As the sun continues to shine, we’re really getting into the summertime spirit here at Airside. Not to mention summertime spirits – did someone say it’s Pimms o’clock? The joys of the sunny season were further confirmed when we spotted this lovely summer-themed collection of transport art.

The Summer Time collection was curated by Prussian Bee, a visitor to London Transport Museum’s gallery website Pick + Mix – as designed by Airside. We’re especially fond of Mary Koop’s 1925 print, Summer Sales, with its eye-catching collection of umbrellas. Now that’s the kind of June weather we’re used to.

We’ve recently been introduced to gorgeous child-friendly art available at Happy Thought, an online shop run by Ellen Deakin, sister of Airside director Fred. Happy Thought hopes to put a smile on your walls with their selection of decals, prints and silhouettes designed to brighten up nurseries and playrooms.

Their best-selling double silhouette of children holding hands was recently listed as one of Etsy’s picks for American Mother’s Day. Happy Thought also offers a personalised service, so you can feature your child’s name, birthday or favourite colours on any of their products. Visit Happy Thought to find out more.

Whilst visiting Tokyo earlier this month, Henki caught up with our former intern, Yoshi, and saw his contribution to the 2010 Tokyo Type Directors Club (TDC) Annual Awards. The TDC was established in New York in 1946 in order to support excellence in typography. Their Tokyo wing was set up in 1987 and, according to their website, is committed to exploring the world of type that goes “far beyond conventional character designing”. Their annual international design competition showcases the year’s best explorations in type. This year’s exhibition was held in Ginza and included work by our man Yoshi.

Yoshi’s entry, entitled Maori Iwi + Maori Koru, was inspired by a year he spent in New Zealand. The country’s indigenous Maori people have their own spoken language, but it has never had a written form. Wondering what kind of system it would follow, Yoshi invented a written language, based on the organisation of spoken Maori, whose glyphs are developed from a mixture of Maori icons and some Latin script. Besides exhibiting at the 2010 TDC Awards, Yoshi’s work will also feature in the 2010 TDC Annual. For more on Yoshi and Maori Iwi + Maori Koru, visit www.kufolio.com.

We are officially very excited about tomorrow’s opening of Airside: The Pop-Up Shop. Our shop manager Natalie has worked her bump off to transform our meeting room into a brilliant bazaar packed with t-shirts, prints and other assorted goodies. Here’s a sneak peek at the fruits of her labour, as our little Pop-Up Shop bathes in the glorious evening sunshine.

Airside: The Pop-Up Shop opens tomorrow at 11am. There will be music, prize draws, cake, our infamous Air-Cider and much more going on throughout the day, until 8pm. We hope to see you there, but if you can’t make it tomorrow, we’re also open on Saturday. Don’t forget everything must go, so expect bargains and giveaways galore. Full details here.

A bunch of Airsiders recently went on a screen-printing course at Print Club London. Not content with merely learning, we decided that each of the six participants would produce a print based around a common theme.

What with there being six people and all of them having six on the brain, we called it The Joy of Six. Check out all six prints below along with more on the inspiration behind each of them.

Alex revisited his Penguin Pool t-shirt (no longer in stock I’m afraid) and screen print to resculpt the classic curves of Berthold Lubetkin’s London Zoo penguin pool design into the shape of the number six.

You may have p-p-p-p-picked up on the fact that he added a sixth penguin. It wouldn’t have fitted the theme otherwise.

Chris’ inspiration was the classic six-gun revolver commonly carried by Wild West gunslingers and how it appears in the big bad world of a child’s imagination.

The little kid wears a paper hat and uses his hands for guns but in his head he is the biggest baddest sheriff in the living room/hallway area. Lee Van Cleef with milk teeth if you will.

Our intern Erica took the opportunity to indulge in her latest obsession and draw six dogs in fancy dress.

From a piratical bulldog to the very disturbing hotdog this canine sextet is the wonkiest team of sleigh dogs ever assembled.

Not only does the devil have all the best tunes, he also has the best numbers. Jamie’s print recalls heady days of childhood.

Penny sweets, endless summers and the relentless pursuit of an audience with his Satanic Majesty.

The joy of six. . .mmmmmh 6. . .mmmmh. . .69? Anyone familiar with Malika’s previous work might have guessed her print would go this way.

Her naughty Frenchness kicked in again and here we are: another sexy graphic that’s more about what your mind imagines than what your eye actually sees.

Studio manager and Airside Shop goddess Natalie went down a literary road and ended up as the glue binding the collection together.

Enjoy her marvellous musings on The Joy of Six. The full text is printed below.

Look at the number 6 all happy and proud. For the number 6 is a perfect number.
It creates points on stars, strings on guitars and the word ‘moon’ in a text.
It is so good Satan named it thrice.
It smiles knowing that its day is considered the best of the week and beams as its month welcomes summer.

But in its darkest hour, the number 6 knows that despite being a perfect number not all is peachy keen.
For example nobody likes 6am and 6-packs are on a steep decline.
Its own 6-pack merely a swollen belly; looks that are neither as sleek as the number 7 nor as interesting as the number 4.
He is haunted by and well aware that if he didn’t sound like the word sex, there’d be no ‘Joy of six’.

Elliot, our delightful intern, just had his LCC degree show work featured on the Creative Review blog so he’s very chuffed.

We went to the show, we saw, we sweated, and we pat Elliot and his colleagues on the back for putting their exhibition together as well as the catalogue.

Then, rather than relaxing after all that effort, he cycled off to Amsterdam – wearing the cycling top he designed for Vitsoe. What he did there, we have not asked.

Seen here: one of Elliot’s birds.

Rather lovely visualisations of flight paths over north America here.

 

Last night It’s Pop It’s Art took over The Amersham Arms in New Cross for a night of music, design and good beer, as part of San Miguel’s Hidden Depths series.

Check out our photos from the event on Flickr.

The evening featured a talk from Kate Moross, a live doodlejam with Jon Burgerman, live music from Sam Sparro and DJ sets from Austin Wilde, Paul Epworth and Cosmic Fury.

The telephone sheep of course.

More of this nonsense over here.