Marcus DeSieno – Cosmos

Marcus DeSieno is a photographer with some amazing ideas. This series, Cosmos, looks at reality and existence at both a macro and micro level.

DeSieno takes found images of the universe, prints them to film, then collects bacteria and allows them to multiply on the film; warping and changing the original image into something that is somehow unique, organic and alien all at the same time. He then scans in these images, which kills off the bacteria, bringing full circle the process of creation and destruction we see in life.

Stock photography these are not!

To see more of DeSieno’s work, check out his work here.

Unfinished Business Stock Photos

We take photography seriously. When we see how cheesy stock photography can be and how often it is used (yes, we know it is significantly cheaper than commissioning new images, but come on!) it’s great to see some points being scored for our team. We all know it, we can all spot stock photography a mile away with its sterile lighting and cheesy smiles, but no one has really spoken out about it, or at least made fun of it.

These promotional images for ‘Unfinished Business’, a new movie starring Vince Vaughn, take the cheesiness of stock photography and blow it our of proportion for amazing effect. In conjunction with iStock by Getty Images, Vince Vaughn and his costars were photoshopped into pre-existing stock photos, then put up on the site for free use in editorial. Don’t believe us? Check out this link here.

Check out the full set in the gallery below. We’ve also included some before and after gifs so you can see just how it was done. What a fun idea!

Coke 100th Anniversary Campaign

To celebrate its 100th anniversary, Coke is pulling out all the stops. It begins with 15 ads that will be flighted globally, with big name directors and actors getting involved.

Here, an ad directed by David LaChapelle:

We love this animated one too:

What we’re very excited about though, is what’s being called Mashup Coke, where designers have been tasked to interpret the Coke brand in their own way, with one proviso: They are only allowed to use the official Coke Red, Black and White. Nothing else. You can check out the instagram account for the campaign here. But do also have a look at the artworks here at this slide show.

And below, check out the Contour 100 Mashup Art Film.

Adidas – I am not a Superstar

Adidas recently relaunched their iconic Superstar shoe and in true Adidas fashion they got some big names to be involved: Pharrell Williams, David Beckham, Rita Ora and Damian Lillard.

We love this moodily art-directed piece by Johannes Leonardo, which tells the story of what it doesn’t mean to be a Superstar in this day and age.

Beautiful!

Mike Brodie – Trainhopping

Mike Brodie used to be a photographer. Well… He used to take photographs. When he turned 18, Mike decided to go ‘trainhopping’ – riding freight trains across the United States of America. These candid, poignant and honest photographs are his documentation of that journey.

One would think that with such an eye and such a great piece of work under his belt that Brodie would continue down this photographic path. Instead, he now works as a motor mechanic because photography he says, just never really excited him that much.

To each their own we suppose! At least we have these amazing images to look at as testament to Brodie’s travels on the railroad.

Redesigning the Cooper Hewitt

The Cooper Hewitt Museum in New York is the national museum for design in America, but it had a bit of a problem. After years of different identities and a three year refurbishment, it was time to update the look and feel.

To learn more about that process, check out this talk here, it’s a bit long but definitely worth it. Eddie Opara from Pentagram, Chester Jenkins from Village and Caroline Baumann from the Cooper Hewitt itself talking about the new graphic vision for the museum.

But what next? What about redesigning the official typeface? That’s exactly what they did next, and the good news… you can download it for free right here. What a great idea! A new look, a new logo and a new font free to use by anyone.

Osborne Macharia Photography

There’s nothing we love more than showing African creative work that is of the highest possible standard. Here, we feature Osborne Macharia who has a distinctive style that makes for arresting, powerful portraiture.

Hailing from Nairobi, Kenya – Macharia is someone to watch in future!

Willem Law – Cape Argus Front Page

There’s nothing more we love than seeing our students and past students achieve. Here, we can share a picture taken by Willem Law (2010) which made the front page of the Cape Argus during the horrendous fires we experienced in the Southern Peninsula a few weeks ago.

Capturing an image like this, that encapsulates the feeling of an entire city, is never easy and the opportunity doesn’t come around very often. But when it does, we are so glad that people like Willem Law are there to capture these moments. Press photography is such an amazing discipline, in that it can galvanise a huge group of people around a single image.

We are so glad we could help Willem on his way, but at the same time – we are also so happy that the fires are finally out!

Jessica Hische talks about her process

We really believe in process at the Stellenbosch Academy. It’s the only way to ensure you come up with the best possible output. This is why we love these kinds of videos, where designers explain how they work and how they come to their own solutions to problems.

From designing as something as small as a postage stamp to a giant billboard, being a designer is never the same, but always challenging. Here we have acclaimed American designer Jessica Hische talking about how she designed a postage stamp for the US Postal Service.

Amazing!

The 5 Second Music Video

Well… The music video is not 5 seconds long, but it only took 5 seconds to shoot!

Made by Guillaume Panariello for Siska, this 3.5 minute music video was shot in just 5 seconds at 1000fps.

We’re all for being ruthless when shooting and getting it done quickly but wow… this takes it to new heights!