Yesterday I went to the Toffie Pop Festival and bought a copy of the magazine ‘Paris – Fading like a childhood memory’, I’m almost done reading it. Grab your own copy at Church (12 Spin Street Cape Town), it’s good entertainment and inspiration.
Something I will remember is a powerful sentence from page 8.
Tom London from Soweto’s Finest says that when we dance we find purpose in our bodies.
I just went to the Toffie Pop Festival 2012 and had a look at the exhibition and found this cool flyer by the team South Africa. I loved it since I collect the healer flyers :)
pic found here
I am so proud, my friend Maaike that is like a sister to me, exhibits in Cape Town!
Come to the opening on Wednesday 4 April 2012 at 19h30, Salon 91, 91 Kloof Street, Cape Town.
“THE RIVER
From the minds of two young thinkers in a purple-flowered-city. This fantastic tale emerges, mysterious and gritty: A sloth, on a terrible journey, hoping to recover what he’s lost; banks will be flooded, lines will be crossed. Pretorian visual artists Louis Minnaar and Maaike Bakker present a twisting narrative exhibition of collaborated visual works blending with words by Jaco van der Merwe.”
More info here.
How awesome did this shoot turn out? Very proud of Desmond and myself. I really love the black and white shots. Have a look at the full shoot.
Last week’s CreativeMornings Cape Town was another success, have a look how it looks like. Hope to see you there in April. Also, check out the video of the March talk with Bruce Good.
On Sunday, I went to my dear friend Lynne’s birthday (from Hello Again on Long Street) and she surprised us with a live gig from Cape Town band LA.VI. Never heard of them before but immediately absolutely loved it. Told Desmond that I immediately wanted a CD after I heard the first song. Listen to their song Far Away Place.
I just heard about The Soft Machine, something that I want to check out soon on a Saturday at the Neighbourgoods Market at the Old Biscuit Mill in Cape Town.
“The Soft Machine is a food design venture that crafts fresh soft serve made from quality natural ingredients with inventive new flavours and pairings. Conceptualised by ideas agency Cow Africa with recipes developed by chef Kobus van der Merwe, soft serve is served from a renovated mobile 1960’s caravan that was designed by Marc Nicholson and Lyall Sprong from Thingking with illustrations by Radio. At launch, flavour pairings will include Leipoldt’s Milktart and/or Coffee garnished with Spice Snaps; and Sweetcorn and/or Buttermilk with tomato jam and shortbread garnish. (..)
THE PRODUCT
“We liked the idea of taking the trailer-park cousin of gelato and breathing new life into it,” says Donald Swanepoel from Cow Africa. “Kobus is an old friend and he’s been doing some really exciting things at his bistro, Oep ve Koep, in Paternoster, on his blog Sardines on Toast, and as one half of food-design duo Saboteur. He got really excited when we started thinking about making pure soft serve from scratch.”
Kobus van der Merwe says, “When we first started, we did a lot of research about soft serve. We had to deconstruct the current commercial formulas to get a feel for what goes into a basic mix. We looked at original custard and gelato recipes and started tweaking and refining them to work in The Soft Machine.”
The Soft Machine soft serve is crafted fresh from quality natural ingredients and contains no preservatives or other artificial nasties, only real spices, quality milk from local farms, free-range eggs, and fresh produce to produce a silky-smooth soft serve, bursting with flavour.
THE ILLUSTRATIONS
Radio was responsible for creating the illustrations and logo of The Soft Machine and the rollout of all collateral.
Brad Hodgskiss from Radio: “The soft serve was the ultimate inspiration behind the design. We wanted to capture the happiness associated with our childhood memories and bring that to life in various characters. We preferred the use of softer line work to keep things light and breezy.”
“When we created the brand we were inspired by simple character-based designs. It feels a bit Japanese and a bit retro which is cool because soft serve is bigger than gelato in Japan,” says Donald Swanepoel.
THE CARAVAN
Thingking conceptualised and produced The Soft Machine caravan. The aim was to create a mobile unit that was visually open and inviting to customers. The soft serve “drips” on the side of the caravan opens up to reveal a soft serve bar with space for customers to sit around. Inside it’s finished with pine counters and wood trim and bespoke wallpaper. Lyall Sprong, Thingking: “The natural, textured cladding echoes the quality of thought and ingredients that go into making the soft serve. We wanted the caravan to feel polished and considered but with a sense of something real or tactile. We used soft colour backed by wood grain to convey this message. (..)”
For more, visit: www.thesoftmachine.co.za
This was the last hike I did for capetownmagazine.com / Hi-Tec and absolutely amazing. If you feel like a 5 hour hike, swimming and amazing scenery, this is for you. Krom River is an hours drive from Cape Town, just after “the tunnel” – I loved it. More info on what, where etc. here.
After a successful launch on February 24th 2012, it’s already time to announce CreativeMornings Cape Town number two. Hope to see you there.
More info here (get on the mailing list etc.). The speaker for March is Bruce Good, I interviewed him about Name Your Hood last year.
Bruce returned to Cape Town in 2008 after living in London and New York for almost a decade. He has worked in publishing, for a multi-media startup and in property finance and development.
He completed his MBA with an exchange programme at NYU (Stern School of Business) in NYC. Bruce’s experiences overseas and his passion for property and branding led to the launch of Name Your Hood.
The objective of NYH is to introduce to our cities the benefits which a well-loved and known name has created for the neighbourhoods or districts of many international cities.
With the input of experts, NYH identifies and delineates neighbourhoods where it is appropriate that their faint outlines be emboldened. Anyone with an affinity for or bond to the identified areas are invited to suggest and then to vote on a name for it. In this way NYH is getting the residents of many neighbourhoods to consider, for the first time, the identity of the area in which they live, what they want its identity to be and what they want it to be known as.
NYH was launched in Cape Town’s City Bowl in July 2011 and kicks off in Gugulethu on Freedom Day, 27th April. NYH will be in Johannesburg in the second half of 2012.
I’m so happy to be involved in this… check it out!
CreativeMornings was started in 2009 by famous NYC blogger Swissmiss (Tina Roth Eisenberg) and now they happen all over the world: in New York, Zürich, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, London, Berlin, Vancouver, Stockholm, Boston, Milan and Auckland. Tina Roth Eisenberg wanted to create an accessible, inspiring morning event for people to meet. ‘Some call it TED for the rest of us,’ says website www.creativemornings.com. Capetonian Catherine Henderson started with the Creative Coffee Mornings in May 2010, bringing each month 15 to 20 creative people together, now it’s time to officially launch the chapter CreativeMornings Cape Town.
About CreativeMornings Cape Town: A monthly breakfast lecture series for creative types. Each event is free of charge, and includes a 20 minute talk, plus coffee.
The idea: To bring creative people together for a cup of coffee and an inspirational talk – on a Friday morning; start the day inspired.
Who does the talking? A creative from Cape Town: Stan Engelbrecht.
What they talk about? About their creative journey, and how they got to the point where they are today.
Stan Engelbrecht is an adventurous photographer capturing South African culture. Bicycle Portraits is a photographic book, two years in the making. A recent project by Stan Engelbrecht and Nic Grobler where they cycled over 6000 kilometers to collect over 500 portraits of everyday commuters., Bicycle Portraits investigates the South African bicycle culture, and the lack of cyclist commuters out there on our roads.
It goes like this
Arrive at 8.30am, grab a coffee and snacks (meet and greet at the Vida e Caffe for a complimentary coffee sponsored by USS Graphics, a large scale production house), be part of the introduction round to get to know your fellow creatives, listen to a 20-30 minute talk about a creative’s journey and then ask questions and mingle. At 9.30am the fun is over, now off to work, but inspired.
The talk will be held upstairs at 9am in the Harlem Room at the Upper East Side Hotel in Brickfield Road in Woodstock, Cape Town. February 24th 2012 08.30am – 09.30am.
Note: Secure underground parking is available for R10.
Registration opens on Monday, 20th February 2012 at 11 a.m. on Eventbrite (limited to 30 FREE tickets on a first come first serve basis).
Sign up to receive an email invitation to register for the CreativeMornings Cape Town monthly events and follow CreativeMornings Cape Town on Twitter for updates.