the cauldron looks anything like these two earlier projects then we could be in for something truly special indeed . . .

And here we take a brief look at some earlier cauldrons from the Olympic movement . . .

top row: 1976 (montreal, canada); 2010 (vancouver, canada); 2004 (athens, greece)
bottom: 2002 (salt lake city, USA); 2000 (sydney, australia); 1992 (barcelona, spain)

 

AP.

design: return to form. The return of the classic movie poster.

In our earlier post we returned to the art-form of the art-house movie poster and here we look at this subject a little further with a review of some of the most archetypal classic movie posters of all time with a rather special view of a German poster for Robocop, and a look at how todays studios like Disney’s Pixar are reworking this art for todays audiences . . .

And a look at how Disney’s Pixar studios have interpreted this with posters for the animated feature Wall-E, and the little mermaid shown below.

AP.

art: confetti death by Typoe

When you’re not feeling your best, there is always someone to make you feel worse by stating the obvious with a remark like ” I hope you don’t feel as bad as you look”

Well, after seeing this work by the street artist Typoe recently we couldn’t help but be reminded of that statement.  This work of art looks exactly like WE feel after space mountain at Disney World.  The nervous explosion that is ‘confetti death:’ for us here at AP. conjures up both the incredible feeling and rush we associate with adrenaline from something good, with the obvious downside, that niggling fear of something bad happening at the same time . . .

But hey – you judge for yourself.

“Confetti Death” by TYPOE, which was on display at Spinello Gallery in Miami during Art Basel Miami Beach.

AP.

7 days 1 week: sun finally hits london.

Sometimes you want noise. Today isn’t one of those days.

Spring has most definitely sprung, london feels like it is slowly shaking off the dark cloak of winter and like a hunched old man trying to regain it’s posture for the heat of summer.

AP. decided to welcome spring by taking a stroll in one of the royal parks, which if you’ve ever been to London, then you’ll know they are a real treasure. In Paris parkland is few and far between, and grass you’re actually allowed to sit on is even fewer and farther, whilst in New York you either handle the bridge and tunnel club and head to the hamptons or take a risk in trying to fight for a space in central park. Not so in London. London treasures it’s open spaces like no other city, and the royal parks are a beauty in their own right!

It’s Greenwich park that occupies us today, and sitting here listening to the faint whirring and grinding of the muscled city in the background we can’t help but think there really is no other city in the world we’d rather be in right now . . .

art: Ian Davenport brightens up our walk home.

We can often be found taking a casual stroll away from the offices at AP. and dow to Tate Modern on London’s South Bank and one of the highlights on the way is the spectacular work by Ian Davenport in an otherwise grimey and unloved underpass – which got us thinking, just where else might we find his work.  Well look no further because the great striped one (yup, that’s our little nickname for him!) is quite prolific when it comes to painting the world in perfectly uniform bands of vertical colour.

Though what we missed out on from our London experience was the way on much of these works he leaves the stripes to puddle and muddle together at the bottom – now thats special! Enjoy.

AP.

just for fun: playmobil for apple.

Ok so it was just an April fool (and yup, we know – we’re a little late!) but whatever the reason, we totally want one.

AP.