So… you want to see what it’s like hanging out inside a cake hotel in the middle of Soho? Voila!

(I should also say that although all of the edible things tasted really good, I discovered that one of the perils of being a house of mostly edible things is that if you are not paying attention you might accidentally eat something that isn’t actually food. Oops.)

Ikea, Tottenham

I started collecting them alongside and sometimes as part of the pictures I take of the London transport systems. Urban stages, although I hardly ever include their players unless at a distance or ebbing and flowing on the periphery. The human activity which brought them into being feels more than sufficient in terms of presence.

Burlington Arcade, Picadilly

Paddington Station, Paddington

Sidestreet, Southwark

Escalator, Southwark

Pavement, Finsbury Park

All Star Lanes, Holborn

Concourse, Clapham North

My own experience of the artist formerly known as Kate Middleton has been a peculiar one. I used to work on a fashion and beauty website and Kate was big business. Judging by page views a large swathe of the nation was fascinated by her. Judging by reader comments another mob were fascinated (or perhaps merely outraged) by the fascination. Regardless, a story about Kate was a source of site traffic. As such I learned to scrutinise every picture of her that came my way. How was her hair? Was she wearing those birthday earrings? Which of her mother’s several-seasons-old high end high street dresses might she have donned? Was there anything – anything at all – remotely interesting that I could put into words to adorn this picture?

I became fascinated by the fascination with the fascination.

It felt like the blanker the Kate canvas the better for the royal family. She became some kind of royal trawler net gathering generic goodwill towards “a nice young couple in love”. The fewer opinions she offered, the more easily she could absorb almost any projection of personality by others. As a result I have devoted hours of my life and page after page of vocabulary to this woman without ever encountering a sense of familiarity. I know her face, I know her wardrobe, her family, and her comings and goings. The rest – the parts that form a working identity and a full person – is silence.

The reason to spend so long underlining this peculiar absence of person is because of this portrait. Would the painter, Paul Emsley, not have encountered the same difficulties I did in engaging with this strangely absent public person? Would he attempt to do something to round out that identity (no matter how spuriously)? I must confess that with the royal family’s PR machine fully involved, Kate even more cautious since those topless pictures surfaced, and the National Portrait Gallery not likely to do anything to irk their most photographed patron I wasn’t expecting anything beyond flattering verisimilitude.

But the portrait unveiled is a curious thing. Soft of focus, pursed of lip, the Duchess stares out from her nest of sausage curls like she’s been printed on some commemorative plate. I found myself indulging my own frustrations as I asked, “Was the dewy glow a nod to the weird sentimentality which attached itself like societal dust to this woman and her marriage? Was the the commemorative plate-ness a sly acknowledgement of our obsession with the commodification of celebrity? Was the tenseness in the lips a knowing joke about the fact this woman will never say anything off-message?”

Apparently Emsley is a monarchist and honoured by the commission so it’s unlikely to be anything but sincere. It’s also not exactly earthshaking news that a royal portraitist has indulged in flattery or that a commissioned work has skimmed anything remotely contentious from the depiction of its subject. Still, having entertained hopes that the intention could have been more impish in nature I find myself once again disappointed. It’s just one more picture of Kate to add to the ever expanding pile.

“We didn’t think this through at all”

I absolutely love the Christmassy illustrations of Jacob Stack – his bird characters are particularly adorable, especially when they’re looking upwards at something a lot bigger than them. The one above is my favourite, though. I love the idea of the birds then decorating the tree and looking at it excitedly through their window.

Christmas sketches, Jacob Stack, via Behance

:D Godzilla at Christmas!

This is part of a series by Hatchers – I’m less keen on the others but have fallen in love with Christmas Godzilla!

Christmas Godzilla, Hatchers, $5 download

Photo: Nick Saglimbeni

The Kardashian Kristmas Kard is out and… Lord help me but it’s just not as good as last year’s. Last year was ice blue and bow ties and ridiculously retouched butts. This year it’s either music video on a tight budget or one of those supremely smug foldout magazine covers with a heap of actors Photoshopped into an ensemble piece just to batter you around the eyeballs with famous faces.

Obviously this has not stopped me from thinking about it obsessively for an entire day, though, and I shall share the fruits of this forthwith:

1. They have done an all-white photoshoot before and honestly? It was soooooo much better. Santa was there and Bruce Jenner’s hair was astonishing. It was kind of like if the 2013 card had a baby with the video for East 17’s Stay.
2. That coffee table is horrible.
3. Kanye is absent. We have known (and by “we” I mean “I knew it and there’s a slim chance you did to so let’s say we because it makes me feel better”) that he would be absent for a little while now but it seems a shame given his wardrobe would lend itself to this exact occasion so well. Yeezy does love an all-white ensemble.
4. Not absent, however, is Kanye’s gift to Kim — Mercy the kitten. Mercy looks about as wide eyed and terrified as she usually did in photos where Kim was toting her around. I say “did” because Kim apparently developed an allergy and gave Mercy to an assistant before the assistant had to have the kitten put to sleep because of stomach cancer. I find her presence a little unsettling, especially given how wide-eyed she is and how completely ignored by everyone she seems. Perhaps the Photoshopper left her in as a kind of Memento Mori?
5. Bruce looks like he’s a festival queen on a regional carnival float, waving benevolently at everyone from a throne made of tissue paper and toilet roll tubes.
6. Times must be tough in the Kardashian household if they can’t spring for a real fake DJ and instead ask Rob to step up. Rob is standing at the back waving which is pretty symbolic if you’re familiar with the show.
7. Kendall. Kendall is the one on the right, just underneath her mother’s champagne-toting wing (because why bother making a point if you’re going to be all “subtle” about it?) This picture basically cements her position as “second generation Kardashian most likely to succeed as marketing and branding nexus”. Snaps for Kendall.
8. Why does Kris have a different kind of champagne glass to everyone else? What’s that about?
9. In other champagne glass news, Khloe is about to tip hers out onto her mother’s head.
10. If you really wanted I could talk about the composition (how Mason is the centre of the family) or the outfits (only Penelope and Kendall are elevated from the mass by being excused from bodycon), about the fact there is one fewer drink than there are adults of drinking age or maybe I could note that the silver embellishments still mark Kim out as the family’s biggest earner. But really, does it matter?

 
The 2012 picture feels very much just a photo of someone else’s family. Sure the faces are familiar and they’re all roughly playing to character but where’s the ridiculousness? Where’s the glitter? Where’s the bonkers set dressing? Where’s the Kardashian-ness?

Come on Kardashians, STEP IT UP FOR 2013, ‘kay?

>> Reality television — or something like it

The Christmas tree, thanks to its ability to be represented as a basic triangle, lends itself to all manner of smart reworkings. I really like the simplicity Federico Mauro’s wi-fi design above. Along with the Volvo glow-in-the-dark card it really stood out to me this year!

Wi-fi Christmas card, Federico Mauro, via Behance

London’s Tate Modern gallery gets the festive treatment with this beautifully made pop-up Christmas card by Paper Tango. The whole thing is laser cut and then finished by hand making for a product that’s part card, part mantlepiece ornament.

Tate Christmas card, Paper Tango £5.99

PJ McQuade is the designer responsible for Chewie the red-nosed reindeer – although if you’re hoping to pick up one of the cards you’ll need to come back next year or invest in a giclee print instead as they’ve completely sold out for 2012!

Design Studio, Beyond, have taken a slightly unusual approach to Christmas cards this year – and by “unusual” I mean that they have used science and maths to declare Santa dead in their entertaining video card. If you still believe in Father Christmas it might be best to skip this one…

(PS I have been sick and massively busy and ARGH! so sorry about the gap in card posts!)