Been a busy bee lately. Lot’s happening in the day time at Poke. And lots of nice things to keep me busy in the evenings too. The above is a work in progress identity design for the lovely Elaine of Lainey’s Cakes. ( They are damn good by the way! The cakes i mean ;) ). A favour for a friend type-of-project. It’s been a great typography challenge so far. And hopefully when i’m done i’d like to share with you my creative process from sketch to finished printed items. ( This is just a photoshop mockup to show how a screen printed cake-box tag might look ). Let me know what you think, and if you have any cunning ideas i could incorporate in to Lainey’s wonderful world of cupcakes!

Alex sent these round this week. Beautiful posters for this year’s Baftas illustrated by Tavis Coburn. I’ve blogged about Tavis’s work right back in the first days of Monster Munch with his mixture of collage and comic style - great richness of texture and colour. The Bafta’s are on on Saturday night in the UK, but you can join in on the banter, live online with comedian Peter Serefenowicz on the Orange Bafta Night Live site.

A mixture of interesting work on Sarah’s site including wonderfully stylised, food and household objects. Vibrant colour, and unusual combinations of objects and textures show up throughout her work, as well as diagrammatic shots of everyday objects - But all with the same sense of curiosity and imagination about them. Lots to look through here on her portfolio site.

A little while before Christmas i came across the beautiful jewelry made by Cecile - aka La Bôite a Monstres. We struck a deal to swap a moustachioed monster for a bracelet and we set to work on our creations. My pirate bracelet arrived the other day. Very exciting! It features as it’s hero a full working compass, along side a functioning locket pendant, and pirate portrait also. I absolutely love it, and salute you Cecile on you marvelous handiwork. Thank you so much :)

Oh no wait, it’s just a cat. Here he is here.

Lovely work here from Sans Gil just flooded in through my inbox. Red and Blue monsters. Lots of character for such a simple shape. I once learned to knit in order to learn to make my first knitted monkey. Then when i realised i could make them quicker out of socks, the knitting went a little out the window ;) But these have so much charm because of their completely handmade nature. Great colours too.

Brilliantly made mini Where The Wild Things Are characters here. Made in the japanese character crochet style, Amigurumi. Very technical stuff! And impressive likenesses. Big thanks to the Beddard who sent me this. You can see more details and buy the patterns on CraftyisCool’s Etsy here. Can’t wait to see this Monster movie!

Wonderful sculpture by Jonna Pohjalainen. Pencils growing wild jutting out into the sky. More images of the pencils being erected into the field here, here and here. You can read more about the background to the project over at EnvironmentalArt where there’s more imaginative outdoor sculpture to been seen.  Spotted over at crafty blog 10Marifet.

Sold out right now at Joanna Rutter’s Etsy shop but i wanted to show you anyway. Incredibly fiddly to make but very sweet result. Hope she makes some more soon.

Some gorgeous shots taken by Mr.Lomo ( with his Lomo of course ) of some street art by Sheffield rapper Kid Acne. He’s sniffed out a whole bunch here around the streets of East London, against a variety of lush colours and roughed up textures. Our heroine swordsman seems to be a little accident prone, as she’s featured many a time with a plaster-cast arm, a few drips of blood, and the occasional gimp mask ( as you do ). You can buy a shirt featuring one of Kid Acne’s ‘Stabby Women’ over at Concrete Hermit.

Here’s a couple of cheeky chappies i’ve been making recently. Their temporary names are Elliott and Joseph until their new owners are old enough to speak, and give them their proper names :) These Cat Monsters are twins, similar but not the same. Their eyes are slightly different to tell them apart ;) I’m sure over time they’ll develop their own unique characters much like their owners, twins Eleanor and Josie ( who are themselves the fantastic creations of Iain & Sophie ). A couple of soft, button free, squishy friends to keep them company.

Alexandra Verschueren has designed this angular yet soft, concertina textured cloak. It looks perhaps like it’s made from felt, and carefully creased like origami to create an expanding, and stretchy, but delicate structure. It makes you want to touch it. I love the effect. I’d like to see how it looks in motion. reminds me of those stratchy paper things apples used to come packed in. If i saw it in reality it’d be all too tempting to grab it and ‘test it’s strength’ - like bubble wrap, irresistible ;) Reckon the paper dress underneath might be a bit chilly ;) Inspired by Origami, and the photography work of Thomas Demand.

I was browsing through Hylton Warburton’s latest flickr uploads when i spotted this piece of brilliance. I shall be customising my mac forthwith!

Another sweet link from Emma Beddard the crafty/chutney/jam making master. This awesome pencil scarf. I think that might be a knitting project for the winter! Great idea.

I have no idea how i’ve managed to go all these years without coming across the gob smacking work of Charley Harper. It was a post on Emma’s Blog about a needle point canvas kit ( cross-stitch type thing ) featuring some beautiful graphic birds that caught my eye. I’d assumed that the abstracted angular shapes were from a modern illustrator, and by that i mean drawn digitally. It looks so current. It’s only when i click through to the craft site Purl Bee and through to the artist’s site that i’m amazed to find that the work is several decades old! I was so surprised and excited to see the enormous amount of work Charley had created over many years. And the fact this very modern looking illustration style had come from the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s. I urge you to head in and flick through the pages and pages of wonderful work. Amazing colours and forms. Hugely inspiring!

Charley was born in 1922, and sadly passed away 2 years ago. But i’m sure his work will be enjoyed for generations.