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// ACE Hotel / 20 W29th St / Manhattan / New York / NY 10001

A to-die-for boutique hotel in midtown manhattan (founded in seattle with hotels also in portland, palm springs). Not only is this place beautiful (with huge couches, super-low light in the foyer & bar any time of day or night – making anyone look beautiful! – great typographic signage, & reception staff with moustaches, tattoos, crisp white shirts & braces) it also has a branch of Stumptown on the premises so you’re guaranteed a great coffee (even by NZ standards) – and a design store (No 8A), stocking all sorts of amazing design-ey and kooky objects & gifts. Love!

:: Words by Jenny Miles

Jen and Nik – HardHat Design

PROCESS was introduced to this dynamic-duo by Tana Mitchell, [PROCESS designer] during preparation of the Hopetown launch, in which Jen and Nik produced the website and helped in editing the spellbinding time lapse film from the labels launch event…

Originally from London & currently Auckland-based, communication creative gurus Jen and Nik have gone  on to produce the PROCESS website and blog in collaboration with Tana’s design ethos, and continue to work on creating new ideas with Caroline of PROCESS.

 With friends and clients across the fashion and creative arts industries in Europe, New York and AKL – and a good deal of wanderlust – if they’re not working hard in NZ they’re most likely to be found soaking up inspiration in East London or Brooklyn. Or you might find them sneaking a quiet one at any number of drinking dens they’ve discovered along the way.

 The two-man design studio is fluent in a range of talents from branding, on and offline design, a pinch of illustration and perplexing methods of web and email marketing.  Check out some of their work here – http://www.hardhatdesign.co.nz

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Mid last year, the International renowned luxury fashion brand Hermès collaborated with the online publication DesignBoom to launch a competition to design a signature Hermès Cravat. The prize consisted of a fistful of euros but more importantly the top three entrants would have their designs commissioned – becoming part of Cravat History.

Hermès has reinvented the tie every day for 60 years and were looking for a ‘an innovative and original pattern design’. They considered launching the contest as a way to broaden they’re ‘field of vision’, an opportunity to reinvent. They huge variety of submissions from the quirky to the conservative certainly delivered. 5,478 valid entries by 6133 designers from 97 different countries participated, I managed to scrape in amongst the shortlisted 200 with a ‘typographic tweed’ but my personal favourite didn’t get a look in {the horse-hair inspired one above}. It is worth visiting the site to see the variety of graphic responses.

New Zealander Nickolus Clifford came second with his clever design ‘Unpossible’ {top} — he happened to be in London recently to see his labour launched as part of the Hermès Fall-Winter 2010 collections. His design has been produced in a variety of colour-ways and will be available from their flagship store in NYC from September 2010, and department stores worldwide around the same time. Congratulations Nik.

The Design Community has mixed feelings about competitions, they are often lumped in with the destabilising practices of pitching and crowd-sourcing — under-selling us all. In many instances they have a point, but competition is healthy, and the DesignBoom competitions often give designers a chance to flex their creative muscle in foreign territory they’d otherwise never get to explore. DesignBoom has recently launched a competition with Tivoli, to celebrate it’s 10-year anniversary, the prize includes a billboard in Times Square — so get scribbling.

~Tana

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To see the results of the Hermès Cravat competition:
http://www.designboom.com/contest/winner.php?contest_pk=27

To enter the Tivoli Competiton:
http://www.designboom.com/tivoliaudio.html

To see more of Nikolus Clifford’s work:
http://www.hardhatdesign.co.nz/

One year on and the transformation from Bionic Pixie to Zowie is incredible.

A busy year spent securing World class management, a deal with Sony Music Australia, travelling the World writing and producing her debut album. The only thing we believe, and hope, has remained the same is Zowie’s longstanding collaboration with local designer and best friend Serena Fagence. Zowie is deservedly setting Worldwide blogs a flutter – even Perez Hilton “LOVES” her.

So, keep an ear out for Zowie’s brilliant new single ‘Broken Machine’ which goes to radio in the next week or so. I don’t think you’ll need to try that hard, it will be everywhere! More importantly keep an eye out for the incredible video that accompanies the single, directed and produced by Special Problems.

Until then keep up your Zowie fix at her new youtube channel:
www.youtube.com/user/iamzowie

The clever folk at KEVIN.MURPHY continue their takeover of my bathroom cabinet with PROTECTION.LINE; a break-through range of Shampoo, leave-ins and styling aids that protect the hair from intense heat (you straightener addicts know who you are) without leaving excess weight or residue.

Using a patented Extreme Hair Protection Complex, PROTECTION. LINE contains a blend of natural ingredients traditionally used in the treatment of burns and its high-level of anti-oxidants, essential oils and amino acids make it a saviour for damaged hair.

All products in the PROTECTION.LINE are sulphate and paraben free and, like all
KEVIN.MURPHY goods, provide excellent style-hold while smelling damn-near good enough to eat.

Words by Katie May Rusco

I met Sam about three years ago; he came to  borrow some clothes from the PROCESS showroom a for music video.. I couldn’t believe how nice he was… I am always in awe of the musically talented… probably due to my being tone deaf! [as my partner so eloquently puts it!] Having been signed to Sony Music for a worldwide record deal the boys have also launched their album this week… check out the below Q&A…. Words By Caroline Brown

Kids of 88 / Vocals / Sam McCarthy / PROCESS Q&A  

If I was to describe my latest work in five words or less, I would say… “Melting-Pot, Spanner, Whirlwind, Tsingtao”

 For breakfast this morning I had… “Fair-trade coffee, so i’m no doubt feeling pretty morally righteous…”

 The person who has made the biggest impact on my life is… “A particularly Flighty blonde, 5′7″ , cobblestone eyes. Oh and Bruce Forsyth”.

 I know all the words to (song)…. “The Beatles – Blackbird, amazing really, im horrible with lyrics”

 My proudest moment was… “Mastering a full milk milo, get me 1200w microwave and I’ll prove it.”

 My style icon is… “The Dark Horse (the sgt. Pepper years), and Heathcliff, Wuthering Heights”

 When I was a kid, I wanted to be… “One of the Cosby kids, hands down’.

 Attach a photo/video link of something funny or interesting or that just generally sums up how they are feeling at that moment?

http://lisakereszi.com/images/41.jpg

 Kids of 88 – Managed by Ashley Page of Page One Management

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Julian Dashper was one of New Zealand’s most accomplished contemporary artists — he died a year ago.

In his work Julian often reduced things to essential elements, put like with like and delineated opposites. It was therefore unmistakably a Dashper thread that neatly tied together a group of his colleagues and friends in Brooklyn last Saturday afternoon at the opening of It Is Life at Minus Space — an exhibition consisting of heartfelt written remembrances of Julian’s life and work. Julian would have chuckled as at the preview many of us unraveled connections he had attempted to make between each of us in prior years — introductions, crossed paths and shared opportunities.

Julian’s work focused on the histories, theories and more general or popular ideas of abstraction, conceptualism and minimalism as a working methodology. His practice took many forms, from painting to performance. As an International artist living and working in New Zealand, Julian’s work, and life, also dealt with the duality of local/global, as seen in his work Future Call, the sole work presented amongst the written tributes that make up It Is Life at Minus Space. Future Call consists of a single telephone installed in the gallery that is periodically called from New Zealand, 16 hours ahead of New York City — a call from the future, only to be left ringing and unanswered. I think we all fought the desire to ‘pick-up’ as the phone rang through our collective reminiscing, I  for one am curious to know what the future holds….

Julian traveled broadly and had friends and allies across the globe, the 70 or more ‘personal notes, memories, anecdotes, criticism, correspondence, poems, and elegies’ from around the world and on display at Minus Space in Brooklyn are testament to that fact. Incredibly personal and poignant, each note held a unique story, the contributors include: Soledad Arias, Marcus Bering, Channa Boon, Ralf Brög, Henry Brown & Millicent Borges Accardi, Mary-Louise Browne, Vicente Butron, Melanie Crader & Mick Johnson, Christoph Dahlhausen, Kasarian Dane, Judy Darragh & Rosanna Albertini, Christopher Dean, Matthew Deleget & Rossana Martinez, Ali Duffey, Daniel Feingold, Linda Francis, Alicia Frankovich, Zipora Fried, Andrea Gaskin, Daniel Göttin & Gerda Maise, Michelle Grabner, Billy Gruner & Sarah Keighery, Vaughan Gunson, Lynne Harlow, Miriam Harris, Gilbert Hsiao, William Hsu, Simon Ingram, Kyle Jenkins, Ian Jervis, Jeffrey Cortland Jones, James Juszczyk, Steve Karlik, Mark Kirby, WJM Kok, Keira Kotler, Elodie Lesourd, Stephen Little, Joshua Lux, MariaMaria, Jackie Meier, Moreno Miorelli, Dane Mitchell, Victoria Munro, Geoff Newton, John Nixon, Rose Nolan, Salvatore Panatteri, Carrie Patterson, Nathan Pohio, Gwynneth Porter, Mel Prest, Linda Roche, Layla Rudneva-Mackay, Erik Saxon, Karen Schifano, Marie Shannon, Sandra Smith, Barbara Strathdee, Robert Swain, David Thomas, Mandy Thomsett-Taylor, Tilman, Jan van der Ploeg, Machiel van Soest, Erica van Zon, Jan Maarten Voskuil, Marcus Williams, Emi Winter, Rachael Wren, Patricia Zarate, and others.

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Julian Dashper was born on February 29, 1960 (leap year day). During his career, he mounted more than 140 solo exhibitions of his work worldwide, including in New Zealand, Australia, Asia, Europe, and the United States. In 2001, he was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to be an artist in residence at the Chinati Foundation in Marfa, TX. A 25-year retrospective of Julian’s work, entitled Midwestern Unlike You and Me, curated by Christopher Cook and David Raskin, traveled the United States during 2005-2006, making stops at the Sioux City Art Center, IA; Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery, NE; and Ulrich Museum of Art, KS. Julian’s work was included in our comprehensive group exhibition MINUS SPACE at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center in NYC in 2008-2009. Julian died on July 30, 2009, and is survived by his wife Marie Shannon and their teenage son Leo.

to see more of Julian’s work:
www.suecrockford.com/artists/images.asp?aid=28

To see more of the show check out the James Kalm report:
http://www.youtube.com/user/jameskalmroughcut#p/a/u/0/bzKQWVvuIdk

To read a touching remembrance of Julian:
http://cherylbernstein.blogspot.com/2009/08/signs-to-live-by.html

or go to Minus Space’s site:
http://www.minusspace.com/category/currentexhibition/

Words by Tana Mitchell

(R18) Starring Josh Stewart, Michael Reilly Burke, Andrea Roth, Madeline Zima, Karley Scott-Collins, Juan Fernandez. Directed by Marcus Dunstan. 90 minutes.

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I once took a date to an advance screening of Saw II, not knowing anything about the film except it was a horror. Within 10 minutes I asked her if she wanted to leave. Within 15 minutes I wanted to leave. Within 20 minutes we exited the movie before I killed someone.

It wasn’t that the movie encouraged me to replicate the behaviour of its villain, the Jigsaw Killer, though I suspect the Saw films have spawned copycat killers or strongly influenced the dark desires of individuals on the edge of committing heinous crimes. I wanted to kill the owners of the twisted, amoral minds who would dream up such vile and disgusting acts of torture and death and package them as entertainment.

I’ve nothing against horror movies or movie violence. I’m also not an advocate of censorship. But violence presented as a form of pornography, irrevocably designed to titillate the basest instincts of its audience, blurs the acceptable boundary of what constitutes art or entertainment. Which brings us to The Collector, another snuff movie by the creators of Saws IV-VI.

Thematically, The Collector is the Saw movies’ equally untenable twin brother. It’s evil masquerading as entertainment. Despite the quality of the filmmaking itself, it possesses no justifiable reason to exist. Written by Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton, it taps a lamentable contentment in its horrifyingly large audience to derive enjoyment from watching humans being dismembered, tortured, made to watch others suffer and brutally killed.

The problem is that these films are generating their makers, distributors and exhibitors money by the bloodstained barrelful. That’s nothing new. Producers and studios have been tapping the splatter horror genre for decades to get teenagers into drive-ins and multiplexes. Some of the films even have tenuous artistic merit, including a number by Herschell Gordon Lewis, Roger Corman and Russ Meyer. Even Steven Spielberg’s generation-defining blockbuster Jaws exploited human – and shark – bloodlust in 1975.

But films like Saw, Hostel, the recent remake of Friday the 13th and now The Collector are taking violence to new extremes, with little discernible artistic, psychological, spiritual or evolutionary merit. Some would argue that’s the whole point.

When handyman-by-day, cat-burglar-by-night, Arkin (Stewart), breaks into a rural family’s home early into The Collector, it seems the film will observe the conventions and restraint of more standard horror thrillers. However, Arkin – and the audience – is quickly plummeted into hell in a house. He’s stumbled upon a sinister scenario involving an innocent family imprisoned, tortured then gruesomely killed and his only hope of escape is to outsmart the gimp-masked lunatic in control of the asylum.

If that sounds like your kind of movie, check yourself into a mad house immediately. Hopefully you’ll be eating gruel and wearing a straitjacket alongside Dunstan, Melton and others responsible for sending humanity back to the Dark Ages.

 THE PITCH: Die! Die! Die!

WATCH OUT FOR: Bloody sequels.

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I struggle to walk past a second-hand bookshop wherever it may be. Above you’ll find a selection of recent finds — the Kessel & Camus at the top are the most recent purchases from Mast Books {66 Avenue A / NYNY}. Mast Books is full to the brim with a carefully edited selection of pre-loved books, each publication special in some way — whether scientific text or art catalogue. The second image is from a shop window in Prague, this selection of mid-century books has some great examples of illustrative typography as well as a stunning piece of early photo-montage {the blue one in the lower right corner}. The last, a German text book found in Berlin, is an excellent example of the International Style {long live Helvetica!}.

~ Tana

Along with photography, music is also an obsession, like everyone i guess I have always been fascinated with the rogues of rock, the innovators, the pushers, the agitators,  no-one exemplifies this like the sex Pistols.

Here is a hotel room after Sid Vicious has visited, and those infamous eyes in full rotten glory, spitting maniacally the tragic future ahead for Thatcher youths.

Words by Stephen Tilley

Stephen Tilley Photography – www.stephentilley.co.nz

LA based band Funeral Party are currently building a following in NZ for their DIY production on tracks such as ‘NYC Moves To The Sound Of L.A.’ taken from their 2008 ‘Bootleg EP’.

For their forthcoming debut album, due out in January 2011, the band have enlisted the help of the Mars Voltas programmer, Lars Stalfors, as well as the Dave Sardy (Band Of Horses/LCD Soundsystem).

Sonically it still very much retains the overall aesthetic established with the EP, a sound that would sit happily on the re-born Flying Nun. However Bnet fans beware – through brilliant songs like ‘Finale’ and ‘Just Becuase’, and as with bands like TV On The Radio before, in the transition from the EPs to the debut album there is no choice but to accept that the mainstream will soon be in on your secret!

www.myspace.com/funeralparty

Words by Ashley Page