Ektopia

Some urinary tract wallpaper. One for the anatomy category. [via]

Snub recently went all urbex and visited a mental. What he painted really came to life against the beautiful textures of years of decay. Also, here’s a Snub interview where I was reminded of his brilliant lamp-post modifications. Hopefully he’ll get busy with his key again soon.

The i-men are a couple of hundred creatures created with Photo Booth. [via]

Judith Seng’s Finger Bowl can be added to the list of ideas whose name may have come before the design…not that I don’t like it because I do.

Flickr is like a home from home for me but I’m not sure what to make of our new visitor - a Flickr exploring rainbow spewing panda!

mynameis? has landed. I have it here. It’s great! Shepard Fairey, Flying Fortress, Retna, Mars-1 and Tiffiny Bozic…all in one place. And that’s just the artist sections! Where do I start?

The Graphotism posse have been keeping quiet (and quite obviously busy) in the run-up to the release of mynameis? and it’s no wonder when you see what they’ve created. Admittedly, they’ve made the job of creating a brand new quarterly hardback book a whole lot easier buy managing to cram an amazing line-up of artists to grace their pages but they’ve also pulled the whole thing off with just the right amount of style as well as a perfect visual and written word balance for their intended demographic; and this is what makes it so different from Graphotism. Where as Graphotism is so biassed to the graffiti scene proper, mynameis? offers much wider artistic content. It will still a niche audience but this group will be lovers of other forms of art including street art, graphic design, fine art, photography etc. so there’s so much more on offer. Now you could say that this would dilute the mix but I don’t think that’s the point. It’s a new mix and as far as I’m concerned (and as readers of Ektopia I’m sure you’ll feel the same way) it’s a great mix but the team have managed to offer so much with every artist’s section having it’s own unique strength and depth of content.

One unifying strength is that even though it has so much content mynameis? has a nice relaxed momentum. It never feels hurried and therefore you don’t either. It’s a chilled read and an even more relaxing picture book. Like I mentioned above, it’s not too heavy on the text or the imagery so it’s kind of a perfect balance. It’s just so easy to pick up and enjoy on different levels. Each individual artist has a dedicated space of between 15 and 30 odd pages so I guess that helps with the momentum so think of that many pages each for those artists listed above and you’ll realise the kind of effort that’s gone into making this a fine book.

The book itself is also quite unique in that it’s so much more than a magazine (it shares the way that magazines deliver a range of subjects and it’s also going to be produced regularly) but it differs from an orthodox book (which it physically is) due to it’s advertising space as there are a some full page adverts scatted throughout the pages. It would almost feels like a catalogue if it weren’t for the aspects that surround the artists’ specials and it’s these other aspects that make it so more than the sum of its parts. There are a handful of pages dedicated to new products like clothing lines, designer toys, books, etc. but by far the most stand out aspect of the mynameis? is the gallery pages. These pages fill the space between the main sections in the book and are packed with superb street-photography, which again just happens to suite my tastes perfectly. Some of the photography obviously contains street art but the majority of it are the urban details that people like you and me are interested in. The image below will hopefully sum it up for you.

mynameis? is a sure-fire hit but I guess the long-term measure of success with a publication will be clearer after a few issues have passed. You could be mistaken for wondering if a line-up like this would be hard to repeat but I have a strong feeling that this isn’t going to be a problem seeing as it’s the Graphotism crew who’s behind the book. This is a perfect debut issue. Here’s to Issue Two; I for one can’t wait.

mynameis? has a cover price of £20 and weighs in at 162 30cm x 21.5cm pages and is a hardback edition. It looks like it’s available from London Graphic Centre, Zavvi, Borders, Magma and Forbidden Planet (and more to follow I suspect) but the easiest way would be to subscribe directly from mynameis?, who provide a number of ways to get your hands on your new favourite book.

Check Atsuhiro Ito rocking out with the Optron. Not sure how long I could listen for but I could watch it all for ages.

A crime scene scarf - a way to stop people from entering your personal space? [via]

Justin Quinnell made a pinhole camera that he uses to take photos from inside his mouth. I know they’ve been floating around the interent for a long while buy here they are again! [via]

Jean Shin’s Sound Wave…get it?! [via]