These are from the show at Hyères 2012 – Jason showed a selection from twenty years worth of commissions. There’s a nice write up about the festival here, including a sweet picture of Jason with Yohji Yamamoto.

In Krakow, Jason put on a show entitled ‘Pictures for looking at and sculpture for photography’ at Photomonth. These images demonstrate the kind of beautifully simple sculptures that appear in a lot of Jason’s work – colourful, graphic and strangely alive.

The last show was a selection of 90s Streetwork from Jason’s extensive archive, held at Antifoto in Dusseldorf. Hard to tell if it’s included here, but one of Jason’s most famous street shoots, ‘Strictly’, is now held in the permanent collection of the Tate, and is well worth a look.

More fantastic creative work at jasonevans.info and of course at thedailynice.com

I’m chuffed to be speaking at KK Outlet’s Equality panel discussion, as part of their ‘What’s Next?’ debate series.

Joining me on the panel will be Occupied Times collective; Tzortzis Rallis, Mike Sabbagh and Michael Richmond; photographer Ewen Spencer, and journalist Sam Wolfson. We’ll be discussing the London riots, representation of women in today’s media, the widening divide between rich and poor, and much much more!

It should be an interesting evening and tickets are FREE! Book here.

What’s Next? looks to uncover what young people think about economy, equality, education and digital politics. Each week a different art collective, group of hackers, printers and photographers will take over the KK Outlet gallery space and create work in response to a live twitter feed as people discuss a specific topic. Read more about it on the KK Outlet website here.

I found a New Order cassette album – Low-life, Fact 100c – in the Notting Hill Music Exchange about three years ago. It was packaged in a lovely clamshell box with a fabric-embossed paper cover and beautifully simple screen-printed typography. At the time, I thought it was just a one-off special edition, and went on with my life.

Then I bought Factory Records – The Complete Graphic Album by Matthew Robertson, and everything changed. There, on page 102, I saw that there was actually a whole series of these cassette releases, for different Factory bands, all colour coded and all with the same beautifully minimal design.

I am now obsessed, as far as my bank balance will allow, with owning the whole set. Some of the rarest cassettes, such as Educes Me by Wim Mertens, go for up to £200 on eBay, so my dream is still some way in the distance. But one day, George, one day …

We were very pleased to be invited by the V&A to create an installation for their recent Friday Late event. ‘Britain Is Making It’ was the title, and our brief was to focus on the key themes of making, doing, innovation, wit and problem solving. Our installation had to be large and eye-catching, interactive and irreverent. And we had to design, create and install it in two weeks. No problem.

Our solution was to turn the theme of the show on it’s head, and make something that was all about doing nothing. This was more than just being contrary for the hell of it – these days, we’re always doing something, wherever we are. Distractions are unlimited. But the best ideas usually come when we stop and take a minute to do nothing.

So we teamed up with our Pick Me Up collaborator and all-round bloody good chap, Michael Marriott, and designed a capsule, big enough for one person, with a lurid green exterior and a sealed soft white insulated interior. We added a porthole, to give the participant something to focus on, but blocked the view with white foam, so all they could see was nothing.

We also designed a typeface especially for the capsule. We knew the best way to create any graphics on the walls would be to just mask off areas of paint, so the typeface was based on two thicknesses of masking tape.

Visitors were asked to surrender their phones, watches and shoes and were sealed in the capsule for three minutes. Successful participants received a certificate to prove that they had done nothing.

We were pleased to see that so many people wanted to do nothing!

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We were pleasantly surprised to discover that Amy Hunting not only works in the same building as us in East London, but was also exhibiting at last Friday’s V&A Late (see above). But despite fate trying her darn hardest to make our paths cross, we have sadly never met Amy or seen her fantastic creations in the flesh.  At least, not yet …

Received a lovely photographic booklet yesterday from Ross Mantle, a photographer I hadn’t come across before. In The Wake is a ‘multi-year exploration of the decaying, post-industrial grit of Western Pennsylvania’s Mon Valley’, and it contains some beautiful images of the photographer’s home town. You can see more of Ross’ work here, including some ace pics of A$AP Rocky.

We were very happy to work with Laurence Ellis recently on the AW12 Jean Machine look book. The concept for the art direction was to subtly add more of a mood and a sense of space to the collection; Laurence’s talent as a landscape photographer, as well as his beautiful studio work, complemented the garments perfectly.

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Eaux is a new band formed from the still pulsating remains of the amazing Sian Alice Group. My friend Ben is in the band and so I asked him some questions about the band and then put the answers up here on this blog. There are loads of great band recommendations for anyone old (34) like me who has no idea what music to listen to anymore.

So Ben, the Sian Alice Group is sadly no more. Tell us what happened, in full gory detail, and then tell us about your new band, Eaux.
Sorry, but there are no gory details – no blood, guts, gossip or nothing. It came down to ‘musical differences’ – we were working on a third SAG record and it was clear that Sian, Stephen and I were pulling in one direction and Rupert in another. That usually leads to something new and interesting … but better to get on with what makes you happy and remain friends rather than bash heads. So, Eaux was born.

Eaux is a nice and simple name for a band.
It was suggested by our friend Lydia. I like how it looks and sounds – O. I’ve always liked the bastardisation of French words without the ‘le’ or ‘la’, like the classic clothing label Oeuf, often seen on the chest of Thomas Rothwell. I always look at possible band name fonts, and Eaux is a good word to work with. Nice on badges and records and tees; artwork always goes hand in hand with the music for me.

Are you still working with Social Registry?
Not exactly – they are on a little hiatus in a way, but still releasing awesome records by Zs and Sleepy Doug. Jim from TSR is also running a label called Playbutton – the music is on a pin badge player that you plug your headphones into. Music you wear, that’s all about the artwork again.

Give us a good story from your tour with Florence and the Machine. Something controversial that will get people reading this blog. People who aren’t graphic designers.
No comment. There’s a lot, nothing crazy juicy though. Missed ferries, baltic sea frozen, all snow related incidents – it was two years ago [shows how much I keep up with these things] and the whole of Europe was frozen. Oh yeah, I nearly died in Oslo. I got flattened by a lump of snow and ice that fell from the roof seven storeys above me. I suffered constant migraines for six months after that and couldn’t work out why. Then I remembered the accident.

You shot a Sian Alice Group video (Dusk Line) on the same camera as was used to film the Cramps at Napa Valley. How important are The Cramps to you?
Yes, same camera as William Eggleston used on Stranded in Canton. The Cramps are one of the greatest ever bands. They sound like balloons of whippets. First time I heard and saw them, I thought they were from 1950s outer space. Which they sort of were I suppose …

What were your best records of 2011?
I really liked the About Group record, Oneohtrix’s Replica, the Blanck Mass record, both the Cass McCombs records. Eye Contact by Gang Gang Dance had some great jams. I got a soft spot for the Real Estate album. Let England Shake was pretty brilliant too, her ATP show was magical.

Who should we listen to in 2012 apart from you?
I’m interested to hear the Chris & Cosey & Nik Void record, new Beak> record, heard some demos of the next Fuck Buttons record and that sounds incredible. I just got the Mr Maxted record on Mordant, that’s killer. It’s a reissue though, does that count? Oh yeah, very excited for the new Black Dice record, of course.

Where are you playing next?
At the moment, we’re booked to play in Manchester on the 6th May, on the Drowned In Sound stage at the Sounds From The Other City festival. We’re hopefully announcing some other shows soon.

When did you stop wearing a Stone Roses T-shirt and are you going to go and see the resurrected band?
I made my own the week the first record came out as they were impossible to get. That didn’t last too long, so probably by ’91 it was well over for me. That Reading Festival show officially killed it for me. I’m not a huge fan of bands reforming in general. I’ve seen some amazing shows by reformed dudes. But they didn’t have Ian Brown singing.

Listen to Eaux’s demos here

We asked Greg Eason to illustrate the most important elements of Jean Machine’s debut collection for the Details section of their website. What he delivered really knocked us out – stunning studies in exquisite detail that really added something special to the overall design.

We have recently completed another project with Jean Machine and Greg – more on that soon.

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