Violet Banks

WE'RE SUPPORTING

We checked in recently with New York based Argentinean illustrator, Fernanda Cohen. How’s the illustration scene in New York at the moment? ‘Over crowded, sometimes repetitive and predictable, but there are always jewels here and there. I believe most of the emerging stars in the illustration field in the past few years came out of New York, mostly SVA graduates’. Read more

WE'RE TRAVELLING TO

The graduate exhibition of third year graphic design students at Sydney’s Design Centre is called 342 Seconds and relates to the estimated time required to view the show. The exhibition takes place on December 3 and looks to be well worth checking out, if these works by Jenny Lee [above] and Sean Batchelor [below] are anything to go by. You can check into their blog and stay up to date with events leading up to the opening. Read more

WE'RE WEARING

Scott Sternberg created the great Los Angeles label, Band of Outsiders, and it’s one of the few labels that fit a little guy like me perfectly. I live in BOO shirts. They are my second skin.

WE'RE THINKING

If anyone ever asks you to define the word “schadenfreude,” show him or her these pictures of a poor skier hanging from a ski lift with his junk exposed to the alpine chill. If the person viewing the pictures laughs, he or she now understands the particularly useful German term.

WE'RE READING

Our friends over at the street art and design site, Feed Me Cool Shit have a revealing interview up with UK artist Sickboy, who talks about his earliest days on the streets. Read more

Damn, ten years of playing guitar in loud rock bands, and not once did we have a slamming moshpit like this. Banging heads is so, so fun.

WE'RE LISTENING TO

There’s a world-weariness about Two Gallants frontman Adam Stephens. It reveals itself in the Tom Waits-like raspiness that permeates his gin house drawl and in the talkin’ blues narratives that he weaves around his simple acoustic fingerpicking. They are the new superstars of the West Coast scene, majestic showmen in homespun rags.

Listen to the Two Gallants track, The hand that held you down.