dear-jb

Nominee's for the UK's most lucrative art prize have been just been announced. To qualify for the award, artists must be based in Britain but half of this year's contenders were born abroad. The prize is £20,000 (approx $30,000). With a further £45,000 ($70,000) being shared out amongst the nominees. Philip Dodd, director of the ICA, said: "The artists selected for next year's Beck's Futures show how migrants and the migrant experience constantly renew the creativity to be found in Britain." The prize is now in its third year and was created to highlight the work of a new generation of British artists. The works will be shown at L

Don Norman (former Apple fellow) speaks to The Guardian Newspaper about design. Don Norman changed the way a generation of designers saw the world. Previously famous as 'Nasty Norman' who told you why a product was bad. He's now become 'Nice Norman' who smiles and tells you how great everything is. His ground breaking book 'The Design of Everyday Things' ( 1988 ) was a paean to useability. The sequel Emotional Design (2004) is based on the idea that there are three levels at play in design: visceral (what something looks like); behavioural (how it works); reflective (what it means to you). He also talks with humour about the impact his previ

The TATE galleries (one of the UK's most pretigious galleries) presents a free introductory course to Modern and Contemporary Art. The course is based around it's collection held at its Bankside gallery Tate Modern. The course leads you through a series of key themes and important 20th century artists, including Andy Warhol, Cornelia Parker and Pablo Picasso. The Tate website describes the "...course [as] open to all, it is designed for people who might be new to modern or contemporary art, or new to learning in general. You may or may not have visited any one of the four Tate galleries. You may or may not have been to college to study art o