Statue of David Bowie unveiled in Aylesbury

Ceramic artist Matthew Raw “got into clay” during his BA in Wood, Metal, Ceramics and Plastics at university of Brighton. “Growing up I was more interested in photography and graphic design, but had an instinctive draw towards three rather than two dimensions,” Matthew tells It’s Nice That. “It was the immediacy and variety of using my hands to shape clay that attracted me. It is such an expressive medium and I began to make work inspired by events and situations around me. Coupling this with a non-interest in functionality, and I guess that that’s how it’s panned out really.”

Artist Mark Alsweiler creates folk-inspired figures out of salvaged materials and paints them in delicate pastel colours mixed in with punchy reds and blues. “I love old folk art and outsider art figures, so I was influenced by that type of naive work. Also I wanted to have a 3D element in one of my shows a few years back so reinterpreted the figures from my paintings into sculptures and they have grown from there,” explains Mark.

Berlin-based artist Maiko Gubler can usually be found creating deceptively three-dimensional imagery utilising a mixture of 3D modelling software. She’s created glossy ceramic-like fruits for magazine covers, metallic fish for German club albums but now she’s actually making objects that exist in the real world. Her collection of Gradient Bangles are created from 3D-printed gypsum and uniquely coloured to create an extraordinary range of jewellery. Lovely stuff.

Rodan Kane Hart is a South African artist and graduate of the Michaelis School of Art in Cape Town. Having only received his bachelors degree in 2011 he’s got a pretty impressive body of sculptures to his name already that broadly deal with the colonial origins of modern South Africa. Though I’d struggle to say that I appreciate the fine details of the concepts behind his practise, I’m incredibly impressed by his use of materials; the balance of industrial and natural substances and the interplay he creates between geometric forms and landscape. Definitely one to watch.

Humankind’s relationship to drinking water has developed into what can only be described as a toxic one. This is particularly true in our cities where tensions surrounding water have resulted in many calling for a ban on single-use, disposable plastic bottles. In what is the beginning of a year-long programme, A/D/O has launched the Water Futures Design Challenge. An incentivised contest, it “challenges designers and creators to conceptualise and imagine innovative new ways to solve this global crisis.”

Publishing a new body of work by photographer Harley Weir, Baron’s latest issue Function explores the conflicting messages we’re exposed to surrounding the “purpose” of the female body. The brazen set of fashion and documentary images, art directed by Jamie Reid, present sexual desire and reproduction alongside one another – for example showing the female nipple as both an erogenous zone and a feeding station, and, in turn, how it simultaneously causes desire and disgust. These are curated in the book to examine human biology and how it’s represented in society.

Sometimes it’s the projects that never make it out into the real world that are the most fascinating. Without being watered down by rounds of client tweaks, you can really see the inner workings of a designer’s brain. Or that’s how we feel about Haw-lin Services’s concept identity for Berlin Biennale 9, which the duo just popped up on their site. Working on the projected with former HORT colleague Tim Schmitt, the typographic-led identity is a slick medley of sci-films and corporate culture. And, although unused, is an interesting musing on the role of corporate sponsorship in the art world.

In 2019, the iconic 1960s roundabout in Old Street, London, will be entirely removed and a two-way traffic system introduced, creating a new public space. As part of the regeneration, Islington Council in partnership with the Mayor of London, Transport for London and Hackney Council asked designers to consider how the street could look after the roundabout is removed. Four winning concepts have now been chosen from a long-list of 39 designers which included Zaha Hadid Architects and Es Devlin.

A portfolio including typefaces named after Bill Gates and Elton John is one that’s hard to ignore. Combine this with expertly designed specimens that are both accomplished and humorous and you’re onto a winner. For the Copenhagen-based designer, Paw Poulsen, the combination of popular culture, typography and print design has helped him define a distinctive aesthetic and tone of voice.

“We like to look at our practice as a balancing act between rationality and emotion,” states Porto-based graphic design studio, Non–Verbal Club. Comprised of Joana Sobral, Susana Almeida, João Martino and Miguel Almeida, the studio recently utilised this balancing act to create a beautifully sleek identity for Teatro Nacional de São Carlos.

Ben Kopp is a name which will be recognised by keen followers of The Smudge, Clay Hickson’s politically-charged monthly riso newspaper which came into being at the same time that Donald Trump was elected as President. The Philadelphia-based illustrator was commissioned by the paper back in September for a feature written by Mary Hirsch.

Iggy Ldn is a progressive, forward-thinking artist. His earlier films Fatherhood and Black Boys Don’t Cry challenged preconceptions of masculinity in the hope to combat pervasive black male stereotypes. But for his third venture, Silk, Iggy looked back to the jazz era for inspiration. “I think of it as a time where people weren’t so aware of themselves; their appearance and behaviours were less calculated and they were more natural in their self-expression,” Iggy tells It’s Nice That. His latest film is an unapologetic reminder to appreciate the present moment during a time of Instagram likes and Snapchat stories. It captures a young black man dressed in various impeccable outfits against a backdrop of draping, white silk and is accompanied by a series of striking photographs

“Surfing is fun but I suck at it,” illustrator Brian Blomerth tells It’s Nice That. “I can stand up but that’s about it, and that took two years of hard work in this wetsuit I got off of Ebay for $15. The wetsuit looked disgusting. A classic surfer kerfuffle. So yes, I’m a poser. A kook. It’s fun to admit it… I kinda wish you didn’t have to actually surf because my favourite part is honestly just sitting out there bobbing up and down like an idiot. Splashing around and turning occasionally. I had a funny incident with a fish that kind of inspired this whole little book.”

“See Naples and die,” Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe of Faust fame espoused in his book Italian Journey in 1786. Leaving behind his claustrophobic fame, his duties as Privy Councillor in the Duchy of Weimar and a long-term flirtation, Goethe, like many rich men of his day, travelled to Naples as part of a Grand Tour and found the city so beautiful, so opulent, that he knew that he would die without regret after visiting its shores. That and the fact that there was hella debauchery going on.

With distorted bodies, crossed eyes and friendly expressions, Miroco Machiko’s portfolio of animal illustrations is exactly the kind of zoo we can get behind. The Osaka-born, Tokyo-based artist and illustrator has an incredible knack for capturing the magic of the animal kingdom, her expressive brushstrokes and rainbow palette transforming even the most mundane creatures – moths for example – into glorious beasts.

Max Weinland is an innovative Hamburg-based designer who has accumulated a wide-ranging portfolio. Max spends the majority of his time working as an art director at various design agencies as well as running the type foundry Riesling Type alongside Timo Durst. The rest of his time is spent freelancing, designing typefaces and teaching.

“Like most people now in their 20s, I was raised by the internet. I was manipulating images as soon as I got my first computer,” says New York City-based graphic designer Si Weon Kim. Downloading Photoshop at a young age, Si Weon began making covers for her burned mix CDs at 11. She has now developed a subtle yet accomplished aesthetic, her early interactions with the internet still evident throughout her work, stating artists such as Sondra Perry as an inspiration.

After earning a Bafta nomination and winning best short at the British Animation Awards, Will Anderson has released his film Have Heart in full online. It follows a beleaguered animated gif as he endures an existential crisis, stuck in a loop on the internet. Visually simple yet profoundly innovative, the animation comments on a world of infinite content and how we measure our own self worth via social media, all through the character arc of its protagonist, Duck.

Earlier this month, Coca-Cola announced it would produce its first ever alcoholic drink, an alco-pop to be launched solely in Japan. The idea is to tap into the lucrative market for chu-hi, canned fizzy drinks given a kick with a local spirit called shochu. The world’s largest soft drinks company making its move into this sector is significant, and symbolic of many other western brands trying their luck in the Asian alcohol world where huge brands such as Asahi, Kirin and Suntory already have a presence. But how do you design the branding and packaging for a product aimed at a firmly established market on the other side of the world, as well as back home? Here to enlighten us is Dylan Griffith, co-founder of Cardiff and Amsterdam-based design studio Smörgåsbord, which recently collaborated on the creation of the first European-made soju, Wihayo.

During the frostiest days of the Cold War, the United States harboured thousands of Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles in a network of bases hidden underground. Although the threat of nuclear Armageddon is, for the most part, shelved (for now) and the accompanying arsenal is largely defunct, much of the infrastructure still remains, giving visitors a glimpse into the fear of living under the mad logic of Mutually Assured Destruction.