Philip Kennedy

Stories by Philip Kennedy

Philip Kennedy is a twenty-something designer and writer from Ireland. He enjoys living in new cities, watching old episodes of Seinfeld and working on fun projects with exciting people. His favorite film will always be Back to the Future.

Ugo Gattoni’s fantastic London bicycle race

Wow – this is beautiful! French illustrator Ugo Gattoni has created an incredibly intricate pen drawing inspired by the 2012 London Olympic Games. Called Bicycle, the illustration shows an amazing looking race through the streets of London.

Published by Nobrow Press the print is a fabulous concertina publication which folds out to reveal a madcap vision of a bike race. Featuring elite athletes to cycle couriers, commuters, bankers, delivery boys, mums with kids, youths on stolen mountain bikes to fashionistas and hipsters on fixed gear bikes, it’s a fantastic print. You can order a copy of it now through the Nobrow website.

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Philip Kennedy

July 27, 2012 - See more posts by Philip

Great Soccer Player portraits by HelloVon x Nike Stadium

Back in 2010 the London based studio HelloVon collaborated with Nike Stadium to create a huge 17 window installation at Selfridges on Oxford Street in London. Designed to celebrate the World Cup, the installation featured 17 portraits of the world’s best footballers with each image measuring a whopping 5m x 3m.

HelloVon is the studio name of Von, a London based illustrator and artist. Von’s mixture of traditional and digital mark-making techniques creates images which combine old fashioned craftsmanship with a skill for creating very clever and contemporary images. His installation at Selfridges was a fantastic display of his talent, and I think his style of image-making is the perfect way to honor these sporting greats. Make sure to check out more of Von’s wonderful drawings on his site HelloVon.

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Philip Kennedy

July 25, 2012 - See more posts by Philip

A fantastic sports t-shirt design by Mike Lemanski

English illustrator and designer Mike Lemanski has created a wonderful t-shirt which is bound to get you in the Olympic spirt! His design is filled with great colors and energy, combining a number of sporting events together including diving, swimming, rowing and sprinting.

Created for Nike USA and released late last year, Lemanski’s style of illustration seems perfect for this type of project. Here Lemanski finds the patterns amid the arms, legs and sporting-equipment of the athletes and turns them into fantastic looking image. It’s certainly a t-shirt I’d like to wear! Go see more of Mike Lemanski’s work online here.

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Philip Kennedy

July 24, 2012 - See more posts by Philip

Songs about Cricket – The Music of The Duckworth Lewis Method

As we’re going to be featuring sports-related posts all this week on The Fox Is Black I thought it would be nice to share some sports-related music with you this morning. Obviously there’s plenty of places where you can find music for something like this. With a little thought it’s easy to find plenty of songs that cross the sports/music divide: there’s the brashness of the football anthem, the adrenaline-fueled tracks designed for running, the inspirational music heard during cinema’s fine musical montages – all fine examples! Personally though, none of them come close to the greatness that is The Duckworth Lewis Method.

Back in 2009 the duo created an entire album inspired by cricket! Made up of The Divine Comedy’s Neil Hannon and Pugwash’s Thomas Walsh, the pair have described the album as being “a kaleidoscopic musical adventure through the beautiful and rather silly world of cricket”. It’s a fantastic collection of songs and it’s an album which relishes in the oddities and traditions of the sport – featuring tracks with names such as The Coin Toss, Mason On The Boundary and Meeting Mr Miandad.

The track above is called The Age of Revolution; a song about the English spreading cricket throughout the world. I particularly love how it samples Bix Beiderbecke & His Gang’s excellent Rhythm King. If you’re a cricket fan and haven’t checked out The Duckworth Lewis Method before make sure to grab a copy of their album!

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Philip Kennedy

July 23, 2012 - See more posts by Philip

Sweet illustrations by Emma Block

English illustrator Emma Block creates some really sweet and charming illustrations. Looking through her portfolio I found I had lots of fun trying to figure out exactly how each of her pieces were made. Certainly it looks like there seems to be a lot of really nice delicate collage work in them – in some images it seems like trees and other details are literally popping off the page. Whatever the technique is that she uses I think it works really well and it adds a wonderful texture to her illustrations.

I particularly love the look of the mattresses in her drawing of the famous fairy tale ‘The Princess and the Pea’. Go check out more of her wonderful illustration online here.

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Philip Kennedy

July 19, 2012 - See more posts by Philip