[Image credits: Image of Gideon Koppel, copyright David Swindells. Further images stills from Sleep Furiously]

As Aesthetica is teaming up with the London Centre for Arts and Cultural Exchange this October for the Inside Out Festival, we have had a chat with award-winning film-maker Gideon Koppel, an and academic at the Royal Holloway, in anticipation of his work at Inside Out Festival. Koppel will be leading a discussion with Theodore Zeldin about a new kind of film-based portaiture at the National Portrait Gallery. There will also be a screening and panel discussion of his mesmerising film Sleep Furiously.

I know that I’ve been banging on about the DIY ethic for sometime now, but there is something rather wholesome about making your own things. You feel less reliance on manufacturing and more creative. Not to mention the whole sweatshop debacle.

Recently, I’ve been in touch with Angie at Fife Contemporary Art and Craft. She’s been letting me know about the fantastic work that they doing with the Marzee Collection. Fine art and craft have always had a contentious relationship, often one snubbing the other, with this in mind, the boundaries do change frequently.

emerge – the London Design Festival’s debut graduate graphic design showcase –has announced details of the 2009 programme and exhibition, to be held at Rich Mix from 19th – 27th September. A first for the London Design Festival (LDF), emerge will host a range of shows and initiatives throughout the Festival, aiming to inspire young designers, and support recent graduates in the field. The shows are some of the best places to pick up on emerging talent (pardon the pun), but seriously, worth a glance – raw creativity.

Poland has one of the most vibrant emerging design scenes in Europe. As part of POLSKA! YEAR, a group of young designers will show new work in a venue in the Brompton Design District.The show will represent a broad spectrum of creativity: furniture design, industrial design, graphic design, fashion, animation, architecture and innovative engineering.

You may have heard me mention Illustrative from time to time or the feature on “Defining the Art of Illustration” which was published last year?

Illustrative is a unique international exhibition for contemporary illustration and graphics. In 2009, the event returns to its hometown Berlin. From the 16th of October to the 1st of November, more than 60 artists will present an inspiring cornucopia of current graphical art. The Illustrative Talks, a series of lectures about contemporary illustration and graphic design, will open Illustrative this year. Illustrative will invite its audiences to go on a journey that is devoted to discovering tendencies and visual trends coming from graphic design, illustration, book art, comic, concept art or animation, branching out into the field of art.