The family of Dublin signwriter Kevin Freeney (1919-1986) have recently posted a fascinating collection of photographs of his work. Check them out on Flickr here.

“Signwriting goes back at least three generations in his family. Back in the 1930’s he rambled through Dublin’s streets on a bike or with a pushcart carrying his paints and brushes. In that period the city’s streetscapes were elegantly embroidered with handwritten shop and pub fascias. Having done ‘at least 700 pubs and shopfronts’ in Dublin, the most famed streets -O’Connell, Henry, Grafton, and Capel- all carried his personalised three-dimensional relief lettering and ornamentation. His fellow craftsmen hailed him as a “Master” - Dublin Street Life & Lore by Kevin C. Kearns.

IGI member Steve Simpson has been awarded Gold in the illustration design section of the AOI’s Images 32 for his branding of the gourmet pie outlet “Pure Pie”. Images 32 is due to be published next year and the accompanying exhibition will be held in London in July/August 2008.
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IGI member Chris Haughton, recently listed by TIME magazine as part of their DESIGN 100, talks to SCAMP about his illustration & design work for the Fair trade company People Tree in Japan.

People Tree produce gifts and clothing through groups and projects set up to employ minorities or disabled individuals in the developing world who are without access to social welfare. Some of the projects set up help women who may have been divorced through domestic abuse or disabled individuals who would not be able to earn money outside of their family. We have made different products together from t-shirts and dresses to bags and stationery.

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Detour, an exhibition at the Art Directors Club in New York presented by Moleskine featured 70 Moleskine notebooks filled by various designers, architects, artists and writers. The website features some great videos of submitted moleskine notebooks. This is Paula Scher’s.

The Vader Project is a reimagining of the iconic Darth Vader helmet by 25 of Europe’s “hottest pop and underground artists”, and will have its World Premiere July 13 to 15th, 2007 at Celebration Europe, a landmark event being held at the Excel Convention Center in London to celebrate the 30th Anniversary of Star Wars.
Above is my effort. You can see some photos of the process and detailed close ups here.
All the details about the project are here.

It was an extremely hot day on Sat June 9th (too hot to draw if the truth be told). But the art must go on, so we managed to produce two walls of doodles. We had such a fantastic spot in a beautiful walled garden – a hidden gem surrounded by the chaos that was a very loud dance music festival. There seemed to be a genuine interest by the festival goers in what we were doing once they understood that they weren’t allowed to participate (at least until after we melted!) and it went down a treat. Participating artists were Oliver Jeffers, Chris Judge, BRENB, The Tender Trio & Alan Clarke.
More photos are veiwable here