A NEW PERSPECTIVE

I've been running in Phoenix Park recently training for a sponsored 20K, and came across this mysterious looking fortified building which I had never seen before. Its a abandoned military barracks complex called Magazine Fort, built in 1735 by the British army and subsequently used by the 'Free State Army' as a munitions Store.

Through the Abandoned Ireland website I also found these fantastic images of the interior spaces in the fort and I thought wow it looks amazing!! Vaulted arches spanning complex multi-faceted floor plans! But as it turned out the photographer had used a 360 Deg virtual reality camera to take navigable interactive images of the (only slightly) less impressive spaces.  

This however got me thinking about modes of representation and how this relatively new technology

has essentially enabled the presentation of entirely unique and (super real?) views of our environment which our front facing visual system limited to views of between 40-60 deg at a time otherwise precludes. 

Think how very different our whole conception of our physical and material environments would be if this was our natural mode of vision? The extra dimensions of complexity and relationality it would allow us to observe and appreciate. As a designer the possibilities and opportunities which would be both enabled and required in planning fully 3 dimensional spaces would be revelatory!

Irregardless of all the above they are also just really beautiful in their decrepitude. 

A Butterfly Bonus

This butterfly wing was hiding in the back of a vintage picture frame 

we bought on a recent trip to Sligo. Such a beautiful thing I just had to scan it in.

It was a bit grainy so I added a Photoshop Dry Brush filter, the rest is all Nature. 

Nice shot..

Hot off the press (no pun intended) promo shots of new Glacier options. Nice.  

Cafe culture

A nice little job I did just before the new year, concept layout and branding for a 

cafe in Dublin 8. 

Hopefully the fit out will happen early this year. 

New for 2013...

We've done some new versions of my Glacier cabinets for 2013. Based roughly on some of the ealy sketch models for the range, by rotating one the doors 90 degrees to create some new configurations of the existing sideboards and a new 4 door upright cabinet.They should be available from Gillmorespace.com later this year.

Back to the old school...

I just found this lovely short film about a studio of old school sign-writers in San Francisco.


bohemia signs from Mission Local on Vimeo.

Really interesting  to see them talk about how the individuality of the writer comes through in the quality of the brush work and the way each individual's signature 'ticks' come through in the lettering....

Having hand painted a 'circus style' sign for my wedding recently (no quality comparisons are being made here!) I can understand the way he describes needing to build up brush handling skills and muscle memory to create lettering quickly and efficiently.

The thing I really noticed in my novice effort was how serifed fonts seem to flow naturally from the brushwork and you begin to understand somewhat how decorative flourishes, shadowing and details
have evolved from the flow of the brush and paint. Its a lesson to us all in this age of instant digital gratification - Quality takes time....long live analogue.

IDI Design Awards 2012

I may not have won and award this year (in fact I didn't enter anything) but did get a chance to be involved in a re-design of the awards trophies in my role as product design representative. Thanks to new awards sponsors HIMACS/James Latham (www.himacsuk.co.uk) I worked with one of their licenced fabricators Derek Deane to re-imagine the IDI 'Eye' in their solid white natural acrylic stone.

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Both the section awards and Grand Prix were redesigned with the IDI logo and text incorporated. The results were unanimously well received at the ceremony held at the Sugar Club last night. Much back slapping all round.