Working Class Heroes.

Exactitudes.

Thanks to a comment on an earlier item of mine from someone on the Culture Show (?!), I now know who the artists/photographers in question are! Ari Versluis and Ellie Uyttenbroek are responsible for the documentation of the various fashion tribes throughout the world's major cities from 1994 - 2008. They have compiled the images in a book called "Exactitudes". I love the outcomes when all images are tiled together.

The website looks pretty cool too.

www.exactitudes.com

Below - one of their earlier documentations in 2004

Monster Round The World Trips.

This is a poster campaign by the same creative agency that did the "Creamfields 07" poster, they're called Love Creative based in Manchester. For each portfolio piece they provide you with "The Brief" and then "The Idea"; I liked this as it offered me an insight into how the design solutions came about. This is one of several poster ideas and I just though it was really apt for the brief - comical, attention grabbing and likely to interest their chosen target audience. Nice!

American Apparel Ads.

I love the brazen sexuality in these ads. Sex really does sell - I have enough of their "apparel" anyway. With highly sexed poses and a tongue in cheek manner, they don't air brush their model's lumps and bumps - they stick two fingers up to convention.

Martin Parr - Last Resort.

Parr's subjects were the people and their "seaside town" of New Brighton, on the Wirral, which he later compiled in a book entitled, "Last Resort" (speaking critically of the people and the resort). Liverpool and its surrounding area had a tough time of it in the 80s and while there was this hugely deprived local society, New Brighton was somewhere close and cheap for a "fun family day out".

I personally know that many of my childhood wet weekends were spent at this local seaside town, wrapped up in a miniature shell suit, screaming on the waltzers, crabbing in the cold, buying fake "fags" and poos from the joke shop, and eating chips literally swimming in vinegar. And whilst they are some of my fondest memories, I can see how those happy days could be subject to ridicule. And it was even worse in the 80s. I don't reject Martin Parr's depiction of the town, but welcome it with warm arms, as I think New Brighton's personality is beautifully portrayed in his series: Sure! it's cheap, tacky and brash  - but it is all part of its charm. I'm proud of those days, and though Parr may be critisising my mini Blackpool (as if that isn't bad enough!), I think he documents it in a way where I can look back with sincere affection.

Saul Bass.

I've liked his work since I discovered him about the age of 15. He isn't my usual style, but nevertheless, I truly admire his work. Simple, classic, individual, with a real aptitude for hand rendered type. His colour schemes are simple, graphical and of an era. Hitchcock and Bass had a creative bond with each other, Bass designing many of Hitchcock's film posters and even co-directing that famous shower scene.

Steve Schofield.

I found this guy by accident, I was looking for something else. However I found some photos of come interest to me. There are two series of his photographs ('Dancers', 'Land Of The Free') which I think are really very curious - and that's exactly why I like them. And though I know it's the subjects in the photographs which really make it for me, they are so very aptly shot. He captures the personality of the people, their "Britishness" (if you know what I mean?) and their habitats very nicely indeed.

www.steveschofield.co.uk