Generator Urban Design Hostel Graffiti

Progressive global design hostel chain Generator is undergoing a restyle this year at its London digs, with a fresh look, new cosy rooms and hangout spaces perfect for the intrepid traveller.

James and Jerome, aka Shesh and Zics under their graffiti monikers, went into the London outpost for a graffiti session to give the walls a makeover with more than just a lick of paint...

Check out the results of their session, celebrating all things LDN - the first of several phases of this exciting project.

Acrylicize at The Other Art Fair this weekend

This week in the studio we’re prepping an artwork that we’re unveiling at this weekend’s The Other Art Fair.

Made from 29,000 ticket chads collected from Euston Station, the piece will soon take pride of place in The Office Group’s latest building in Euston.

We’re co-hosting an exhibition space with long-term collaborators The Office Group, inviting visitors to explore the concept of inspiring workspaces.

Visit our stand at the show at Ambika P3, Marylebone Road, NW1, London. 25-28 April.
Full details at www.theotherartfair.com.

Stay tuned for the full project details… Hope to see you at The Other Art Fair.

Collaboration Nation - Acrylicize x Alex Fowkes

One thing we’re proud of at Acrylicize is our collective spirit and our collaborative approach to projects, working with talents in the industry beyond the team based at Acrylicize HQ.

On a recent project for long-term collaborators The Office Group, we teamed up with graphic designer Alex Fowkes.

We had been admiring his work, especially his renowned Sony Music Timeline, a graphic installation documenting the company's 125-year musical history, at their Derry Street offices.

We loved his work so dropped him a line and asked him to join us for The Office Group project at 7 Stratford Place, a Georgian townhouse that is now home to newest selection of The Office Group’s impressive serviced offices.

The finished result was ‘IT’S OFF TO WORK WE GO’ (Acrylicize X Alex Fowkes, Screen Print on Mirror, 2013).

The building resides on two streets, Stratford Place and Marylebone Lane, and on both, the house number is 7 – lucky, some might say.

We saw it as a trigger and worked with it throughout the building, tying it in with the Magnificent Seven and, of course, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.

For this particular piece of art in the reception area, we worked with Alex to celebrate the much-missed traditional craft of pub mirrors, the kind you would see lining the walls of your favourite local.

In this spirit, we created a mirror overlaid with screen print, referencing everyone’s favourite Disney workers (gotta love their work ethic!), the Seven Dwarves.

As well as a text-based print of the iconic ‘It’s off to work we go’ song lyric, we also incorporated iconic pictorial elements of The Office Group, including their mopeds and anglepoise lamp, as well as the dwarves’ mining tools and oil lamps.

The reference was perfect for the office-oriented space and it gave us ample opportunity to tie in the building’s numeric heritage.

OK?

Proudly hanging on the wall of a Georgian townhouse is what looks like a classic 19^th Century antique oil painting.

The painting is of a regal looking gentleman; it sits above a traditional fireplace, surrounded by an ornately decorated gold frame - hardly an unfamiliar site in a Grade II listed building in central London.

Look again, however, and you’ll see there’s a little more going on…

The man in question is Martin Van Buren, former resident of this Georgian house, eighth President of the United States of America, and for those that don’t know, reportedly the originator of the term “OK”.

In a cheeky twist to the normal pose for a painting of this stature, Mr Van Buren adopts the well-known “okay” hand gesture.

This is just one of the installations in the latest of a series of commissions for The Office Group that include a large 3D typography piece and a collaboration with super talented designer Alex Fowkes  - more on this to follow…

We just love working with clients that so fully embrace the cheeky potentials of art in the workplace.

Long may it continue to engage and inspire… 

Sneak-peek at our latest art programme for Heinz in Holland

2013 marks 10 years of Acrylicize! In this celebratory year we are on the cusp of unveiling our biggest art installation to date.

However, what we about to uncover is more than just an artwork; it’s a unique mix of art installation and architectural feature, which delves deep into the history of one of the world’s most famous brands.

The project also stands as a physical landmark for Acrylicize, celebrating our diversity, something we’ve honed over the last 10 years, having worked on some of the most exciting art commissions in the UK.

We present ‘Wall 57’ created for Heinz and now on display at their Innovation Centre in Nijmegen, Holland www.heinz57wall.com 

As office art goes, this has to be one of the biggest projects we’ve undertaken in our decade of creating, seeing us evolve from our original acrylic art, back in 2003 straight out of uni, to mixed media art programmes like Wall 57 for Heinz.

Our approach is hands-on and personal. Wall 57, as the project has come to be known by designers and admiring onlookers, is comprised of many handmade elements, with a focus on detail and craft, using a series of materials all deeply connected with the world of Heinz - from the tomato seed and ketchup bottle to the household fork and fridge, it’s on the wall.

Drawing on Heinz's iconic branding and their unforgettable logo, we have created a 20m high wall, the layout of which is formed using the famous Keystone logo shape, overlaid multiple times creating a unique network of 57 'windows'. Each of these windows tells its own story. 

From inspirational quotes by founder HJ Heinz to a celebration of Heinz heritage through carefully selected imagery, examples of Heinz packaging, a series of art and audio-visual installations, as well as an interactive text display, there is a strong sense of diversity throughout the piece.

All these stories emanate from the portrait of HJ Heinz, which sits at the centre of the creation. 

As much of the innovative thinking of HJ Heinz still holds true today, his ethos isn't presented as 'heritage', rather a set of poignant principles and values, many of which inform the brand's innovations of today. Therefore the old and new are presented together on the wall, rather than in chronological order. 

The wall is a feast for the senses celebrating all that is innovative and unique about one of the most cherished brands in the world. We hope you enjoy tucking in…

www.heinz57wall.com

World's first graffiti wordsearch

It is with great excitement that we announce our latest commission. You might have to use our clues in a highly powerful search engine to decipher who it’s for…

This project saw James, under his Shesh moniker, head over to Dublin, to the prestigious new HQ for this huge global brand, located at the heart of the historic dockyards, nicknamed “Silicon Dock”…

James worked with leading graffiti artists Tizer, Zics and Keim on the project. Together, the foursome, after three days of wordplay and tagging, created a one-of-a-kind graffiti wordsearch.

Working with ‘Diversity’ as a key theme, the crew used every genre of graffiti at their spray-can clutching fingertips, from old-skool styles to more modern looking graff, to highlight the changing nature of the art form.

The blank canvas that was the lift lobby and its adjoining room has been transformed, giving the building’s thousands of employees something to puzzle over…

Look closely and you’ll find words that epitomise this iconic new-age brand.

Using a contemporary form of art like graffiti was the perfect way to celebrate the pioneering mark this brand has made, not just in the technology world, but also in virtually every person’s daily life.

Watch this space for the full set of photos from the three-day interior assault…