How to celebrate the Royal Wedding... and the Union Flag!

The wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton next week has created a bit of a come back for all things British, particularly the trusted Union Flag... which goes through eras of being in and out fashion. Coupled with the 60 year anniversary of The Festival of Britain, and the London Olympics just around the corner it's a time to celebrate all things British...

I've always been a fan of the Union Flag and even wrote my final year dissertation all about it - the rise and fall through history, politics, the punk era and right up until Geri Halliwell and THAT DRESS!

The flag, sadly, has no reference to Wales (due to the fact that at the time the flag was designed in 1606 Wales was part of the Kingdom of England). But out of all the world flags this one is surely up there as one of the most iconic and memorable.

So here's your guide on how to celebrate the Royal Wedding in a very British fashion.

Step 1

Take your seats early (wedding starts at 11am) and place your butt on your very own throne from Made With Love... for extra support use a Jan Constantine cushion.

Step 2

Make sure any young guests are suitably attired in a baby sleepsuit designed by Powell Craft and available to buy from Snugg.

Step 3

Serve cupcakes decorated with Hunkydory Home's beautiful toppers...

Step 4

Don't forget the plates - for extra impact go for these original designs from KK Outlet.

Step 5

If the wedding gets a little boring make sure you have some nice prints to look at on the walls, go for a typographic map of Britain by Bold and Noble...

...or perhaps a little twist on the now infamous Keep Calm and Carry On posters by The Contemporary Home. The original posters were designed in 1939 under the threat of war and although a few million were printed they remained in storage through-out the war years and beyond. For more on the history of the poster, click here.

Step 6

Time to wash up some of those many Union Jack and Royal Wedding mugs. There were too many to feature so instead opted for this splendid tea towel by Betsy Bean.

Step 7

The wedding is almost over, time to pack it all away and save all the Union Jack designs for next summers olympics or just kick back and put your feet up on one of these John Lewis trunks...

Step 8

Did it all get a bit much? no fear, make sure you have these Lydia Leith sick bags to hand!

See you on the big day! or if you miss it you can always check out the highlights here...

Love Design - special feature

As promised, That's Nice Design is all about the love today to celebrate Valentine's Day... here's a small selection of LOVELY designs and art. Please feel free to post links to anything else that has captured your heart today...

Print - Johanna Basford

That's Nice Design favourite Johanna Basford has so many fabulous designs to choose from but it's Valentines Day and Love is the word for the day. So let's kick off our celebration with this gorgeous print... Love...

Fashion - Lovebirds

Such a simple design that works so well... two lovebirds kissing in the shape of a heart. And this guy goes to prove it's not just a girls t-shirt. Available as a print or t-shirt from Threadless designed by sockneck (aka Paul Vizzari).

Greeting cards - Kate Jones

The shops are awash with Valentines cards, it was so hard to pick. But these are a little different... designed by Kate Jones for Camden Graphics the range is called 'mishmash' and made from vintage scarves, her grandma's hankies, old maps and a few extra prints of her own. And if greeting cards, patterns and textiles are your thing make sure you visit the Print Pattern blog.

Woodwork - Rob Ryan

Rob Ryan is another That's Nice Design favourite. There were endless examples of Rob's wonderfully whimsical work that could have been selected for this Valentines special but I decided to go for something a little different. The Key to My Heart with little messages of love - how can you resisit?

Film - Blue Valentine

From the reviews I've read this is a brilliant film but not exactly the happiest! The titles are quite beautiful, and shows what you can do just using stills from the film. It's like an understated explosion which I am guessing reflects the film - the ups and downs of love, the highs, the lows and the fireworks which aren't always a cause for celebration. To watch the full video click here to go to Art of the Title website.

Print - Life is Beautiful

I love the simplicity of this print in design and message. Available to purchase from Culture Label for a bargain price of £20.

Branding - Coo

Hofstede Design, based in Australia produced this playful, stylish design for Coo, a company that makes products for young children.

Hopefully this has spread a little design love your way... please post your comments or links to other lovely designs...

Make It Better - animated type

This is a really nice piece of animated type, different to the norm... The idea and design were conceived by Climent Canal with animation by Sebastian Baptista. And not forgetting the very effective audio by Aimar Molero.

MAKE IT BETTER from Clim on Vimeo.

Julien Vallée - that's nice!

You know when you say WOW to something that it must be good. Check out Julien Vallée's extraordinary work!

http://www.jvallee.com

Navigators - My Place

Prague-based designer Pavel Fuksa has designed 178 fake vintage matchboxes to create a new video for Navigators. Cute, clever and original...

A brief history of pretty much everything

Check out this animation created by Jamie Bell for his AS art course, yes he is only 17!! a flipbook animation made entirely out of biro pens and around 2100 pages long. Unsurprisingly he got full marks...

It's great to see such talent and dedication to a project from someone so young... I'm sure we will be hearing more from this chap in the future.

Objectified the Movie

Objectified in the second film in a 3 part design trilogy by Gary Hustwit. The first being the film Helvetica. Objectified promises us an insight into the creative minds of product designers from Jonathan Ives to Karim Rashid. And discusses how everyday objects literally shape our lives.
Check out the trailer above and for more info go to the website:

http://www.objectifiedfilm.com/

Sherlock Holmes credit sequence by Prologue

A couple of years ago I went to watch Terminator 3 with a friend in the special effects business. We sat and watched the credits waiting for the VFX companies to see if there was anyone we knew who worked on it. As we did this everyone else was leaving, and my friend thought it was very rude people didn't wait to read who put their hearts and souls into making this film. However, as soon as the VFX credits finished and moved onto the caterers she was up like a shot and wanted to go home..! At which point I said 'come on, I want to see who did the catering!'

This point aside I think the art of the credit sequence is a pretty cool way of making people stay and read the major players, if only they could carry it on for the whole sequence of 100's of names! After watching Sherlock Holmes at the weekend it was quite heart warming to see people stay in the cinema to watch the credits, and what beautifully crafted credits they were too...

Take a look at this interview with Danny Yount of Prologue Films on the Art of the Title website - very interesting to see the other boards and the process they went through.
http://www.artofthetitle.com/2010/01/21/sherlock-holmes/

The most original motion work I've seen in a long while...

I love this, very original... I'll give it 3 months before we see this on a commercial...