Acrylicize 2012 - An Awesome Year

What a special year 2012 has been! There was the obvious undertone of excitement through various events, namely the Jubilee celebrations, and of course the London Olympics.

On a personal note, Acrylicize moved into an exciting new Studio in the heart of Shoreditch, two new members joined the team, Paul and Emily both got engaged to their respective partners and James and his wife Anna had a gorgeous baby boy, Freddy.

It felt special to be in London this summer, and the feeling still lingers. London is a special city to be in and you don’t have to be around long to realise how much development is still happening. Shoreditch is an inspiring place to be on a creative level, but the city still sees developments popping up all over the place and not to mention the West End. It’s a fruitful place to be immersed in, and to be an integral part of.

This year our projects have seen us in Soho erecting giant ghetto blasters in reception, to sanding down reclaimed instruments from vintage shops in Brick Lane, painting in Ketchup, cutting up thousands of playing cards, collecting rail tickets, making concrete statues and testing 3D printing capabilities - all in the name of art. There’s still lots of materials to explore, and as our projects diversify and grow, so does our expertise and experience. We also happen to have a lot of fun along the way!

We’re really pleased to have worked with some amazingly talented creatives along the way. A special thanks goes to all the architects and interior designers (and of course) our Design Team for all their hard work. It’s always a team effort and thanks to everyone involved we’re now looking to 2013 as a hugely exciting year! We have some massive projects in the pipeline.

We can feel a shift happening, and something in the air is changing for the better. We’re taking more notice of interiors in the workplace, how it makes us feel and what affect that has on our wellbeing and the intrinsic link back to business and how it can help in productivity and staff fulfilment.

Our installations represent people and we always strive to transform environments through engaging art features. We’re thankful to work with architects and interior designers that share our belief and our dream for the future…

Next year will be Acrylicize's 10th Year, so there'll be even more to celebrate. 

2013 is gonna be BIG

100% Design: The set up

We thought we'd keep you right up to date with proceedings at 100% design. Yesterday saw the big set up. Exhibitions are always great fun to set up. Think of an enormous room with 100's of surly contractors all getting in each others way desperately trying to build their stands whilst at the same time making sure all their tools don't get stolen and their brand new carpets stay clean. Everyone's waiting for the electricians - who told you they'd be on your stand 2 hours ago and all the while your melting under artificial lights and gasping for a bit of fresh air (remember that?). Meanwhile in a bid to address your ravishing hunger you are forced to re-mortage your house in order to buy a cheese sandwich whose ratio of bread to filling would make John Montagu; The 4th earl of Sandwich turn in his grave. This isn't a jibe at 100% design, it's the same at any exhibition and quite frankly its all part of the fun. We got  into Earls court late and so to add to the sense of drama, time was very much against us. On went the tunes, up went the neon and the rest is History... here are the pics so far. Big thanks to Sean and Gaby.

100% Design: Stand 015

Were back at 100% design for a third year. Come say hello on stand 015.

Pokerstars commissions New Installation

Back in spring, the PokerStars' group (the world’s largest poker site) approached us to create a custom installation for the reception area of one of their service and support offices in London.

Something told us they were unlikely to want a copy of the “Old Dogs at Poker” painting. So we set to work developing a piece that told the PokerStars story.

We loved the idea of using materials from their world, remixing them and presenting them back as a piece of Art and decided we could have a lot of fun with cards…

Acquiring a substantial amount of playing cards we cut and assembled the cards around acrylic cubes.

Row by row, the cubes were assembled into a spiraling sphere. The cubes became the pixels; the pixels started to take their abstract form.

 

On first glance, in a slick front of house reception area, it’s a refined piece of abstract art. On closer inspection, you see the materials used and the subtle use of playing cards, their iconic symbols proudly displayed on the sides of their faces.

Refraction was born...

PPL: The Recording Studio

The PPL speaker installation is one of Acrylicize’s favorite projects.

For those unaware, we erected a giant ghetto blaster effect into the Soho studios (a music licensing company). On either side of reception we designed a sculpture made from speakers, fully functioning from the mains so it pulsates to the music as you walk to the reception. The goal, to be stunned silent by the appreciation of art, function, interaction and humour…. just as the speakers connect to the music, it connects you to the space.

Last month, they asked us back to design and make an installation for their boardroom…

The wall was big; it needed something substantial to fill its vastly white expanse. It needed drama, it needed movement and it needed context. 

We wanted to design a piece that couldn’t go unnoticed. We wanted people to interact, to engage and we loved the idea of touch.

We used 500 mixing “pots” to create a truly mesmerizing piece for the room…

Against a white wall, it still looks sleek and unobtrusive – but it’s unusual design and original use of materials produces the desired effect 

Special thanks to MoreySmith 

Acrylicize Wins Bronze 2012

It may not have been love at first site. For some, it took a little while before they understood what it was about and why we should feel proud. Some were preoccupied with the looming irritation that their all-important routine to work was at threat of being disturbed.

For those that aren’t remotely sporty it was a mere shrug of the shoulders that something was happening with sportsmen and women that they’d never heard of and took no interest in, most probably until the Olympic Opening Ceremony….

The roar of jet engines from the Red Arrows soaring over our heads on that sunny Friday evening rumbled the butterflies in your stomach. They grew more as 26million of us watched our TV screens as a stadium filled with 50,000 people celebrating the start of something very very exciting.

Thomas Heatherwick’s awe-inspiring cauldron lit more than its copper petals, it ignited a fireball of excitement, ricocheting through the British land as we were stunned into silence at what our Great Britain was capable of…

Welcome World, to the London 2012 Olympics.

June 2012.

The anticipation was mounting, East London was alive with a buzz in the air and all everyone was talking about was the Olympics, the village, and the stadiums. And what incredible venues they were! As a collective so intrinsically linked with architecture, design and space – we were digging the creative buzz in the air.

Imagine our delight when Waltham Forest Council commissioned us to make a series of bronze sculptures representing the key venues in the Olympic Park! 

Working with Balfour Beatty Regional Civil Engineering and East Architecture as the lead architects, we installed on the pathway from Leyton station to the Olympic Park as part of the Leyton Mills Access Improvements project..

The idea was that the architects had left these models on the rail for all to appreciate, creating a sense of anticipation for the real thing.

Fast forward through weeks of project development, a series of 3D printing machine prototypes, a specialist bronze fabricator and hey presto…

On your marks, get set, ready… Acrylicize hits the Olympics! 

A proud moment for all of us.

Here are our little bronze beauties…

Here they are being positioned by the team…

Securing safely onto the handrail…

And the finished result…. 

Special thanks to Waltham Forest Council, Balfour Beatty and East Architecture for inviting us to be a part of their project.

Heinz Announcement

It gives us great pleasure to announce our latest commission with Heinz. We have been commissioned to produce a large scale Installation to form the centre piece of their new Innovation centre in Nijmegen, Holland. We're very excited to be involved as its a brand thats close to our hearts. and stomachs. Watch this space...