Our first Arts Hijack launched last week, taking over 354 Coldharbour Lane in Brixton. The event was a two day festival fundraiser, and a true celebration of the incredible diversity and richness of talent within performance, music and arts.

Massive big up to Brickbox, Platform 33, Pinch Tv, and all of the artists who helped us put on this event.

Two whole photo sets of the build and event on Flickr:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/thomasforsyth/sets/72157631690507017/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/thomasforsyth/sets/72157631587265604/

Working with an incredible team of freelancers for Secret Productions and Papa Projects, we managed to build and break a mammoth 8 room, Santa’s Grotto theme party, for Google UK’s Christmas bash, in under 24 hours! (That includes the actual party as well)

I was involved in making some hilarious creations, including a giant ‘Chesterfield style’ sofa, a karaoke area complete with a bespoke ‘fireplace karaoke-star entrance’, set into a ‘faux’ black brick wall, with red glitter mortar, and a christmas tree forest cinema.

Once again, a truely incredible team, making it happen in the face of late deliveries, an enormous workload and plenty of sleep-depravation. Against the odds… really good fun!

As usual, plenty more photos here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/thomasforsyth/sets/72157628441794601/with/6520498223/

Commissioned desk chair for lovers who also enjoy working together.

Summer 2011 brought another hefty chunk of work, with Papa Projects, on the UK festival circuit, including Lovebox, Glastonbury and Vintage Festival. A pretty intense patch, but here are some of the fun bits:

The summer kicked off with pre-fabricating and building a bespoke venue for Gaymers Cider, (designed by Nick Bartlett of Secret Productions), which included a cider bar, dj booth, performance stage and VIP area.

I only wish that I’d filmed the insane amounts of unbelievably heavy rain we had to deal with in the build week. More Glastonbury photos on Flickr:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/thomasforsyth/sets/72157628346175665/

For Vintage Festival on London’s Southbank, I was involved in pre-fabricating and construction managing a set of six bespoke, faux warehouse fronts, which made the facia for six huge marquee-turned-shops, in the Vintage fashion market area of the festival.

The layout and structure were designed by Nick Bartlett, with imagery designs provided by Cath Kidston, New Era, Benefit, Oxfam, Horrockses and Batiste. Then I was fortunate enough to be working with the incredible design/paint crew De5ign4, who reworked and transferred these designs by hand onto the structures! Legends.

Again loads more photographs on Flickr: 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/thomasforsyth/sets/72157627726819902/

The bespoke, adjustable work table that I designed for our Evening Tweed room in the exhibition ‘Pick Me Up 2011’ @ Somerset House, London.

I’ve just had a lovely afternoon on my balcony with Cathy and Oscar from Anorak, making boats together for a feature in their amazing kids magazine.

A slight adaption on the boats I designed for Push Print before Christmas, turned them into a DIY fun project for kids.

Get your copy of (the amazing) Anorak Magazine next month for full instructions:

http://www.anorak-magazine.co.uk/

It’s been another great year at Somerset House for Pick Me Up 2011 with the Evening Tweed crew. This year we turned our room into what got described as ‘a sort of bottom of the garden studio’… We liked that description.

The show is such a special one to be involved in. It has such a friendly, excitable air to it, with thousands of visitors over the duration and such an incredibly high standard of work displayed. 

A big thank you to the organisers for pulling together another fantastic show.

Loads more photos on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/thomasforsyth/sets/72157626333170120/with/5650104377/

The mighty talented Jonathan Green has nailed these photographs of a recent commission I had, to design and make free-standing hardware for a permanent, interactive sound installation at Cleethorpes Academy, North East Lincolnshire, UK.

The hardware consists of 6 infra-red sensor units and 1 lectern that houses an iPad. 

The sensor units pick up and track movement. This is all linked to special iPad software created by David Stevens and Simon Desorgher.

The equipment will predominantly be used to aid music and sound lessons and performances. The interactive system is great for children, as they don’t need dexterity in order to get involved and play with sound.

More lovely photographs on Flickr:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/thomasforsyth/sets/72157626208428635/with/5552684743/

Well. After its incredible birth last year, ‘Pick Me Up’ is back at Somerset House, London and it’s looking to be even bigger and better, with more twists and surprises than last years cutting edge show!

Myself and the rest of the Tweeds have been asked back and once again given one whole room to do as we please with.

This year you can expect live action, workshops, and of course fresh new work available to  buy straight from the space!

It’s going to be a great show with plenty of opportunities to snap up work from some of the worlds leading contemporary graphic designers and artists, so make sure you get your tickets before they’re all gone:

http://shop.somersethouse.org.uk/product/Events/Pick-Me-Up/224

It’s Nice That approached me before Christmas to design a bespoke working toy / customer relation gift for Push Print, London.

We liked the idea of playing with the company name Push, which eventually led to these working miniature wooden boats, made in collaboration with It’s Nice That and illustrator Sroop Sunar.

To finish off 2010, I spent New Years documenting and helping out with a very special Contemporary Circus Spectacular in Belgium, bringing together some of the finest artists in Europe for one night of immense talents and mind-bending performance.

A huge thank you to the organisers of this unbelievable event for their incredible kindness and hospitality during our stay.

You can see photographs of the whole event on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/thomasforsyth/sets/72157625630840803/