Artist/designer Yinka Ilori is firing on all cylinders right now. Not content with pedestrian crossings in Tottenham Court Road and basketball courts in Canary Wharf, he has created this fabulous Launderette of Dreams in Bethnal Green. Got to be worth a visit!
A wonderful piece of film here showing calligrapher Seb Lester painting a mural on the side of a house in London E17 Read in full →
Back in 2016 I proposed the creation of a hybrid mural/art gallery project on a wall running along the Thames path in Brentford. The project was to consist of 30 physical mural panels along the wall, each of which contained an AR ‘marker’. Visitors to the wall could scan the markers with their phone (like a QR code), and a virtual reality artwork would appear, visible through the phone. Read in full →
I have to admit that I have never really been particularly drawn towards visiting Coventry…but all that has changed.
Massively!
The Beazley Designs of the Year celebrate the best examples of designs in six categories: Architecture, Digital, Fashion, Graphics, Product and Transport. The overall winner was the Teeter-Totter Wall by by Ronald Rael and Virginia San Fratello with Colectivo Chopeke Read in full →
A couple of weeks ago I found myself reading yet another article (this time in the New Statesman) bemoaning the death of the high street. Once again, the finger of blame was pointed at competition from the online superretailers, the challenge from budget firms such as Aldi, Lidl and Primark, economic uncertainty brought about by Brexit and most crucially sky-high ground rents and business rates.
What the article failed to mention as another possible factor is that…well frankly, our high streets are just plain boring. Read in full →
I recently came across this book – Happy City – by Charles Montgomery, which is a really insightful look at how to turn our cities into vibrant, exciting, enjoyable, rewarding places to live Read in full →
Following a really positive public response to our construction hoarding designs for The Mall Walthamstow, they asked us to extend that graphic treatment to help them in their campaign to support Waltham Forest’s bid for “Borough of Culture” Read in full →
Pleased to see our latest environmental branding project for The Mall in Luton was launched. The brand new toilet and baby changing and feeding area was opened by Reality TV star Billy Faiers, featuring environmental graphics by Simon Inc Ltd.
Here’s an article I wrote for the September issue of London Business Matters magazine about the role that environmental branding can play in turning new developments into communities rather than soulless groups of disconnected buildings.
It is an undeniable truth that the current development boom in London is changing, not only the visual cityscape but also the character and personality of areas and communities. In the part of West London where we are based, swathes of ex-council blocks, underused light industrial and warehouse units have been cleared to make way for high value, high density riverside developments totalling thousands of new dwellings. Some of the new-builds are mixed-use, some residential only, some beautifully designed with elegant balconies and landscaped communal areas, others…well, not so much!
What they all share though, is a sense of separatism – from each other and from the incumbent local businesses and communities in the area. They exist cheek by jowl but exude an aura of isolation and loneliness. Inevitable, perhaps, for new builds, but not unavoidable. The opportunity is there for planners, local authorities and developers to be a real force for positive change and regeneration, and to benefit themselves as a result.
Placemaking has been in the lexicon of urban development for decades – so much so that it has transcended buzzword status to become a cliché, engendering frequent lip-service but all too rarely, effective implementation. But the principles of placemaking still offer a solution to urban separatism and a potential pathway to creating vibrant integrated and desirable destinations. To achieve this, a placemaking strategy must pull together planners, architects, landscapers, community and commerce with a common purpose, galvanising involvement and participation from existing businesses and residents and attracting new input and investment.
