We’re used to great things from the Unilever Series at the Tate Modern, and Tacita Dean’s Film fulfilled our expectations. It’s visually arresting. The 11-minute film is projected onto a 13m high screen, inviting the viewers to sit down in old-school awe of the medium. The images are flighty and playful, featuring tinted blocks of colour, fountains, waves, eggs and classical statues. There’s no clear narrative but rather a play of images and allusions.

It’s important to read Film as a reaction to the medium’s endangerment. Earlier this year, the last lab manufacturing 16mm film in the UK stopped production, prompting Dean’s impassioned plea in Guardian to save celluloid. Film had to be produced outside Britain and the loss of expertise in celluloid almost scuppered the film entirely. The negative cutter hadn’t been trained in cutting Cinemascope film and wrongly spliced it, meaning a white flash appeared with every scene change. Following a weeklong workblitz, Film was saved.

Dean herself had described Film as her love letter to a dying medium, and the images allude to the physicality of celluloid film. A familiar escalator rolls down the screen, reminding us of the film spooling through the projector. Bubbles float up the screen while balloons drop down, repeatedly calling our attention to the dimensions of the film strip. Dean also painted a mountain on glass and surrounded it with fake mist then filmed water-filled balloons dropped from on high in a nod to Paramount’s logo. The films is full of cuts and layers, showing us the manifold possibilities of working with a physical medium rather than iMovie.

She also references the works that have preceded hers in the cavernous Turbine Hall. A crudely tinted picture reminds us of the glowing ‘sun’ in Olafur Eliassion’s The Weather Project while the running water in waterfalls and fountains recalls Carsten Holler’s giant slides. Film looks simple, even childish. But the play of metaphors and visual tricks is stunningly complex, making it well worth several viewings. Recommended. And if you want your own celluloid masterpiece, brief the Exchange.

This is the planet of Areth, a distant and abandoned planet. Only their architecture remains, hinting at the varying forms their society took. This is all gorgeously photographed by Ryder, and each photo comes with a lavish description of the supposed function of the building and the inherent  sociological impressions. But more impressive than the photographs, though impressive as the photographs are, is the level of detail which Ryder imbues this distant world. Whether discussing the organisations that are investigating Areth, or giving a scientific analysis of the buildings, Ryder talks with a voice of authority; giving an eerie validity to his work. The buildings he presents echo those created on Earth as attempts to preserve our world such as the Svalbard Global Seed Vault or the Institute of Plant Industry. As an interesting side note the Institute of Plant Industry was created by Nikolai Vavilov in 1921 and during the Siege of Leningrad several botanists chose to starve to death rather than eat the seeds.

This rich story telling and subtle questioning is present in Ryder’s other work. When he’s not designing whole planets Ryder is one half of Site Unseen, which specialises in sparse landscape shots demonstrating the harsh emptiness that surrounds us. In the Nomad series you can see the same symbol used on the Areth website wielded by the nomad, and for the observant the address of the website includes the phrase ‘the last Arethan’.

The internet has taken a step towards the material with a new feature from Google. Available at wdyl.com or google.com/whatdoyoulove, like all of Google’s features it is easy and stylish to use, simply type in what you love and it brings up a huge variety of responses for you. For example, if you type in cakes you’ll get pictures of cakes from Picasa, map results for cakes, and so on. However, despite being easy to use it doesn’t actually provide anything that is of any value. It acts more as advertisement for the many features offered by Google, and not even a very good one. Maps seems to think I’m based in the heartland of America, latest news and images don’t load, and Books can’t find any results. This last one is particularly strange, especially when you search something like Oliver Twist, which brings up 221,000 results at books.google.com and none at wdyl.com.

It is hard to see what anyone would use What Do You Love for, even if it worked properly. All of the features are available separately (and actually function when you use them). I can’t imagine a situation where someone would want the results across all of Googles features for their search term. Of course this may be a bit of a Ken Olsen but I’m willing to take a risk on it.

Ultimately what is the point of What Do You Love? It may be that Google have conceived this as a marketing ploy but then do they really need to market themselves like this? Maybe they think this is the future of the search engine. If so it needs some work before people bother using it, perhaps why it had such a low key release.

Are you developing an innovative product?  Submit a brief for your marketing & support campaigns.

Written by: Will van Wyngaarden,  Brief and Crowd Executive, blur Group

By Luis D’Alkmin

By Fabrizio Raschetti

By Martin Varallo

By New Light Graphics

Find more out about Cooper here: http://www.cooperjohnson.tv/

Sign up to be part of our crowd of like minded designers here : http://www.blur-designs.net/

Your designs are nothing short of potent, where does this raw, urban style come from?
I cannot say it exactly. I think that my style is a mixture of everything; my city, culture, resistant spirit that I have, and the desire to change things and push them forward. I don’t like art just because of art. The most important thing for me is the message that is carried to the world.

If you could design for any album cover, what would it be?
I am sure it would be U.n.k.l.e.’s first album “Psyence Fiction” or Tricky’s album “Nearly God”. These two are my favourite music artists, something like a soul-mates because I can find a big piece of me in the art they are producing.

Favorite brand?
Well, I don’t have any favourite brand. I respond only if something cacthes my eye, no matter what it is or who made it.

Perfect night out?
My perception of going out at night changed entirely from the bottom to the top. In my earlier years I was looking for nothing but thrills, but now, I rather stay at home and just enjoy and relax with my husband. As we get older our priorities are changing very fast, but in the good way. Everything is more peaceful when you do it like this.

Why do you love Basquiat so much?
Because he reminds me of me in so many ways. I grew up and realized life is so much different to the dreams you had as a child, he just didn’t get the chance to arrive into his maturity and figure out for himself that we have to accept all the cruelness of the world, or we will go mad trying to find that perfect world that we all want for ourselves.

Stones, Beatles or The Who?
If I must choose…then the Stones. Beatles were too neat and The Who were a little bit too hippie for my taste.

What are your passions in life?
Solving problems is on top for sure! I think it drives my life, I’m obsessed with paths and going from “I don’t know how to start it” to “I did it” is definitely rewarding. Of course 3d is very challenging and people are always inventing different and better ways to do the job, especially in the VFX areas which I love.

My most recent passion is poker, Texas Hold’em! After you realize that isn’t just about gambling, it can really open your mind for life. You make lots of friends that would be almost impossible to know in your common social circles and so many insights can be learned like making the right decision focusing on “the big picture”. If you do things right, eventually you get rewarded… I guess.

Download the iPad Wallpaper here and the iPhone 4 Wallpaper here

What are your core skills, competencies?
I think the competence that helps me the most is learning fast. By looking at things more objectively I can learn more in a shorter time. Sometimes you need to go back to basic stuff to take a second look, but it seems a fair trade for me. Also I have a need to surprise people, I definitely sleep less because of it, but it’s very fun.

What are your greatest achievements?
Learning 3D first of all was a great accomplishment, I could see that I was overcoming the barrier of learning very early on. Also to start my own company at the age of 20. To be able to take care of entire projects on my own, alongside my mate Daniel Bohrer. We can finally do the stuff we like and to be completely honest with clients, taking the best approach for each job and, I need to tell you this: To be able to decline a job is a blessing! That way you can focus on quality itself and take care of the work with more pleasure instead of just accepting projects you don’t like or can’t do well just for the money.

What are the best things about Porto Alegre, Brazil?
It’s chaos! Sometimes it is fun to watch so many bizarre people mess around, sometimes it isn’t… But I really can’t tell you much because I just leave my room to get some food or watch movies…

What is the scenery like there?
Well… I remember a scene from Pixar’s movie “A Bug’s Life” when the main character saw the city for the first time. I think if you come to Porto Alegre you’ll feel something like that!

You have an impressive 3D and motion portfolio, what are you working on at the moment?
Thank you very much! The motion part of my portfolio came from a local company in which I had the great opportunity to start my career, working with really creative people. These days I’m doing more stills images and 3D videos interacting with live action or not. My study at the moment is completely aimed towards effects (particle, fluids, render) and composition. I hope to share with you a VFX reel very soon with at least 90 percent of personal work. I’m very excited about it.

Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
Honestly I don’t know for sure, but I’m not afraid of that. I say this because I like to be open for every opportunity, maybe I will stay as a freelancer, maybe I’ll be working for some company in another country, maybe in a whole other profession. My real goal is to work in the movie industry and in Brazil I sadly can’t see any niche that I can fit in working with VFX besides advertising… So I probably will move around.

How are the carnival celebrations?
For me it’s just another holiday and when I don’t need to work I catch some barbecue with friends or family. No samba for me! Rather a good rock ‘n roll

Caipirinha, Cubata or Mojito?
Caipirinha definitely sharps my mind! haha

Football or Volleyball!?
I’m really bad in sports, especially when I need to move around and it involves balls… But the soccer world cup was very fun to watch.

What comes first Illustration or Graphic Design?

For me they are a happy and equal marriage of creative differences. They
both perform roles within the creative field, offering different skill sets
and producing different results. I find both challenging and I don’t
consider myself to have a particularly distinct style in either.

For me illustration is as close to artistic expression as you can find
within the commercial artist sphere, its an inherently revealing and
personal process, producing images from scratch and imbuing them with your
own sense of identity and authorship.
Graphic design on the other hand, is naturally a creative process, but
equally its also about working within and responding to an external set of
stimuli (brief, client, constraints etc). Graphic design can be flamboyant,
sober, clean and simple or simply chaotic, but more often than not its
tempered by the brief.

This is just how I see the them, and I enjoy them equally for both their
restrictions and their freedoms. Its great to sit down with pencil and paper
and pour things out and equally as fulfilling to work meticulously on a
piece of design.

What are your visual inspirations?

I think like most people they are varied, I go through fads and have long
term love affairs, and meticulously hoard away images from blogs, and other
ambient sources(ctrl click save as…). Right now today though I really like
the work of  Cody Hudson (I think he balances design and illustration
beautifully), Yusaku Hanakuma a comic artist of the very funny Tokyo Zombie
and master of the ‘Heta-uma’ style of illustration (translates as ‘bad, but
good’), Mary Blair who was a principle artist at Disney, Tomi Ungerer a
French illustrator whose work spans decades, Antoine Girard another French
illustrator. Design wise; Karlssonwilker a couple of Europeans working in
NY, Yokoland, Julien Vallee papercraft madness, some of the classics -
Robert Brownjohn, Paul Rand, Alan Fletcher, Bruno Munari.

I am a big fan of ‘Freitag’, I think their logo is very simple and a
counterpoint to the random element of their products, and also in terms of
brand experience I think they’re great. If you were unaware of them, Freitag
manufacture handmade bags made from truck tarpaulins, tyre inner tubes and
seat belts 100% recycled, each bag is individual in colour and design. Not
only do they have a great product which they are forever bringing out new
versions of and new lines, but they also have unobtrusive and usually funny
advertising , they also have great photography and tight clean design in
their publications. I think think they offer a rounded experience, great
product, advertising and tone.

Favourite band, I don’t usually do favourites, but at the moment it has to
be Saul Williams a hip hop spoken word artist. Others would include Battles,
The Amps, Sigur Ros, QTSA, The smiths, Be Your Own Pet.

The perfect night out?

Although I live in London, I am a country boy at heart. Perfect night out;
drinking and eating on a beach into the wee hours.

- How do you choose the fonts that you use

There are two things I consider when I choose a new typeface. First I think about my subject, what I am trying to communicate, what the message is, who my audience is and what emotions I want to evoke. All typefaces have ‘personalities’, they all convey messages with their characteristics and if you choose the right one for your subject you are on the right way to effective communication. The other thing I do I try to choose a visually fresh and interesting font, which is appealing for me and for my audience. Just as images and words can attract an audience, type can too.

- Describe your design style

In two words it’s very simple and clean. I would say I try to think function first and than design around it, if I can’t justify a design element I try not to use it at all, my subject is reduced to its necessary elements. The most important elements in my work are the type and the images, they have to say it all.  So I am using as little as possible but try to make it as pretty as possible…

- If you could be an animal, which one would you be & why?

Some of my friends call me gazelle or deer, I think because of the similarities of the physical attributes, so I’m gonna go with that… or it’s more practical to be on the top of the food chain, isn’t it? … so, shark would be a better choice I guess…

- What are your favourite web trends right now

I tend to be drawn to clean and minimal designs, which are really clever at the same time and give you that special user experience that you want to discover more…This type of design is very often white or light grey, with lots of white space around the text, no borders but grid always, large, edge to edge background images, which can emphasize your message and draw in the visitor…clever and carefully built navigation, which is really simple to figure out in a glimpse. It seems to me that all new trends in web design are coming from the need of simplifying and making it quicker and easier. For instance the appearance of the one page layout or the use of large footer on the first page is an attempt to show as many information as possible in the shortest time possible.

- (from Matt le Mont) What was your greatest success in achieving exposure?

I think the best thing to achieve exposure is to start winning awards, participate in competitions, to get into publications or making your own. Having your own blog can be a huge one, many designers made themselves well-known in this way. Personally I didn’t find getting exposure important until now, what I did so far is I got my own website and put myself on all social and designers’ networks I could think of…

- Also, what question would you like to ask a designer in a future Designer Spotlight?

Which one do you prefer freelancing or working for a design company?