Bistro Boulevard

When I'm not busy designing houses and other spaces, I like to dabble in graphics (obviously...!) And from time to time friends ask me to help them out, which of course I am always happy to oblige.

Bistro Boulevard is a little French bistro here in Avalon, which is owned by one of my oldest and dearest friends Nathalie, and her hubby Patrice. The restaurant has a very long history, with Nat's parents Alain and Caroline first opening it back in 1973 (where it was known as Le Boulevard).

After spending a few years living in France, Nathalie and Patrice returned to the Northern Beaches and after a bit of a refurbishment, took over the restaurant a little over a year ago. With an authentic, mouthwatering menu and the friendliest service around, needless to say it has a been a roaring success—and I am ever so proud of them!

So if you are up Avalon way and are yet to try Bistro Boulevard I thoroughly recommend you do—their Steak Frites served with Café de Paris butter and French fries is soooooo yum! But best to reserve a table as they are quite often fully booked....

Anyway, I have just been updating their extensive wine list, so thought I'd share some images of the menus and branding I created for them.

MJx

Bistro Boulevard wine list by Marika Jarv

Gorrow House in Green Magazine Issue 31

"The serenity of this bathroom can be attributed to it's simplicity: rendered walls and floors of polished concrete with exposed aggregate and benches made from recycled timber planks. Taps and shower heads, in their raw brass form, from the Roulette range by CB Ideal Tapware and a pre-owned vintage soap/ toothbrush holder add to the muted tones. Externally mounted timber stacking/sliding doors provide large openings for an abundance of natural light and ventilation."

The ensuite I designed for the Gorrow House in North Bondi, is featured in the latest Green Magazine as one of their "pick of the best" bathrooms for this year. I love, love, LOVE unpolished, exposed brass fixtures.... and being able to juxtapose them against black fittings and raw cement rendered walls was just peachy...!

MJx

Gorrow House featured on Habitus Living

"Thus began a collaborative, experimental and occasionally spontaneous design process. The client’s open-mindedness allowed Järv to push her creative limits and incorporate materials and details that more conventional residents would shy away from."

A few years ago I got to work with an interesting client (another creative), who was willing explore unconventional design solutions and wanted to experiment with a "clash in the house". The brief was to transform an unremarkable 1960's brick labyrinth of a house, into a modern, open-plan living space with an emphasis on entertaining. A fashion designer who regularly pushed the boundaries in his own line of work, the client had eclectic taste, was widely travelled, as well as being an avid surfer, so it was essential the new home conveyed a relaxed beach-side quality, yet had international appeal.

The Gorrow House was reluctantly sold when the client relocated overseas, however it's new owners graciously agreed to have über-cool architecture and design mag Habitus recently photograph the house for their website which you can check out here.

And if you are interested you can also check out some more images on my website here.

Enjoy!

MJx

Photography by Jesus del Toro Garcia

Inside Out Blog

Was soooo very delighted to be featured on the INSIDE OUT blog today.

"Remember the love and effort that you used to put into making a mix tape?

Well try translating that into an artwork. Music loving designer Marika Järv has in her

'Wall of Sound' prints and we're huge fans."

Thanks Inside Out for the ever-so-lovely intro!

And I will admit, I am hugely flattered that despite the mountain of ah-maz-ing things that the
Inside Out team must see each day, my Wall of Sound prints have found a
happy place in a couple of their homes—so yes they really are FANS!

Anyway, you can read all about my favourite music moments, plus a little bit about the
making of Wall of Sound by clicking here.

Enjoy!

MJx

Christmas Giveaway

On the first day of Christmas,

My true love gave to me....

(hopefully a Wall of Sound limited edition print!)

Ok so Xmas is officially less than one month away - eeeeek!

(and if you are anything like me that means you haven't bought a thing!)

Anyway to get into the festive spirit I'm giving away a

WALL of SOUND
limited edition print.

Simply click on this link for how to enter

www.marikajarv.com.au/giveaway

Best of luck!

MJx

ShopSmart in the Sunday Telegraph

"Naming every band you've danced to is hard enough, but entwining 500 of them into a record-shaped artwork is on another level altogether. Marika Järv spent five years perfecting the Wall of Sound as a nod to record producer Phil Spector's mixing technique. The result is a mesmerising work that links artists by the first and last letters of their names."

Thanks to Clare Patience from Inside Out for picking Wall of Sound as her "DON'T MISS" product in last weekend's ShopSmart guide in the Sunday Telegraph.

MJx

GQ Men Of The Year 2012

GQ Men of The Year issue is out now—
with WALL of SOUND featured as # 1 on their 'THE HIT LIST'!

"We're loving these limited-edition prints by Marika Järv. Entitled Wall of Sound and named after the production technique pioneered by legendary music producer Phil Spector (crazy hair, murder conviction), they feature the names of over 500 musicians arranged in a spiral like the grooves of a record. They're a subtle way to add an arty touch to your walls, though what we like most is Järv's attention to detail. In black, gold or clear—only 100 of each are available, so get in quick."

Thanks for the nice words GQ—

oh and thanks for putting Chris Hemsworth on the cover too

(yikes)!

PS. Congrats to Nick Littlemore and Peter Mayes from Pnau for winning "Band of the Year"
(I think you might find them hidden somewhere on the Wall of Sound...!)

MJx

Inside Out Summer Entertaining Special

"Don't underestimate the importance of good music. You can really set the mood for the

evening —whether it is relaxed or upbeat, music is the key to a good party."

The Inside Out Summer Entertaining Special is now out and is chock-full of goodness.

Like the above tip from Vogue Editor-in-Chief Edwina McCann; it's her advice when posed the question—What does every fabulous soiree need? And I couldn't agree more.

Another great tip, and alongside Edwina on page 20, is the 'Editor's pick' for the summer

Shopping + News guide, and oh looky there is a sneaky pic of WALL of SOUND!

MJx

Belle Magazine Dec/Jan 2012-13

"Marika Järv is the designer behind PrintDolls who started the craze for tram-roll art.

Her new work, 'Wall of Sound', is inspired by a vinyl album."

Big thanks to Belle's Managing Editor Tanya Buchanan for including the Wall of Sound

in her 'Belle Inbox—Note to self: Must put these events and pieces top of the list'.

The latest issue of Belle: The Holiday Issue, has one of the most gorgeous covers ever!

(I'm a sucker for anything neon coral at the moment!)

So fun and colourful—and how cool are the bespoke walls tiles by designer

Jonathan Adler (co-owner of the Shelter Island home featured).

There are some truly fabulous homes on show in this month's issue;

below is a little sneak peek of my favourites.

MJx

Sunday Loves Wall of Sound

What was on the Sunday Magazine's Sunday Loves wishlist this week?

Why, the "music lovers delight" WALL of SOUND was of course!

(Thanks Meg Mason x)

And the super-smart are snapping them up for Xmas already.

(I wish I could be that organised *sigh*)

MJx

Create Design Awards 2012

The winners of the 2012 Create Design Awards were announced in the October issue of

Desktop magazine and, proudly for me, the WALL of SOUND Gold Record

was awarded a Highly Commended in the Print Creative category!

Considering I was delighted to just be short-listed, the extra bit of recognition made my week!

Yipeeeeeee!!!

MJx

The Vinyl Frontier

Super cool article "The Vinyl Frontier" by Michael Adams in this month's Men's Style;

about the romance of vinyl and how records are making a comeback.

"The warmth of vinyl is undeniable.... But the warmth extends beyond the sound. The physicality of records — ensuring they're clean, lowering the needle, changing sides, returning them to their covers — all requires presence of mind. If it sounds like work, it is.

But it's satisfying in a way that toggling an iPod or letting shuffle choose your music can never be. Many adult visitors to our home get a real kick out of putting a record on for the first time since CDs took over back in the early 1990s. It's the launch pad for many conversations about first albums owned and what bands were seen where and when. Records remain because people love taking about everything to do with them."

Well worth a read for any old school music enthusiasts out there.

Justus Magazine

"YOU'VE MADE QUITE AN IMPRESSION ON ME"

And on me too, Justus. I've had a few magazine crushes over the years, but none have struck me as hard as Justus. Though to be fair, even though it's called a magazine, it probably shouldn't be.

It is so much more.

Justus is a celebration of the print design industry; featuring a range of printing techniques, a variety of specialty paper stocks, and is filled with an array of delightful fonts, the latest inks and sumptuous embellishments. Whilst devoted to honouring and protecting the art and craftsmanship of age-old printing techniques, Justus is also about building a platform for the design community to share knowledge, ideas, and showcase their talent and innovation.

Each issue specialises on a particular technique; with Issue 1 titled "The Ode To Foiling" (helloooo - WALL of SOUND!), the second and current issue is themed "To Letterpress With Love". Founded by art director Lindsay Smith, and saturated with enchanting words, tactile pages and inspiring work from other design professionals, you can really feel the love and passion with which these publications are created, not to mention the sense of community they have managed to establish.

Justus is only available via subscription (which you can apply for on their website). If you are in the design/paper/print industry and haven't yet come across Justus, then I thoroughly recommend that you get your hands on a hot little copy—you won't be disappointed.

And if you look really, really closely at the last of the images I've shown - you might just see my

All Stops To Prahran screen-print in the background of The Arcade Print Club feature....

what a nice surprise!

MJx

WALL of SOUND ~ Gold Record

WALL of SOUND - Gold Record | by Marika Järv

Across the world, the music industry awards certification based on the number of albums and singles sold - the most recognised being gold or platinum records. The amount of units needing to be sold differs from country to country based on population. In Australia, the ARIA awards a Gold Record to those albums which have shipped 35,000 copies, whereas in the UK this figure is 100,000 and in the US it's 500,000.

The WALL of SOUND - Gold Record, as a dear friend of mine recently described it, is quite simply...... GOLD! (Actually he used another adjective in front of gold - but that's not for repeating here *snicker*). Debossed and foil stamped with a light reflecting, metallic foil, when the sunlight catches this deluxe print it glistens and gleams and makes you feel warm and fuzzy all over.

Oh, and it was also recently shortlisted* in the 2012 Create Design Awards for the Print Creative category - and yes I am just a little bit chuffed!

MJx

*(UPDATE: It actually won a HIGHLY COMMENDED!!!)

Desktop Magazine

WALL of SOUND - Gold Record makes a little editorial debut in this month's Desktop magazine.

Desktop is a design culture mag aimed at the graphics/advertising community, but well worth a look for anyone interested in a variety of creative fields—and it's printed on that gorgeous uncoated matte paper stock which I do so love in a magazine!

Cliff Face House

Over the last year or so, I've been helping out talented landscape architect Phoebe Pape with some of her beautifully considered landscaping work. One of the projects we worked on together is the

Cliff Face House at Palm Beach, designed in collaboration by my lovely friends and ex-colleagues Fergus Scott Architects and Peter Stutchbury Architecture.

The Cliff Face House recently won the Wilkinson Award—which is the top architectural prize presented by the Australian Institute of Architects (NSW Chapter) for excellence in residential buildings. This award is a big deal - so well done fellas!

The last two photos shown below give you an idea on why the Cliff Face House is named as such—

and if you want to know more, pick up the magazine: Houses - Issue 87, or click here.

MJx

All photos by Michael Nicholson

WALL of SOUND - Black Vinyl

WALL of SOUND - Black Vinyl | by Marika Järv

I love music. I especially love music festivals.
Easy-listening classic rock of the 70's. Grunge from the 90's.

I will even admit I have a soft spot for bad 80's music, and know all the words to all those tragic tunes.

(but hey what 30-40-something-year-old gal doesn't?—it was what we grew up listening to!)

Several years ago I was searching online for some cool new mashups, and I came across an ingeniously titled track: "BoyGeorgeMichaelJacksonBrowne". I thought that was pretty clever—and for some amusement started to conjure up more and more interlinking names (coincidently about 6 months later my favourite radio station Triple J started playing a similar game "Band Sausage" on their breakfast show). Then one day I came to the realisation that put down in words, my silly little distraction could make a pretty interesting print for all us music fanatics—and so was born
WALL of SOUND.

For those of you who don't know, the "Wall of Sound" is a music production technique developed by record producer Phil Spector in the early 1960's (those big, dense, layered sounds you hear pumping through your stereo at times, are probably owed to him).

WALL of SOUND, as in by me however, is a series of limited edition prints (only 100 available!) dreamt up in homage to musical artists from around the world. Over the course of 5 years, I spent weeks upon weeks, if not months upon months, interlinking more than 500 names together, which were then eventually put down on paper and formed into a spiral to mimic the continuous groove of an old vinyl record. Printed on a gorgeous, heavy-weight (550gsm), fine-art paper imported from Italy, and using the traditional techniques of debossing and foil stamping, the first piece in the series is the aptly named 'Black Vinyl' (in obvious reference to the classic old vinyl record).

Ahhhh vinyl records—before the digital age of iTunes; before MP3's; before mini-discs;
before CD's; heck even before my childhood staple, the good old audio cassette tape!
(oh long-lost cassettes.... don't they bring back mixtape memories?)

MJx

photos by Matt Russell & Marika Järv

New York. New York.

The iconic Empire State Building | Midtown NYC | photo - Marika Järv

So I've spent this last year quietly working away on a number of different projects—

culminating with the launch of my website which goes live this week (BIG yaaaay!),

—and it got me thinking..... what was I doing a year ago?

Well, this day last year I was actually lucky enough to be sitting on a big-jet-plane, whizzing
across the Pacific, on my way to hang out with two of my bestest buddies Jac and Rach

(and not forgetting a fun-filled night with Nick!) in New York City.

NYC is a total BUZZ.

Exploring. Eating. Drinking. Dancing. Shopping. People-watching. Building-gazing.

Alas! There are just not enough hours in the day to do it all!

But I did give it a darn good try.

And whilst most holiday snaps are usually of people, mine tend to be of buildings!

MJx

The Flatiron Building | Flatiron District | photo - Marika Jarv

The High-Line | Chelsea - The Meatpacking District | photo - Marika Järv

The High-Line - a public park built upon an historic freight rail line elevated above the streets
Chelsea - The Meatpacking District | photo - Marika Järv