Of course there are many instantly regretted drunken or impulsive tattoos around, but they aren’t the majority. The popularity of tattoos has continued to increase. Why?

Perhaps, as Fiona Scoble suggests in this month’s Sticky, the fashion for tattoos could in part be a reaction against the homogenized mass-market mainstream; a perfect way to express individuality. Academic research suggests a similar theory; back in 2007, Jeff Murray, marketing professor for the Sam M. Walton College of Business, conducted a study called “Inscribing the Myth: the Role of Tattoos in Identification”. He found that our culture has become fractured, and concluded that “consumer culture reflects this situation, as consumers adapt to these changes by varying their lifestyle. They downshift, upgrade, change their hair, body, clothes, car, house, career, geographic location and even family. The result is a loss of personal anchors needed for identity. We found that tattoos provide this anchor. Their popularity reflects a need for stability, predictability, permanence and identity.”

Whilst still not exactly mainstream, tattoos are definitely more likely to be featured in global marketing than ever before.

Armani feature Megan Fox’s tattoos prominently in their perfume ad campaigns; Ed Hardy is famous for incorporating the Japanese tattoo style into his clothing designs (now also coming to a hairdryer near you as part of ‘Ed Hardy Professional Styling Tools’!); the singer Pink’s husband Carey Hart is a motocross racer who also owns four tattoo parlours under the name ‘Hart and Huntingdon’ and has a clothing line based on the designs of the artists that work at his tattoo company, modeled by Pink herself.

The irony that clothing and other tattoo-inspired products are not unique is hardly likely to quench people’s desire for them. The mere act of liking or buying tattoos and tattoo inspired products helps people to define and express themselves.

Tattoos can be part of your ‘personal myth’, the ultimate in branding yourself as unique, as developing and designing your own journey and identity. They are art taken to the extreme. As mixed in with fashion and celebrity-culture as tattoos have become, they are also art, and in our ever-changing society, the ultimate form of self-expression.

By Emma Murray

With thanks to http://www.physorg.com/news117211150.html

And
http://smlxtralarge.com/2010/10/08/tattoos-identity-and-meaning/

Note: Jeff Murray no relation to author of article. Jeff Murray’s study, titled “Inscribing the Myth: the Role of Tattoos in Identification” was published in Research in Consumer Behavior, a journal presenting the latest research, theory and methods in the field of consumer behavior.

Images Courtesy of here and here

Enter the term ‘street-art’. Street-art is a trend that gives a lot of old buildings new meanings and some boring utensils a new fresh look. Many street-artists want you to look at things a little bit different. The world is a playground if you really want too; only you have to open your mind for it. Many different people are noticing this (companies, even politics) and are very willing to collaborate with them, to deliver their own personal message.

A few examples… In the Netherlands we have an artist called FAKE. This artist uses stencils, clean lines and colorful subject. Using Amsterdam as his playground, he is probably the most famous stencil artist in the Netherlands. With his art, FAKE wants to bring a smile on people’s faces through humor and a sense of irony. But most of all, the stencils are used to tell us a story. Like FAKE Love, a story of how love sometimes really hurts… (picture to left)

Looking abroad, we find many street-artists, who express themselves all in a different way. In Lisbon city, street-artists and the city’s hall department of Urban Art Gallery joined forces to look at 415 recycling containers for glass. They launched a contest to improve the look and feel of those containers. Not only artists, but housewives and children were able to do this, which resulted in some beautiful masterpieces.

But probably the most well-known example is the piano staircase in Sweden. A cool initiative of TheFunTheory.com, which is actually sponsored by Volkswagen, they want to show us that the easiest way to improve our behavior is to make it fun. Instead of taking the escalator all the time, why not take the staircase for some extra exercise? This staircase even plays the right note when you stand on it. Für Elise anybody?

By Martin Bonke

Image Courtesy of here

Recently, there’s been a resurgence of “artful” gig posters, as bands are collaborating with local, independent presses and designers to sell comparatively upscale prints at their concerts, festivals, and events. Many of these posters, which often range in price from $20-30 (or between £15-20), are printed in limited batches or even screen-printed by hand. Plus, most of the posters are signed and numbered by the designer and specify information like the exact tour date, location, and venue.

The art featured on these posters varies depending on the creator and the music. While some designers utilize bold typography to highlight the band’s name, others focus on creative imagery and disguise the gig information within the art. Thematically, these unique posters run the gambit between film noir-esque to romantic to natural to absurd.

This trend is particularly interesting because it means that youth are spending a bit more money on souvenirs that are also more imaginative and substantive. This combination of art and music is not just a movement confined to retrospective museum exhibitions, anymore; it also represents a progressive collaboration for the future of both mediums.

Be sure to check out the slideshow to the left for examples! (Click on the word ’slideshow’ to be taken to the full show!)

By Hilary Saunders

Image courtesy of here

Last year The Guardian invited readers to take part in their photo project 52 Weeks and this year the concept of documenting one’s own life seems to have gained more popularity.

It doesn’t matter whether you consider yourself a serious photographer or seem to have the knack for taking nice pictures on Instagram, anyone can set up a blog and start posting pictures. I myself have seen people posting their art and photography on sites such as Tumblr, which has led to people buying their work.

It is much easier to become an artist in your own right thanks to the internet, you can publicise your work and build a following right from the comfort of your own living room, much like the citizen journalist – you don’t need to work for a newspaper to get your writing seen.

As much as these photo-a-day projects can be seen as self-expression, they can also be viewed as a public diary and it must be fulfilling to take the time at the end of the year and look back at what you’ve seen and done.

I myself considered beginning the photo a day project on my own blog, but I’ve never expressed myself through photography, so I decided to post a song a day. I think blogs can be seen as a form of self-expression as equally as art, photography and music.

Finally, an interesting take on all these projects I recently came across was this video by Vimeo user, hey_rabbit, she shot a few seconds of video every day for a year to create this ‘one second a day’ video. It’s truly beautiful.

It shows that user generated content can be art that gains a cult following.

By Sian Jones

Image Courtesy of here

Now here in Buenos Aires, like Berlin, Sao Paulo, Rome, London etc, street art is mainly what it says on the tin: art on the street. So when a brand ‘guerrilla’ graffiti’s all over your work, you’re going to be annoyed. This is what has happened with the boys from the Buenos Aires street scene and they’re reclaiming the territory.

On a quiet muraled lane sits a large sprayed neon green square with the owner clearly marked below – a major electronics brand. Beneath the square you can just make out the remains of someone’s laboured street art. Not only playing a disrespectful game, the electronics brand have managed to piss off the resident artists so much so that a quiet war is brewing, with the artists continuously seeking out these blatant distortions of street art and recover their space. Graffiti in Buenos Aires is about freedom of expression, lightening of mood after dark political and economic times and enabling anyone to experience art in a city where a big chunk of the population wouldn’t dream of entering a gallery.

Not that there is something wrong with brands getting involved with the graffiti scene, as the Red Bull sponsored ‘House of Art’ showcase demonstrated. The mega brand sponsored Pop Up Galleries to acquire an abandoned house for the artists to paint, inviting anyone to walk in and view after the work was finished.  In a subtler stroke of marketing, Red Bull took a step back and created opportunities for artists and spectators alike. The project involved many of the top street artists making a derelict and downtrodden space downright delightful. The success of the project was mainly credited to the minimum presence of branding and advertising, yet for Red Bull, the involvement helped position the brand as frontrunners in supporting an interesting underground scene.

After all, in Buenos Aires, and indeed the rest of the world, street art is about accessibility, social representation, community and collaboration. Brands would do well to remember that.

By Alex Glynn

Image courtesy of Alex Glynn, taken in Buenos Aires, January 2012

Unique, prized artworks feel familiar to us as we’ve seen their image repeated across the internet, TV, postcards, and T-shirts. Van Gogh’s ‘Sunflowers’ has the same resonance as the Coca-Cola logo.

David Hockney took this phenomenon a step further in his ‘Fresh Flowers’ exhibition of 2011 by creating every image using the ‘Brushes’ app on his iPhone and iPad. In the gallery these images were displayed on mounted devices and projected on screens, while a selection were available for free download from the gallery website. Every image was a perfect duplication of the original, and could be forwarded, copied, or published online.

Digital art has not only allowed us access to great artists, but through websites like deviantART it has allowed millions of would-be artists access to the public.

However, one thing that digital artwork lacks is tangibility. For most digital reproductions we are divorced from the scale and creative process of the original. We might be familiar with ‘Sunflowers’ but we can’t really know it until, in the presence of the original, we can discern the thick brushstrokes van Gogh built up to evoke the flowers’ texture.

Perhaps it’s a reaction to the glut of digital images that there is currently a resurgence of more traditional art practices. It was hard to miss Rob Ryan’s distinctive paper cuts and screen prints appearing in galleries, on cards, and throughout magazines last year. Similarly screen print posters, like those of artist Jay Ryan, have rapidly gained popularity over the last decade.

Perhaps the fashion for tattoos could in part be a reaction against intangible, ubiquitous digital images. In a society where individuality is highly prized, what better way to express ourselves than by choosing images uniquely important to us and having them tattooed onto our skin?

Digital reproduction grants us ever-increasing exposure to images, but there remains an ingrained desire for original artwork and the mark of the artist’s hand.

By Fiona Scoble

Image Courtesy of here

Fashion brand and artist collaborations appeal to young people who truly want to wear their ‘art on their sleeve’. Especially appealing in the youth sphere are street artists joining forces with brands for an ironic twist on fashion. “Graffiti-as-art-as-fashion”, similar to tattoo-inspired clothing lines, is a way to express yourself as an individual.

According to Harold Koda, the head curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute, the recent proliferation of artist-designer collaborations is a product of a postmodern creative landscape in which “fashion or fine arts became a playground of ideas”.

Sneaker brands are particularly astute at this, and are the most likely type of brand to collaborate successfully with popular and infamous street artists on designs. For example, Reebok teamed up with two 3D street artists, Joe & Max, to create a Guinness World Record breaking painting of plunging cliffs and waterfalls on a London street. The fact that the amazing 3D street art was sponsored by Reebok CrossFit helped to distinguish that brand as one that encourages individualism, freedom of expression, and almost rebellion: the three factors that street art and graffiti combine.

Similarly, the Levi’s x MOCA Trucker Jackets were created to commemorate the Levi’s Film Workshop that is taking place at The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA) as part of the ‘Art in the Streets’ exhibit going on. Throughout the workshop, the story of street art is displayed via video projects.  The art on the Levi’s x MOCA Trucker Jackets come from the ten street artists whose works are also being shown in ‘Art in the Streets’.

Art and fashion collaborations are a commercial force to be reckoned with.

By Emma Murray

Image Courtesy of here

For me, the Parisian street artist known as ‘JR’ is the perfect example of what can be achieved through this medium. His utilization of public space allows him to exhibit his socially relevant work in “the largest art gallery in the world”. His creativity and expression is given a free reign as it is spared of the usual limitations that arenas such as galleries or museums may require. JR is a true humanitarian whose art inspires people to look at the world differently and want to work to make it better. JR’s mind-blowing creations have inspired people to see art where they wouldn’t expect it and create it when they didn’t know they could.

The artist doesn’t reveal his identity or the intended meaning of his work. He is embodying a pure form of guerilla art. His works, like the Ladj Ly — a photograph that captures all the tensions of the 2004 Paris suburb riots, is perhaps his most poignant, whilst there are plethoras of other works that are eye-opening and challenge many issues on modern society. His projects in some of the poorest regions of the world are what have caught such great international attention, appreciation and applause.

JR’s experimenting turned Kibera, Kenya, one of Africa’s biggest slums, into a vast exhibition space. He initially visited Kibera to take photographs of its residents and returned a year later to plaster their portraits on train carriages and on the roofs of their houses.By using waterproof vinyl material, he ensured his art might have a practical purpose. “By making their roofs rainproof, what we did made sense. They loved it.”

JR seeks to aggrandize ordinary people, and his community projects also led him to the Favelas of Rio and the conflicted region that separates Israel from the West Bank. JR claims he is not political, but that he is an “artist with a cause”. His art certainly causes people to think. He has never caused more of a rumpus than he did in Israel and Palestine, where he pasted photographs of three religious worthies — a rabbi, an imam and a priest — pulling silly faces. JR put their pictures everywhere: in Ramallah, in Tel Aviv and, most famously, on the wall that separates Israel from the West Bank. He was even arrested by the Israeli army for his ‘meddling’.

JR is certainly bold, brave and brazen, willing to be a maverick pariah artist if needs must to get his message across. His engagement and edification of the world’s poorest is not only commendable but also artistically inspiring and interesting. Most fascinating and creditworthy is the fact that he reinvests profits back into his projects. Indeed, the trade in his pictures — created in Third World slums, bought by affluent westerners, reinvested in the slums — makes him somewhat of a Street-Art-Robin-Hood figure.

By Jamie Sweeney
Image Courtesy of Jamie Sweeney

Keeping with Sticky tradition, we carried out a seasonal office poll on ‘My Christmas Wish List for Technology Devices’. As was seen last year, the iPad is still the must have Christmas gift at MTV. This year however, Kindle topped the Mac Book for our tech savvy team, coming in second place.

1. iPad
2. Kindle
3. Mac Book Pro
4. Gaming consoles

(Honourable mention to the member of staff who asked for a decommissioned General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon with full US Navy grade digital flight systems)

The battle of the tablets

According to Ender Research, Apple alone has sold 40m iPads (25m in 2011) and goes into the Christmas season with no credible competitors beyond Amazon’s Kindle Fire, which is so far only available in the USA. The iPad’s success is set to continue with speculation of an iPad 3 for 2012 ramping up.

Android tablets such as the Motorola Xoom and Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, and BlackBerry PlayBook  are still some way off matching the success of iPads, with Apple’s iconic machines selling three times as many units as more basic android tablets in September 2011.

Overall it’s not bad news for the tablet market; IC Insights predicts that the market will grow by 81% between 2010 and 2015.

But what does this all mean for the youth market?

1. Lot’s more spending on apps: Be Viacom’s ‘Kid’s and Mobile: Let’s get personal’ report reveals that 74% of iPad users have paid for an app, this provides great opportunities for brands to monetize their apps through creating more innovative features.

2. Funky apps to engage with youth market: Our study also found that the top motivations for iPad use is for fun and has lots of different things which you can do to curb boredom. 

3. More family friendly inventions: Of iPads in the home, 83% are shared family devices – paving the way for more interactive games for the whole family to play. Such apps are likely to experience high download rates in the build up to Christmas.

4. New entry level price points and the ‘social factor’: there are great lessons to be learned from Blackberry. The phone brand, which traditionally had mass appeal with business city slickers, has successfully tapped into the youth market through introducing lower priced models and Blackberry Messenger (BBM) functionality. Young people want Blackberrys because they are affordable and social, says research consultancy GFK. A lower end iPad offering highly social capabilities could be the way forward in growing the youth market.

By Maria Sonni-Ali

Image Courtesy of here

Amazon have reported sales in excess of a million a week for its Kindle devices this December, and with many other e-readers available across the world the question is once again being posed about the future of the physical book.

It must be said that not everyone is on board with the boom of the e-reader, many still deny the aesthetic quality that it holds to a paper book that one can handle, fold, crumple and crease, and they are right. This obviously hasn’t been a problem for the e-reader though, so perhaps outside of the audience that remains blissfully ignorant of what an e-reader is, or those who grasp to the idea of the book remaining the only way to read, the purpose of the book in a physical form will change, in much the same way that music in physical form is changing. Many consumers in the music world now confess to downloading material (by legal means or otherwise) before buying a physical copy in whatever form they are preferable to. In many cases these physical records are also beginning to show more standout aesthetic details or appear as a ‘limited edition package’, and perhaps this will be the future of physical book sales.

Upon collecting the Man Booker Prize 2011 for his novel “The Sense of an Ending”, British author Julian Barnes drew attention to the design of his book and stated the importance of this decision:
“Those of you who’ve seen my book - whatever you may think of its contents - will probably agree that it is a beautiful object. And if the physical book, as we’ve come to call it, is to resist the challenge of the e-book, it has to look like something worth buying and worth keeping.”

With the growing number of tablet computers now on the market and the rumoured launch of the iPad 3 and the Kindle Fire 2 in early 2012, other physical publications such as magazines and newspapers will also be looking at how they might re-assess their output. The Guardian newspaper has already released an application specific to the iPad, stating upon its release that the company didn’t want to make something that was just the newspaper on the tablet, and that it needed to look and feel different, and include some level of unique content. And it is these two integral elements of the physical book that will keep it from eradication for many, many years to come.

The book will live on, but e-readers and tablet computers are becoming a big part of people’s lives and will certainly start to infiltrate businesses, schools and all other walks of life on a day-to-day basis. I just hope I’ve been a good enough for Santa to bring me one this year…

By Callum Joynes

Image Courtesy of here