chris haughton - Filed under 'node'

Im an Irish designer and illustrator. I was listed in Time Magazine's DESIGN 100 for the work I've been doing for fair trade company People Tree. My first book 'A Bit Lost' is in 11 languages and has won 9 awards in 7 countries including the Dutch Picture Book of the Year. 'Oh No George!' comes out in March 2012

www.vegetablefriedrice.com
www.nodenepal.com

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node

September 12, 2011

Gibson Hotel Artwork

I recently made artwork for the interiors of the Gibson hotel in Dublin. The Gibson is a very modern 4 star hotel right next to, and same owner as the O2, which is Irelands largest music venue. The idea is that the performers and audience can stay after gigs and so its music themed. They asked me if i could do some artwork 'around rock legends' Eventually we decided to do artwork with songs hidden inside them. It was a pretty nice job to work on (!)

(download)

The mural in the bar features three songs hidden inside the images. Its 5m high.
play> Led Zeppelin: Stairway to heaven
play> Fela Kuti: Water No Get Enemy a good article about Fela
play> Bob Dylan: All Along the watchtower 'said the joker to thief'

(download)

The mural in the restaurant is 10 metres wide. In the details you can see..
play> Velvet Underground: Venus in Furs based on the sascha-masoch novel
play> Can: Mushroom 'when i saw her mushroom head... i was born, i was dead...' (see the atom bomb)
play> Bob Marley: Get Up, Stand Up 'if you know what life is worth... ' ..some of my favourite lyrics
play> Jefferson Airplane: White Rabbit (this is the psychedelic section!)
play> Beatles: Lucy in the sky with Diamonds
play> Bob Dylan: Mr Tambourine Man.'..then take me disappearin' thru the smoke rings of my mind'

(download)

These additional pieces were used as their menus and elsewhere

play> Bob Dylan: You aint goin nowhere
play> Billie Holiday: Strange fruit wikipedia article>

play> Beatles: A Day in the Life 'woke up, got out of bed, dragged a comb across my head....'

play> Brian Eno: Spider and I

play> Beatles: Hello Goodbye

play> Pink Floyd: See Emily Play

(download)

These are some shots in production or ideas that didnt make the final cut. The original idea was to have the actual lyrics alongside the artwork but we couldnt do that in the end for fear of copyright issues.

(download)

Perhaps the most unusual thing about the project was that i did all of this work while i was in Kathmandu. I was working there with a fair trade group to make rugs when I was approached by the Gibson. In fact i originally proposed that we do the artworks as RUGS!! A huge thanks to the design team and Harry Crosbie, (he's the developer behind the hotel as well as Vicar St, The O2 and Grand Canal Theatre, some of Dublins nicest venues) The team were very keen on the rugs, I explained about the work we were doing at NODE and they were considering making the entire mural as a rug, the only thing that stopped it was the long production time (for 40sqm+ of hand knotting!!) Instead it was done as a digital laminate print

After we finished the job they have since bought 5 big rugs for the best rooms. They are in the penthouse room where the artists stay, this year including Bob Dylan, Roger Waters and Kylie Minogue (!) Pictured is Gibbo Pink from Aslan in the upstairs rooms

Thanks very much to tim at Neworld design and also to harry crosbie, im very proud to be involved in this. Take a look at the Gibson site below, it really is a stunning hotel

gibsonhotel.ie

Filed under // design node rug

Comments [2]

August 24, 2011

NODE: fair trade rugs

Im VERY excited about this... im co-founding a fair trade project called NODE. We're launching it today.

We will make and sell fair trade rugs. We want to collaborate with great illustrators and designers and produce amazing rugs all through the fair trade group KTS in Kathmandu.

Last year i made some rugs in Nepal and they became really popular. My blog post on it was fwded around and ended up in lots of design magazines. I was then approached by other designers and illustrators who wanted to make their own rugs.

I thought this was a great idea, I was connecting great designers with a great fair trade group. We could even do an exhibition in London of the rugs we made.

There was a couple of problems though, the hassle and cost of doing small orders or one-offs with bank charges and shipping and import duty / declaration forms and all the paperwork put most of the illustrators off.

I also just didnt have the time to actually receive payment and organise shipments etc... the more i got into it the more complicated it got. so the whole thing was stalled.

Then i had a chat with with my friend Akshay Sthapit in Nepal who had recently set up harilo.com

Harilo is a bit like amazon for Nepal. They import and export. And do really complicated logistics so we had the idea of working together.

We have decided to call it Node. Its a point on a network but it also means 'knot' in Latin.

Node can help organise exhibitions and help designers to sell their rugs. But unlike a company we want to operate very transparently. We want to do something new and self-organise, a group of designers making nice things that can be successfully scaled up and hopefully help KTS help out more and more people. Thats the plan anyway..!

At the moment we only have my rugs available to buy but we will be adding more soon

And next year we will be organising an exhibition..

Anyone who wants to get involved (whether designing or buying) please email me

chris (at) vegetablefriedrice (dot) com

have a look at the site...

http://noderugs.com/