Big Active has just been awarded a Gold Prize at the European Design Awards for our art direction and design work on Mark Ronson’s ‘Record Collection’ album. The awards were announced by Ugne Skonsmanaite at a ceremony held in Vilnius on Saturday. The work was described by this year’s jury as “the perfect way to reference the musician’s influences and the collecting habits of the customer”. This trophy marks the latest in a run of nominations for the project at this years design awards – it was also short listed as a finalist at the Design Week Awards in March, and is currently featured in the 2011 Creative Review Annual. The 2011 European Design Awards book will be published next month.

16 May, 2011 - Posted in Art Direction & Design, Gerard Saint, Jasper Goodall, Jesse Auersalo, Markus Karlsson, Mat Maitland, Music, Parra, Will Sweeney | - Tags: European Design Awards | Permalink

Parra was commissioned to create the cover for Time Out Amsterdam’s May Art Issue. Taking the theme of ‘art hopping’ to coincide with the Amsterdam Art Fair as well as features on the city’s contemporary art spaces, Parra has created a suitably bouncy cover. The issue also features an interview where Parra discusses his home city, hungover inspiration and ladies with beaks.

04 May, 2011 - Posted in Art Direction & Design, Illustration, Parra | | Permalink

Jasper Goodall has been invited to create an interactive illustration for Sony’s PS3 platform. As Jasper explains, I had been meaning to create a piece of moving illustration for some time and the PS3 platform provided the ideal space to try this out. Although I was aware that the guys at Studio Output would have to work in PS3 coding language, I wanted to provide them with an animation to demonstrate how my theme should move, which they then had to dismantle and reconstruct in the PS3 code.

Jasper devised the dynamic theme as part of a new feature for PlayStation 3 called The Studio, where users can purchase themes from a range of graphic artists and illustrators. PS3 users can view and purchase the themes from within the console’s PlayStation Store.

14 April, 2011 - Posted in Art Direction & Design, Illustration, Jasper Goodall, Moving Image | | Permalink

Will Sweeney has a designed and directed a video for Belgian band Das Pop. For the promo, Will was given free reign to to create the organic / mechanic universe in which lead single The Game comes to life.

As Will explains, ‘When I was asked by the fine gentlemen of Das Pop to create a video for their new motorik pop single The Game, the first image that sprang to mind was ‘motorbikes!’, followed by post ‘apocalyptic warrior punks’. Theses are subjects close to my heart, and I wanted to do my best to create a mini movie for the mind’s eye.’

24 March, 2011 - Posted in Art Direction & Design, Illustration, Moving Image, Will Sweeney | | Permalink

Parra has been selected by Complex Magazine as one of their top 25 artists of 2010. Alongside artists like Ryan McGinley, ROA and JR, Complex commended Parra’s exhibition at Arkitip’s Project Space in L.A. The article also puts forward his Nike x Parra x Patta Air Max 1 trainer as the best artist collaboration footwear of the year, a belief also held by Sneaker News who described the collaboration as one of the most ravenously sought-after releases in recent memory.

Photograph © Damon Way

06 January, 2011 - Posted in Art Direction & Design, Illustration, Parra | | Permalink

Big Active’s creative director and founder Gerard Saint has just returned from Athens after speaking at the Design Panorama conference. Saturday’s headline talk focused on Big Active’s music design output – and why we believe an integrated approach is essential to produce effective creative work. “Music design is the glue that holds together all the fragmented aspects of the way music is currently consumed – from digital to print – so it’s really important that each adds a new dimension to the story…”. Examples of this way of thinking include campaigns for Beck, The Enemy, Keane, Goldfrapp and Mark Ronson.

Design Panorama is organized annually by +Design Magazine and Sunday’s main presentation featured Anne Miltenburg from the Dutch design studio Lava who have been named European Design Agency of 2010. We’d like to thank Demetrios Fakinos and +Design for their superb hospitality.

06 December, 2010 - Posted in Art Direction & Design, Gerard Saint, Music | - Tags: +Design Magazine, Art Direction & Design, Design Panorama, Gerard Saint, Music Design | Permalink

As part of the Dior Illustrated: René Gruau and the Line of Beauty show at Somerset House, Jasper Goodall was asked to reinterpret one of Gruau’s main theme’s, Line & Silhouette. Jasper took the opportunity to move away from his usual medium and produce a large scale piece cut from sheet acetate. The show continues until January 9th.

30 November, 2010 - Posted in Art Direction & Design, Illustration, Jasper Goodall, Moving Image | | Permalink

Letman, aka Job Wouters, has won a prestigious Dutch Design Award for a series of 17 posters he designed with Yvo Sprey for Undercover club nights.

25 October, 2010 - Posted in Art Direction & Design, Illustration, Letman | | Permalink

Will Sweeney and Steve Scott’s promo for Birdy Nam Nam’s “The Parachute Ending” has made the final selection for the Guggenheim Museum’s, YouTube Play biennial of creative video. The inaugural event showcases the most innovative online video from around the world and the judges including Stefan Sagmeister, Darren Aronofsky, Takeshi Murakami and Laurie Anderson had their work cut out going through the 23,300 submissions to produce a final selection of just 20.

22 October, 2010 - Posted in Art Direction & Design, Illustration, Will Sweeney | | Permalink

‘Couture In The 21st Century‘ is a new book designed by Big Active. It was launched last night with an exclusive party at Harrods. Working in collaboration with the author Deborah Bee, design director Gerard Saint commissioned Rankin to shoot a definitive series of portraits of 30 of the world’s leading fashion designers – the likes of Erdem, Lacroix, Prada, Paul Smith, Armani and Oscar de la Renta, to accompany interviews explaining their relationship with couture, archive inspiration and examples from each designer’s current collection. The front and back cover features specially commissioned graphics by Siggi Eggertsson. See more…

15 October, 2010 - Posted in Art Direction & Design, Book Design, Gerard Saint, Siggi Eggertsson | - Tags: Book Design, Deborah Bee, Fashion Design, Gerard Saint, Harrods, Rankin, Trends | Permalink