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Looking for the next generation of creative talent? Swatch this space…

Posted in arts & business, contemporary art, cultural branding, culture, digital, innovation, music with tags , , , , , , , , , on August 11, 2009 by culturalbranding

Swatch MTV Playground

Swatch has teamed up with MTV to launch a new art and design programme: Swatch MTV Playground.

The cross-platform effort showcases the work of aspiring artists working in 2D and 3D animation, illustration, graphic art, motion design, film and music.  The showcased work is available to view online with the website functioning as an interactive web gallery.  The accessible and diverse online site is available in 19 languages and targeted at artistic communities worldwide and of course the devoted MTV viewers.  Both Swatch and MTV have also been busy promoting Swatch MTV Playground through a digital seeding promotion across all parts of Europe and Asia, targeting industry creatives, students and MTV spectators.  Moreover, MTV is set to produce a sequence of vignettes branded ‘Talk @ the Playground’ later this year.  The scheme will couple up musicians with well-known artists from the world of design, fashion, fine arts and film to converse about the joys of creativity.

Over the years Swatch has been recognised for its musical collaborations, working with contemporary pop artists in a variety of ways.  Swatch Art Specials have been crafted by the likes of Keith Haring, Akira Kurosawa, Sam Francis, and Pedro Almodóvar.  Even the Blue Man Group has been a recent collaborator.  In addition to these collaborative relationships, Swatch this year invited a young contemporary artist to help stage the live art spectacle ‘CreArt by Swatch’ in the Piazza San Marco during the Venice Biennale, to celebrate the brand and The Swatch 2009 CreArt Collection.    Speaking on the brand, Klaus Peter Mager, who heads Events International Swatch noted, “Swatch has always had a very democratic sense of contemporary art… Art is an important pillar of our brand’s identity”.

The campaign was kick-started with an artistic challenge to interpret the theme: ‘Imagine Time in The Future’.  Each competition offers a range of prizes such as tuition grants, internships and cash awards.  The result so far has been phenomenal as students and professional artists worldwide have offered snapshots into their own imagined ‘time in the future’.  All of the entries are available to view online, including the recently revealed winners and runner-ups.

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More balls please! ellesse uses culture to connect with its roots

Posted in arts & business, contemporary art, cultural branding, culture, digital, innovation with tags , , , , , , , , , , , on June 24, 2009 by culturalbranding

50 Years of Ellesse

It’s Wimbledon time, the sun is shining, Murray isn’t out yet and we’re excited about who will win the ellesse Tennis Art competition to celebrate 50 years of the brand’s tennis heritage.

ellesse have set the challenge to artists and designers to create work to show off fifty years of the brand – with a hint that winning pieces might even influence the future direction of the company.  ellesse are also working with the London College of Fashion who have run another competition to design outfits that would have the All England Lawn Tennis Club running for the rulebooks, as well as a competition for the Instituto Italiano Design.  To complete the set (!) they have commissioned a screen print artist, a typographer and an animator to create new artworks based on the tennis theme with a few penguins thrown in as a nod to the old company pets Ettore and Giorgino.  We love the short animation by Babis Alexiadis.

Now all we need is our invitation to their 50th birthday party in Rome…

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… and some great art to boot.

Posted in contemporary art, cultural branding, culture with tags , , , , , on June 16, 2009 by culturalbranding

Vauxhall Art Car Boot Fair

I don’t know about you, but these recessionary times are getting me down.  No longer am I able to haemorrhage my disposable income around Greater London with reckless glee, and my fledgling collection of contemporary art, I thought, would have to take a reluctant back-seat whilst I filled my trolley with value tinned tomatoes and reduced meat products.

Luckily I need not have worried (or bought such a large quantity of braising steak) as last Sunday was the Vauxhall Art Car Boot Fair!  Now in its fifth year, and held at Brick Lane’s famed Truman Brewery, the Art Car Boot Fair features an impressive line of artists and designers selling their wares (Sir Peter Blake, Gavin Turk, William Tempest, Bob and Roberta Smith… the list goes on and on).  Vauxhall, who have supported the Fair since 2003, maintain their unobtrusive sponsorship presence through logo placement and in-kind ‘boots’ (Look, that car is a Vauxhall… and that one.  Oh, and that one over there.  Wait a minute…), strengthening their already-solid links with the arts community as seen through their Vauxhall Collective projects.

‘What could I buy?’, I hear you cry.  Well, at the end of a queue the length of a football pitch, Sir Peter Blake was selling signed found art prints for a very reasonable £30 and ‘signing things’ for £5 (how very Duchamp), donating all proceeds to charity; over at the Gavin Turk camp, prints of his inked-up boots walking across paper were being sold for anything between £200 to £900 (if my credit-card machine spying is anything to go on); and lurking in the farthest corner were Snakeskin Jackets, who were premiering ‘Paintball by Numbers’ – £10 for 5 shots and a framed artwork.   After your cultural appetite was sated, you could wander over to the chaps from St John who took care of the real deal with ox-heart buns and mini eccles cakes (I didn’t), Kitty Travers for home made pea-pod ice-cream (I did), or the 2-for£5 Martini tent (I definitely did).  I satisfied my constant desire to purchase with quick yet fulfilling visits to Harry Burden’s Evil Art Market and Club Shepway.

The Art Car Boot Fair is not to be missed – put it in your diary for next year at once!

Rose Enright

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