Happy New Year!

Whilst most people are probably out partying, i'm sitting here on the couch like a sad geek updating my blog with the latest and greatest news on stickytape. I'm sure everyone is depending on it so its a good thing that i'm sick as a dog on the couch from too much over-indulgence too early on in the festive season. Here is an artwork by my friend Tim Stevens - a photo collage with a beautiful frame made from Marti Guixe's frame stickytape featured in an earlier entry. I was lucky enough to get given a roll of this by Tim for christmas, just before we decided to make a frame for his collage of new zealand photos.



Whilst i'm here i also want to shown you this fantastic chair seemingly held together with electrical tape. Its done by my friend Nick Stevens and currently resides in Shadwell, London. (the chair that is), i'm not sure whether Nick purposefully left bits of the chair showing through or whether he eventually found something better to do than cover his chair in electrical tape. Either way, i love it.

sticky thorsten van elten

These are a couple of tapes designed by thorsten van elten and made in england. (http://thorstenvanelten.com) Not only are they sticking things together, but they indicate a completely different way of joinery through the graphic optical illusion. Love it!



They don't really need much else explanation apart from saying these are brilliant and its even better that you can actually buy them at the thorsten van elten stores around london.

Thick and thin

Tape is always more interesting when it is superwide or super narrow. I have found a few examples. This yellow wide tape is a whopping 5cm wide. I'm not sure what it is used for, i bet something to do with building, let me know if you know.



The multi-coloured pile of narrow tape is stage set 'spike' tape made by JVCC which is half inch gaffa tape made in 19 fantastic colours. This is what dreams are made of! Just think of all the amazing things you could do with this!

The usefullness of tape

Some tape is pretty like this illustrated london south bank architecture tape. Graphic, clean and tidy. I like it.



... and other tape is more graphically useful like this measuring tape tape (provided that the measurements are accurate). Maybe its not meant to be useful, just novel, in which case, thats fine too.

Christmas Cheer

SO hung over today... christmas festivities are very hardcore this year. Could only find a pic of this amazing christmas tape. If anyone finds it can they please send me a roll. Pretty please. Of if anyone has any other christmassy tape, send me pics so i can add to this section. Someone should do a christmas tape showing all the different colours and textures of puke when you drink too much at christmas.

The Message is in the tape

Its not sticky, but its tape. Normally enclosing some dramatic tragedy, this tape makes you double take when you realise that the message is the opposite of what you would expect it to be. This tape is clever and playful, i love the thinking behind it. It sums up an attitude towards design that i really love which is giving normally mundane objects a new lease of life or giving an object that you wouldn't look twice at a new hidden significance.

Uses of electrical tape

Just because it sounds so professional i stole this exerpt from everything2.com

"Electrical tape is slightly stretchy, insulating, fire resistant, vinyl adhesive tape used primarily to cover exposed electrical conductors, either to protect them from moisture or protect other equipment or people from coming into contact with them.

Electrical tape is generally applied by spinning the roll around the exposed wire in the direction that the tape comes off the roll. This applies some tension to the application as the adhesive pulls free from the roll, which keeps the tape tight as it is applied."



Other uses for electrical tape include:
* reducing overtones and pings on snare drums by applying it on the batterhead
* colour coding wire
* insulating wires
* used by rugby players to tape back their ears
* temporarily bundling things together (as it easily unsticks)
* replacing lost colours on rubik's cubes

For uses of other tapes, check out this web page: http://www.doityourself.com/stry/ducttape

Designer Tape

This is designer tape by Marti Guixe who takes a quirky and highly conceptual approach to the design of one of my favourite objects. The football tape and ornate frame tape show that tape can not only stick things together but create displays and objects in themselves.