"5 Preview"

When reading Dazed Digital I came across an article on the new brand known as "5Preview." Keeping their sir-names secret two graduate students met and decided to make their own brand. In the recent interview with Dazed Digital designers Emeli and Diego described how the idea of '5Preview' came about. "We did a T-shirt turning the classical Chanel logo upside down, took a picture of us wearing it and put it on MySpace with no intentions whatsoever. In the next days we got so many requests from all over the world of people who wanted to buy that shirt that we decided to organise ourselves." After looking at the products that '5Preview' make I emailed the designers to find out about their sale date. Their distinctive t-shirt designs are definitely something to watch out for come spring! 

Fabric night club

Fabric nightclub is based in the Smithfields area of London. Smithfields is an area of London that was heavily hit by the outbreak of the plague and was also home to a number of plague burial sites. With this in mind designer Tom Darracott create a series of characters to represent different aspects of this heritage. For the final mask in the series, Darracott wanted to reference the plague doctors who tended to the victims of the 17th century disease that swept through London. “The long snout would have been stuffed with aromatic herbs and flowers in the belief that the pungent fragrance would protect the wearer from the disease,” says Darracott. “I’d read about the Smithfield area of London, where Fabric is located, so it’s a bit of a historical tribute to the area.”

The use of photography and layout is appropriate for the concept and the visual images are extremely striking and memorable. Darracott has used a small, san-serif font so as not to draw the attention away from the images, with heading and titles in bold with the same point size. He has used aligned columns to organize text and has kept this style consistent throughout. Theses designs were deserved winners of the Creative Review Annual awards for 2008.

Ben Toms Photography

Ben Tom is a London based photographer who's work can often be found in Dazed and Confused magazine. Like Frederick Helwig's work it is often used for fashion layouts-most recently used by clothing brand Penguin. His black and white photos contrast with Helwig's work as do not rely on colour but his photo's are just as effective.

The New Coolbrands book

The annual 'Coolbrands' book and website has seen a complete make-over ahead of it's release next month. Coolbrands will sport a fresh image that will be displayed across a new website and will accompany the flexi-bound Coolbrands book. The interactive design company 'Clusta' were appointed last autumn to design the new look and have created a new bold and modern font for this year, 'We wanted to break away and try something a little more contemporary, so we developed a bespoke font to reflect Coolbrands’ cutting edge reputation, It’s fresh and modern,’ Spokesperson for 'Clusta' also states that ‘the focus of the book had to be the brands themselves, so the grid system we used had to be flexible enough to work around some quite strong images –without giving preferential treatment to any one brand,’ Now in its eighth year, the Coolbrands programme pays tribute to the UK’s 500 coolest brands, judged by a panel of experts and consumers. It's gives a detail description of each brand and reviews their success, as well as displaying fact and figures on sales over past years.

Coolbrands is an excellent reference book when learning about brand design, and as it's free with Dazed and Confused theres no reason not to grab one. The new design is bright and bold, and will stand out more than previous 'Coolbrands' books. It's new font is up to date and modern although text is not as legible as previous designs. 

'Levis creates denim's future'

The brand 'Levis' has always seen huge success from the sales of their distinctive designs, however you should check out some of the new, rather unusual jeans from the 2008 Levi's Red collection. On a quest to challenge the perceptions of jeanswear and create innovative styles in denim, the Levi’s RED designers began by deconstructing a pair of traditional Levi’s 5 pocket jeans and re-interpreting every single part by blowing seams , warping details and playing with proportions. What is also interesting about the new designs is that a hundred percent of materials have been used up, 93% making up the jeans and the 7% of 'wasted' fabric is used to create the bag you take the jeans home in. The early Levis machinists had their own signatures, which meant that no pair created was the same. In these new, and throughly modern designs this is also true meaning your jeans are exclusively yours. In order to promote this product Levis have used poster and postcard designs. Like all Levis adverts the photography used is up to a high standard and is filled with style. 

Assume Vivid Astro Focus

Artists 'Assume Vivid Astro Focus' aka 'AVAF' work in a wide variety of media, creating wallpaper designs, music videos, large-scale installations, t-shirt designs, and floor stickers.  In recent months 'AVAF' have created a new piece in an ignored temple in Rome. This exhibition is inspired by 'energy.' The sculpture in Rome takes the form of scaffolding, layered with colourful images and projections. What is noticeable about designers at 'AVAF' is that they remain anonymous, claiming that they want to be unreachable, "We want to be inclusive, not exclusive. We all like to party together."

Their bright and electric designs means that instalations are always exciting. With their distinctive style the work of 'AVAF' is always likely to catch your eye and is capable of producing memorable exhibitions.

Frederike Helwig

Frederike Helwig's photography can often be found in magazine layouts and covers- featuring in Dazed and Confused on more than one occasion. His bright, refreshing photography provides modern and trendy images and he is often called upon to direct visuals for fashion photography. His used of natural light and shadows help provide complementary and visually pleasing colours within each shot.

'The Knowledge' photography

When I was flicking through The Knowledge television guide I couldn't help but notice the interesting photography that featured on the front cover and throughout the magazine. As 'The Knowledge' is a 7 day television guide I did not expect to see such impressive visuals. I was therefore  pleasantly surprised, something for TV quick to aspire towards. The typography throughout the magazine is constant and a bold san-serif is used- although when text is displayed over certain imagery the white letters are not always legible.

David Hockney Museum, Saltaire Village

Saltaire Village, Bradford was designated a World Heritage Site in 2001. I was attracted to Saltaire Village when hearing about the Hockney exhibition based in one of the renovated mills. As is it only a small space there are not many designs displayed, however the ones that are, are highly inspiring and varied. With a shop selling a range of illustrated books there is no better place to spend a weeks wage.

Carlsberg Sports Drink

Being familiar with Carlsberg beer adverts I was not surprised to find another successful advert connected with the brand. With the recent phone video craze this advert makes you believe that this is all it is, however a clever and intelligent twist makes for a memorable ad.