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For all you swanky DJs…more pictures and writing at Mama Feel Good!

Flip is an eclectic mix of all things animation. Based in the heart of the Midlands the festival provides a wide range of experiences from educational workshops for young people to experimental animation for grown ups; from industry led panels to feature film screenings and from international showcases and retrospectives of short films to spotlights on animation studios.

Flip is on from the 5th-7th November, with the whole programme available to peep online here including details of the Flip Animation challenge…

This year the festival has become a bit more hands on giving people the opportunity to write scripts and make films. Here’s the challenge: on the 5^th November, Flip will host a one day scriptwriting for animation workshop leading each participant to produce a 60 second script. These scripts will be posted to the Vimeo group at the end of the day and passed onto animators in residence at the festival. You will have a day and a bit to turn a script into a film, the deadline for posting your films on Vimeo will be 12noon, 7 November. They will then be screened later that afternoon.

This is the work of Robert Bradford he will be exhibiting his recycled toy sculptures at Royal Academy in London from the 1st December.

He creates his life-size and larger-than-life sculptures of humans and animals from discarded plastic items, mainly toys but also other colourful plastic bits and pieces, such as combs and buttons, brushes and parts of clothes pegs.

In 2002, he started to consider the possibilities that his children’s forgotten toys could have as part of something bigger. Bradford says he likes the idea that the plastic pieces have a history, some unknown past, and that they also pass on a “cultural” history as each of the pieces represents a point in time. Recycling is not his primary concern, but each sculpture certainly keeps quite a few pieces from becoming landfill. Some of the sculptures contain pieces from up to 3,000 toys and sell for £12,000. First seen at The Cool Hunter.

This Sunday…”Ink will Spill”. This is the qualifier, for the background story read here.

Eastside Projects is an artist-run space as public gallery and incubator of new ideas for the City of Birmingham and beyond.

Eastside Projects is a not-for-profit organisation, working in partnership with Birmingham City University and STATE Enterprises, revenue funded by Arts Council England West Midlands; it aims to commission and present experimental contemporary art practices and exhibitions and fully participate and support the cultural activity of the city both inside and out.

Eastside Projects was conceived by artist-curator Gavin Wade and is organised by a founding collective comprising Simon & Tom Bloor, Celine Condorelli, Ruth Claxton, and James Langdon.

Abstract Cabinet Show // 26 September to 8 November 2009

Part of The Birmingham Comedy Festival 2–11 October and The Event 4–8 November. Featuring Laureana Toledo & John Taylor, Mithu Sen, Support Structure, Para/Site Art Space, Heather & Ivan Morison, Magnus Quaife & David Osbaldeston, Shedhalle Zurich, Michael Takeo Magruder, Bedwyr Williams, Grizedale Arts, The Hut Project, Malgras & Naudet Contemporary Zurich, Stan’s Café, Freee, Daniel Salomon, Juneau Projects, Stone Canyon Nocturne, DJ Simpson and Clarke & McDevitt.

Featuring the Premier of a new multi screen film, sound, bass amp and newspaper publication project, CORRESPONDENCE/ CORRESPONDENCIA, made collaboratively by Mexico City based Laureana Toledo and Duran Duran Bassist John Taylor. Toledo and Taylor’s Super-8 footage of Birmingham and Mexico City (with Taylor filming Mexico and Toledo filming Birmingham) -  is a “meditation on local and international constructed space and identity, the sound of cities and an inquisitive meeting of difference, coincidence and shared passions”.

Typography and lettering is an expressive part of Birmingham’s visual identity. Islamic calligraphy, neon signs, tags, mysterious handwritten signs in Mandarin stuck to dirty windows and the fallen glory of broken shop lettering – which now reads ‘Ma     l ather s ores’. The aim of ‘Graphic DNA’ is to document these letterforms and to trace the changes to the city’s graphic DNA brought about by regeneration, recording the evolving lettering landscape before the opportunity is lost for ever.

Graphic DNA is a long term project which aims to delineate and profile the graphic character of Birmingham through photographing, gathering, curating, cataloguing and describing the letterforms found in the city’s urban and civic environment. The Project is led by Type with the able assistance of Alexander Barton, Hilary Lovell, Matt Murtagh, Veronika Pechova, Hannah Wood all students at the Birmingham Institue of Art & Desgn.

Why Birmingham?

Birmingham is in a state of metamorphosis, evolving from a city dominated by manufacturing to one led by the creative sector. Industrial Birmingham is being redeveloped and regenerated and a new city is emerging: letterforms that have been obscured for decades are being temporarily exposed before the developers move in, and new letterforms are being added daily. Further more, Birmingham is a hybrid city that for centuries has been home to immigrants from across the country and around the world. The history and evolution of Birmingham’s immigrant populations are relvealed in the letterforms on its streets and the marks left by the city’s multicultural society will be documented and curated by the project. The project is in part graphic rescue.

Why lettering?

Street lettering is an artistic amalgam of letterforms mixed with substrate, language, placement, and proportion. Letterforms are excellent vehicles for demonstrating how the environment, human judgement, necessity, and repetition can add visual music to the streets. This project will capture, catalogue and curate images of letterforms culled from Birmingham’s streets -  both past and present – to show the city’s unique graphic character.

To read more about this project check here. If lettering and design is your bag then you may fancy a look at Helvetica a documentary film by Gary Hustwit.

Helvetica is a feature-length independent film about typography, graphic design and global visual culture. It looks at the proliferation of one typeface (which celebrated its 50th birthday in 2007) as part of a larger conversation about the way type affects our lives. The film is an exploration of urban spaces in major cities and the type that inhabits them, and a fluid discussion with renowned designers about their work, the creative process, and the choices and aesthetics behind their use of type.

Picture credit: Blacksmile from Spinwell.

Eeeek you only have a few hours left to check out the ‘Pop-Up in the City’ shop previously blogged about here featuring independent designers including Steel & Jelly and Marvins Magical Mini Mart (poster designer for the Capsule peeps). All temporarily housed in the old Jade shoe shop on Corporation Street in the city centre. Best Believe will be interviewing Amy Lappin the designer from Steel & Jelly next week to see how it went and to hear more about her work. The ‘Pop-Up in the City’ shop closes at 6pm today so go pop in.

These wee cards are perfect for the networking-shy creative person. They are small but perfectly formed and each as individual and original as their owner. By uploading your own photos and images you can design them to fit in snugly with your own aesthetic or use them to promote pictures of your work/designs.

The cooler more attractive younger brother to the business card, Moo cards are cheap – like only 10 bills for 100 and are used by all types of creative folks. Get involved!