A year on from Tim Cook stepping into the rather large shoes left behind by Steve Jobs as Apple CEO, he is teasing all slaves to the brand by promises of new product categories.

There have been suggestions that it may be in the auto or healthcare arenas.

It’s unlikely that the possible release of a sports watch supporting iOS will be enough to live up to people’s expectations of the brand built on the unparalleled innovation of Jobs.

The last two quarters have seen shares in the company fall by hundreds of dollars from their $700 peak last year, and the big surprises promised by Cook may not even happen until Autumn of 2014.

One can’t help but wonder if the long delay to unveil new innovation is the fear of failing to live up to Steve Jobs’ legacy.

Luckily for Cook, most of those who have taken a bite of the Apple brand shudder at the thought of using anything else, but they will be expecting more than merely enhanced versions of existing devices to keep them happy.

Outside of my graphic design role at ditto I like to illustrate and last year I was involved in a project put together by Inkygoodness who showcase new illustration talent. Run by Lisa Hassell the project invited artists from all over the world to use beermats as their canvas’. A panel of art curators and conference organisers including Pictoplasma, Illustrator Zeegan Rush and Digital Arts editor Neil Bennett judged the entrants.

I submitted four beermats under my artist pseudonym ‘El Tobe’, three of which were realised in 3D using paint and ink (shown below). Mine was a surreal approach, which is something I pursue in my personal illustration style. I always find one of the best ways to push yourself creatively is to sometimes work outside of you comfort zone and get involved in projects that aren’t part of your day-to-day routine. In turn this always helps to keep the creative juices flowing. Overall I thought it was a great idea and I’m very excited to be involved in the project.

An exhibition of the competition winners, along with works from invited artists such as Tado, Hattie Stewart and Kristyna Baczynski will take place at the Coningsby Gallery in London from April 29^th to May 4^th. If you happen to be in town then head down to the gallery and have a look. The launch night is on Tuesday 30^th April between 6-9pm and Inkygoodness always put on a good show, so if you can, come down and say hello.

For more information on the exhibition visit the Inkygoodness website here.

In London there is a market for everyone: vintage markets, food markets, flower markets, farmer’s markets, art & antique markets…

I personally love markets, because they are improvised and nomadic, buzzing with rarities and quirkiness, they are like little outdoors adventures where you can try food, meet friendly people or find that little thing that you don’t need but makes your day. Unfortunately the immense touristic revenue that they bring to our wonderful city has made markets in London change a lot over the years.

A great example is Camden Market, this iconic market has very little left from the one I knew few years back, and I’m sure the one I got to know was a pretty exploded version from what it originally was. However, soon it is going to go though another big transformation.

If Hollywood can be considered the Mecca of cinema, then from this September the London Borough of Camden Town aspires to be global epicentre of music. The music impresario Lee Bennett is preparing the inauguration of the Music Walk of Fame to honour some of the artists who have given birth to or who have marked an era. The route will go from Koko to the Roundhouse, and among the names along the path are icons like Jimi Hendrix, Elvis Presley, Amy Winehouse, Madness, Bob Marley, The Beatles, Oasis and Public Enemy.

The initiative will include the construction of a museum of about 12,000 square meters in the Stables Market. “There will be a kind of Hard Rock cafe, a wax museum, concerts and a room where people can go on stage and, with three-dimensional holograms, play with their favourite bands. Let’s get people to relive Woodstock, a concert of Led Zeppelin or Metallica” enthuses Bennett.

Now, as a music lover, the whole music Walk of Fame idea I think it’s great, a bit cheesy but a way to pay some kind of tribute to some iconic musicians that have filled our lives with joy, but the Music Museum? Hard Rock Café meets Madame Tussauds? To be honest it sounds pretty terrifying to me.

Hopefully I will be wrong and the whole project becomes a unique experience that can be enjoyed by music enthusiast from all over the world.

The Music Walk of Fame will be revealed in September and the Music Museum in the Stables Market will open its doors to the public towards the end of 2014.

I just can’t wait until PJ Harvey gets her own star!

Thom Yorke’s ‘Atoms for Peace’ will release their debut album on the 25^th February entitled AMOK. The band is made up of Flea (Red Hot Chilli Peppers) on bass, Radiohead’s producer Nigel Godrich on guitar, keyboard and synth, and Joey Waronker (of Beck & REM fame) on drums with instrumentalist Mauro Refosco on percussion.

As a Radiohead fan I’m looking forward to the release of this album, but it is the artwork by Stanley Donwood that really caught my attention. It depicts an apocalyptic view of LA with meteors showering down on a flooded landscape, upturned cars and buildings being washed away. As a stark black and white lino-print it reminds me of ancient woodcut printings depicting prophecies of doom, it’s a really eye catching piece.

The album will be available in 4 different physical formats, 2 of which will be using a silver foil blocked and embossed technique on a 12-panel concertina board. I have only seen the pictures so far, but the packaging looks amazing – a thing of real beauty. It was expertly created by Think Tank Media and is a testament to their skill in print techniques.

Stanley has been a long time collaborator with Radiohead, producing the artwork for most of their albums since ‘The Bends’. In 2002, Donwood and Yorke won a Grammy Award for the Special Edition of the Radiohead album ‘Amnesiac’, so their unique collaboration on album artwork is obviously one that works well. When faced with the option to buy a collectible piece of art rather than download a digital file, I know which one I would choose.

To pre-order your copy of AMOK visit www.store.atomsforpeace.info

To view more of Stanley Donwood’s work, visit his site www.slowlydownward.com

The art of sculpting paper has certainly come a long way since origami.

The art of Eric Standley caught my eye this week. His vector work is inspired by the infinite nature of lines employed in gothic and Islamic architecture, but instead of rendering his work in a medium as solid and permanent as stone he uses paper.

Taking advantage of modern laser cutting technology he is able to layer the paper build up incredibly intricately detailed, and breathtaking, sculptural forms.

Buried deep within the layers are drawings which can only be seen from certain perspectives. The pieces are comprised of hundreds of layers of paper and the laser cutting alone can take up to 30 hours.

Seeing Standley’s work prompted me to revisit some other rather impressive paper sculpture I’d seen recently.

The work of Jen Stark plays more with colour and texture and although she creates some very solid structures she also incorporates individual sheets which she peels and bends away from the main structure to create amazing fragile forms. I had previously assumed all the intricate and mind-bogglingly accurate cutting work had been done using lasers, but on closer inspection I discovered that all the paper is hand cut!

Jen Stark’s work is truly amazing and such an explosion of colour that it can’t fail to brighten up your day.

Check out Jen Stark’s work here : http://www.jenstark.com/index.php

And the work of Eric Standley here:  http:/ericstandley.30art.com 

Some of you will be already familiar with Awwwards, an online platform that recognises and promotes the talent and effort of the best developers, designers and web agencies in the world. Along with the FWA, this is a great reference point for finding new web trends and some of the most incredible sites on the Internet.

Last November the Awwwards launched their own new website with some interesting key features:

You can now create your own inspiration gallery by selecting and saving your favourite sites, including any great external sites as well as the ones at awwwards.com. The new site also offers a powerful filtering tool to search by category, colour, tag, structure etc. so you can classify your searches accurately.

The new voting system allows users to actively participate in selecting “Site of the Day” and “Site of the Month” winners. Also, as you vote you gain Status points, and can earn special privileges, promotions and exclusive gifts.

Their new design is simple, efficient and totally responsive; it offers an excellent user experience. With great use of typography and colours, animations in HTML5 and CSS3, the site shows a great respect for web standards overall.

This week they have closed the votes to select the Site of the Year 2012, where 12 Sites of the Month and 3 Sites of the Day are competing for the award.

An international jury, made up of some of the most important designers, bloggers and Internet agencies, have been involved in picking the candidates. They evaluate each site, scoring them on a scale of 1 to 10, for its Design, Creativity, Usability and Content.

Their goal, they say, is to create a meeting point where web developers, designers and agencies across the world can share experiences, inspiration and knowledge: a community that bids for a more accessible, usable and beautiful Internet.

It’s not often that you see a bit of design that is simple, ingenious, life-changing and even life-saving.

I was so inspired and impressed when I saw the work of Massoud Hassani in the short film Mine Kafon that, even though I saw it a few weeks ago, I feel it still needs sharing.

Mine Kafon tells us how, as a child growing up in the windy desert in Afghanistan, Massoud and his friends would build wind-propelled toys which they would race against each other. They were often unable to retrieve the toys after racing because they would blow into areas where there were landmines, of which Afghanistan has over 10 million.

Massoud Hassani went on to study design in Design Academy Eindhoven where he started to develop his ideas building bigger, heavier versions of the wind propelled toys from bamboo and biodegradable plastics. The result is a low cost solution to mine clearance. As the wind carries Mine Kafon over a landmine, it is heavy enough to detonate it and, although sometimes destroyed itself, often only loses a few limbs and continues its journey. With a chip inserted, you can also follow the mine’s journey on a website and thus see the safest path.

This is a great example of the value of childhood play, and how it can be so valuable and influential in our adult life.

Visit www.massoudhassani.com for more information

or watch the film here https://vimeo.com/51887079

As I mentioned in my previous blog, I’ve always thought that computer networks would one day destroy the world. However, my blog concluded that the digital age we live in introduces more democracy and more freedom in the exchange of aesthetic experiences to a wider audience.

It is true that sometimes I feel nostalgia for books and even postcards, but I wouldn’t go back to the way things were. So for this blog I put my mind to a new discussion: physical art or online art? Louise Shannon, acting head of contemporary projects at the V&A sums it up well: “It’s not a one-way conversation any more”.

Here, Shane Walter, the founder and creative director of onedotzero and Campfire speaker at ditto in 2011, highlights few advantages of online art.

In my opinion, the rise of online art is liberating. Actually, there is no real conflict between digital and physical art, and if there is, I would call it ‘competitive innovation’. Digital art introduces new lines of communication between artists and society, and between the production and dissemination of their ideas. For example, when radio was prevalent and suddenly television came along, it didn’t kill radio. They have very different uses, so what is interesting now is how we integrate all the different showcases. For example, the chance to go to a museum and interact and be part of the exhibition and not just see what you have around is just fascinating.

But there are more ways to consume art nowadays. The invention of virtual museums and galleries with network access such as Artfinder and Google Art Project offer us the chance to access millions of paintings on the computer screen. And not just that, we can interact with them posting comments, sharing and linking them.

Ultimately, we are experiencing art in a new way, which will no doubt create new possibilities and help define art for this generation.

Would you pay good money to be insulted? I never thought I would until I came across a project earlier this year that amused me. ‘Hate Mail’ is the brainchild of an illustrator called Mr Bingo who calls himself a ‘Master of Pens’ and is heralded by many as the ‘Justin Bieber of drawing’. Over the years, he has amassed a large number of well known clients and has created work for the BBC, Nike, Microsoft, Volkswagen, Virgin and The Guardian to name but a few.

The idea came to him after sending out a drunken tweet announcing that the first person to respond would receive a hand drawn insult in the post. The lucky winner was sent a postcard with an insulting (if not bizarre) drawing on the back of it and ‘Hate Mail’ was born.

Worried that not enough people were getting ‘fun’ post, Mr Bingo set out to make the world a little bit happier. The idea was simple. You send Mr Bingo money, he sends you an original drawing on a vintage postcard and the postman gets a laugh! Realising that I could purchase an original hand drawn illustration for a mere £5, I jumped at the chance as did hundreds of other Mr Bingo fans. The project was so successful that it now only opens for short periods of time as the demand is so high.

In an age where letters and postcards are a rarity, it was a novelty waiting for my response. I eagerly waited for the insult to land on my doorstep. I was not disappointed when it arrived either as it read “Dear Toby, GET F*****! Mr Bingo” (I’ll let you fill in the blanks) with a handful of ducks drawn underneath. £5 well spent!

‘Hate Mail’ has now been made into a book by Penguin, so if you would like to see the work and aren’t easily offended, then you can buy one through Mr Bingo’s website here.

There is no doubt that we are living in an age of new technologies and social media. Our smart phones have become an extension of our body, we don’t shop without reading several reviews on Amazon, we don’t have to remember birthdays because Facebook reminds us and we can share our thoughts and emotions 24/7 – wherever we are.

But new technologies and social media have had such an overwhelming effect in our lives that we’re starting to get a bit scared and negative about it. So much so that psychologists and sociologists like Sherry Turkle – who became a digital “guru” and made the cover of WIRED in 1996 after she gave her first TEDTalk, “Celebrating our life on the internet”, are having second thoughts. Previously, she expressed her excitement as a psychologist on how people were learning in the virtual world and applying it in the physical one.

However, Turkle’s return to TEDTalk earlier this year with “Connected, but alone?” had a very different insight into new technologies and social media, pointing out how the new ways of communicating, connecting & sharing are detrimental to the old ones.

But, are we just being too negative and cynical?

Fair enough, we are living a digital revolution, and such drastic changes will always come with pros & cons. We will suffer some consequences and hopefully learn to coexist with them. But I don’t think any us could argue that digital times have only brought negative repercussions. In fact, artists, musicians, designers, journalists, and many other disciplines have found exiting new ways to collaborate and interact that couldn’t have been possible twenty years ago.

ditto is a great example of this. Those of you who have closely followed our journey, will remember ditto’s first collaborative project. Hosted in the Round House as part of the Short Circuit Festival, it was brought to life thanks to a virtual collaboration of musicians, artist and filmmakers, which culminated with a stunning physical event. My humble contribution to the festival was beautifully enhanced by a musician, who I probably never would’ve met otherwise.

On that positive note, here is another great example: Twitter Art.

Last week we could see what a virtual collaboration looks like in real life.

Twitter Art was an exhibition showcasing the work of a new school of Twitter artists. Curated by London-based motion artist Adam Rowe, the event showcased 25 pieces of art from 18

Twitter-sourced artists. The project is a response of #Twittbrief project from illustrations to photography to 3D.

Rowe stated, ‘Many of my followers are fellow designers who really liked the idea of creating an image via Twitter, and I’ve had lots of different types of artists approach me to get involved. The quality of work has been fantastic and I’m really excited to be showcasing it all in one place – hopefully it’ll be the first event of many.’

And after looking at some of the amazing images that have been brought together by social media, I’m sure they’ll be many more.

Fishfinger, Artist: Chris Lloyd @yllw_83                                           Gluttony, Artist: Olive Johnson @hello_oliv

Marmalised, Artist: Nidia Dias @unknown_girl_n                        Illustrious, Artist: Jon Yeo @jon_yeo

Escher, Artist: Adam Rowe @adamrowetv                                        ContaminateArtist: Adam Rowe @adamrowetv