Here are a few creative adverts I found recently that I liked and thought were effective and quite thought-provoking. I especially liked the 'DHL'  and 'Stuck in the wrong job' ballet dancer by 'Monster'. They both manage to get their message across to their audience in a clever way.

Images taken from 'Gadget-O'

I found these on 'gadget-o'. I thought their products were pretty original and have never really seen wood used in this way in bathrooms before. I bet it would be a bit more of a relaxing experience than hopping in your standard acrylic or fibreglass bath after a hard days work.

Photos taken from Alegna

I watched this today and found it to be quite inspiring. I do love a good font...

Found on core77

I have had a bit of an obsession with well-crafted desks for the past couple of years and here is one I want by 'Another Country'.

I also thought their dining tables and benches were pretty cool. They manage to balance simplicity with aesthetics really well and all the timber used in their work has been responsibly sourced. Not bad ey???

I found a pretty good site today wimp.com. I ended up spending half an hour of my life looking at videos like these... Time well spent.

I found this on swiss-miss the other day and thought it was a really good idea that kids would love. Think I might have to try it and also see what other creations I can make. I think a trip to Tesco for supplies is in order...

Image taken from www.swiss-miss.com

Here is a video of Alfred Hitchcock defining what happiness means to him. I reckon he sums it up pretty well...

I'm really liking 'Faunagraphic' and her work at the moment. I walk past a peacock that she did everyday on the way to the studio and it brightens up my day. I'm thinking we need to get her to do a fish on our studio wall at Hagglers Corner!

After a weekend of glass blowing our 'Bubble Tanks' I thought I would post this video of how marbles are made. Its well good.

Today I went to Birmingham with the rest of the 'Psalt Design' team to Birmingham to blow a new batch of 'Bubble Tanks'. We borrowed a 'GoPro HD Hero 2' video camera from a mate so we could shoot some of the days events. We will be editing this soon and put it up to view and some of the footage is pretty good. I now think I need to invest in one of these badass cameras because there are awesome!

Smooth or what? This is one cool guy.

Found this on Bored Panda. Loads of good advertising stuff on it and easy to lose track of time when trawling. 

Artist Yayoi Kusama set up this installation at the Gallery of Modern Art in Brisbane and gave thousands of stickers to young visitors. The room was initially kitted out with locally sourced furniture and then painted white to create a 'blank canvas'. The kids were then set free in the room to transform it into a completely different space. I think it worked pretty well... and am now craving some skittles.

Have a little look at Yayoi Kusamas site.

Improv Everywhere is a New York City-based prank collective that causes scenes of chaos and joy in public places. Created in 2001 by Charlie Todd, Improv Everywhere has executed over 100 missions involving tens of thousands of undercover agents. They have done some really cool stuff. Check them out...

http://improveverywhere.com/

I saw this advert tonight and thought it was pretty cool, especially the bit with the sliced red cabbage.

The Future Belongs to the Curious from Skillshare on Vimeo.

Taken from www.swiss-miss.com

found on www.swiss-miss.com

I found this the other day and can't believe designs like this have never been exploited before. I can see these products catching on and am sure they will be all over the campsites next festival season. Good stuff.

Today I found myself with a bit of spare time and thought I'd look on the internet for something to blog on. It wasn't too long before I was watching videos from links of links and I stumbled on these nice little vids.  

Handmade in the USA from Capital on Vimeo.

The Making of the Honest Abe Coat Rack from Tinkering Monkey on Vimeo.

Saw this recently and thought it kind of made sense. Seems a pretty fool-proof way of helping someone set up their new mobile.

Out of the box - book from Vitamins on Vimeo.

Work by VitaminsDesign.

I found these recently and thought they were pretty amazing. The short videos are really well-shot and follow some pretty cool people making and doing things they love. Especially liked the bit in the knife making vid about working in a studio space with other creatives spending all their time and money into doing what they love and trying to make their dreams a reality. Pretty inspiring stuff.

Made by Hand / No 2 The Knife Maker from Made by Hand on Vimeo.

Made by Hand / No 1 The Distiller from Made by Hand on Vimeo.

So I haven't been blogging much recently and been focusing all my efforts on a new venture, Psalt Design, a Sheffield based Furniture and product design company. We have a pretty cool blog running on that which is worth checking out. Anyway, I saw this video and thought it was pretty powerful. See what you think...

Video taken from www.viralviralvideos.com

Here is some press coverage of my work from the 'Interiors Birmingham' show from the 'Arts Thread' website.

HOW ARTS THREAD WORKS

ARTS THREAD bridges the gap between education and the creative industry. For the first time ever, design students, graduates, universities, schools and the creative industry can network worldwide.

ARTS THREAD is the world’s only creative graduate website.

taken from www.artsthread.com

From the 23-26 January 2011 I exhibited some of my work on the 'New Design Britain' awards stand at the 'Interiors' show, Birmingham. The exhibition is held at the NEC Arena and is the UK's largest trade interiors show. I was awarded the runners up prize in the 'accessories' category and got a lot of positive feedback regarding my work. It was also nice to meet a lot of new people and lots of awesome designers on the stand. The stand looked great, here are a couple of snaps!

Here is a shot of my 'Crumple Bowl' which, was a transition of my original 'Bubble Tank' design. The shape was created by 'slumping' hand-blown glass. Not only can it house fish but anything you like from mini-installations to plants!

Here are some of the shots I took on my new 'diana' camera. It is the first time I have had my own photos processed and developed. The lomo style created some unusual images and I played around with some of them on photoshop after by scanning in the negatives. I'm pretty happy with the results and will have some more of my shots on here soon...

I recently took part in a competition through 'TinyPrints', a Californian based card company who set the brief of designing a range of Valentines Day cards for 2011. Here are a few of my entries!

Here is the promo for the pilot of the business weekend I recently attended 'Bootcamp For Entrepreneurs'. It was a really good experience, the people running it were brilliant and I think it will be a great success!!!

http://youtu.be/-zaiLUcqGA8

Making the most out of the recent weather, here are some photos of a concept for a piece of lighting. It was made using icicles and snow and created some unusual light and shadow contrast in the room.

Recently I've been working on some designs for an American condom company called 'ONE'. It was a really open brief and the general idea is to create an unusual and fun response to a condom wrapper. I decided to focus on some word play and try to create some powerful imagery which would brighten up someones day. Here are my final 3 images for the 2nd round of the competition:

Vote for this at:

http://onecondoms.com/design/designs/design/2592

Vote for this at:

http://onecondoms.com/design/designs/design/2518

Vote for this at:

http://onecondoms.com/design/designs/design/2570

PLEASE VOTE FOR ME!!! I need as many votes as possible to get to the next stage. THANKS!!!

I was recently given a 'Make your own sweets' pack from Japan. I'd never tried this before so thought i'd give it a go! Not really a project but a bit of fun! Check out the fruits of my labour!!!

They looked pretty bad but tasted even worse!

Over the next few months I am aiming to carry out some small 1-2 day conceptual projects based around everyday objects and generally anything I can get my hands on. These projects will hopefully allow me to experiment with ideas in their rawest state and may lead to some concepts worth developing. This will be a nice change and should fit in well with a few other longer term projects I currently have on the go.

Several of these mini projects are going to be based around light and my first idea was to get myself to 'Poundland' and pick up some stuff and bought a few packs of 'glow-sticks' to play around with. Here are some photos of my creations...

Over the past few years I have become very interested in photography and felt I could capture some pretty cool images of light with a slow shutter speed.

I used an old jam jar to encapsulate some of the glow-sticks to create a temporary, colourful light source on my desk.

I liked the idea of creating a light source installation so created several of these (similar to above) and hung them around town. It was a pretty windy night which helped me get some pretty cool photos.

From the 26-28th November I was packed off to Boot Camp at the Calvert Trust in Kielder. The weekend was run by 'Enterprise Made Simple', funded by Newcastle City Council and was a great opportunity to network and get some help with the business side of setting up a company. Highlights of the weekend included the climbing wall, midnight walk and the 'King Swing'. All in all, it was just fun to meet people in similar stages of setting up their business plans and talk to them about their experiences.

So I've finally given in and now have an account on twitter. I'm a 'newby' to this so take me under your wing and add me!

My username is: Richard_J_Bell

Last week I was awarded a place to show my 'Bubble Tank Project' on the New Design Awards Britain' stand at the 'Interiors' Exhibition which is to be held at the Birmingham NEC Arena from 23rd-26th January 2011. This is a great opportunity for me to show my work at a major exhibition, meet some cool people and should be a lot of fun!!!

"Want to discover the hottest young design talent in furnishing, lighting, soft furnishings and accessories? Then New Design Britain at interiors is the place to be.
Featuring this year’s hottest young design talent in furnishing, lighting, soft furnishing and accessories, interiors 2011 will be hosting this year’s New Design Britain finalists."

http://www.interiorsbirmingham.com/page.cfm/link=83

"20 seconds each for 20 slides on any subject imaginable. Join Design Event and our speakers for a night of creativity, inspiration and ingenuity. Pecha Kucha was devised in Tokyo in 2003 by Klein Dytham Architecture as an event for young designers to meet, network, and show their work in public. Events now run in over 230 cities across the world all with the commitment to share design practice in creative environments."

http://www.design-event.co.uk/pechakuchavol5.php

On 27th October 'Pecha Kucha' returned to the North East for the fifth time. It was held at the Gateshead Town Hall and was a great opportunity to meet some cool people. Some great people talked at the event, my favourite being 'Dominic Wilcox', an artist/designer/inventor who talked about his 'Speed Creating' project. He made 30 projects in 30 days, with a £10 daily budget, with the intention of having to make instinctive decisions quicker. Some of my favourite things he made include his 'Balloon Animal Chandelier', 'Pencil shelf'', 'Popup Train Tray' and 'Bread Of Light'. Check his stuff out at:

http://www.dominicwilcox.com

This years 'Design Mart', ran from 22nd - 24th Oct at 'The Baltic Centre For Contemporary Art'. This year 22 artists based in the North East took part under the theme of 'Making It'. The show featured a range of new pieces, many of which were for sale and explained the concepts behind the products, the materials used and the production processes.

There were loads of cool things to see but some of my favourites were AFID Designs 'R-Chair', Bettina Nissens 'Make a wish' ring, Ellen Thomas' 'Milk Series' and Deadgoods 'Strip-lights'. Definitely worth a look!!!

From the 28th Oct - 28th November my 'Bubble Tank' is being exhibited in the 'Stables Gallery' at the 'Orleans Gallery', Twickenham. The show is entitled 'Echoes Of Other Worlds' and exhibits a wide range of specialisms including sculpture, video and paintings. The show is about the diversity of the world we live in and includes work by artists, designers, musicians and scientists. The show is running until the end of this month and has a wide range of amazing work available to buy. Check it out!

Echoes of Other Worlds

28th Oct - 28th Nov 2010
The Stables Gallery,

Orleans House Gallery,

Riverside,

Twickenham,

TW1 3DJ.

This year the theme of 'Design Event - North East' was 'Conversation'. The festival took part in October and the first thing I visited was an installation by Daniel Eatock based on the brief of 'Non Verbal Communication'. The idea was to create an interactive touch screen in a shop window whereby the public could interact with a mime artist, on the inside of the glass, and draw pictures using 'Windowlene'. I went down to check this out and thought it was great to see a wide range of people getting involved ranging from 'charvers' drawing cocks on the window, to foreign visitors to the city getting their photo taken by the mime artist. Passers by loved it and I think it probably brightened up everybody's day that saw it.

I got involved by having a game of 'noughts and crosses' and making a chair for the mime artist to have a rest. The event was recorded and was screened as part of the festival at Westgate Road from the 21st-31st October!