A merry Monocle christmas

It's that time of year again my 10th Monocle christmas guide. I love seeing what Josh at Monocle gets in for the gift guide and this year was a great one I wanted to take 90% of it home which is always a good sign!

This year was a sneak peek into the front room to see what Monocle santa had left for the big day.

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

Adventgram 2016

Hope everyone had a great Christmas? I went hunting for numbers throughout December for my Adventgram count down to the big day.

It was a great year this year with lots of people joining in.

Pallets full of ideas from Monocle

One of my favourite Monocle shoots of the year is the annual Christmas Gift guide, we always have lots of fun sorting through and shooting all the great products the team find for the gift guide.This year there were quite literally pallet loads to work with. There are some great products in the guide the one I was most tempted by was the new star wars toy the Sphero BB-8 great fun to play around with in a big studio (I'm a bit of a sucker for all things tec and Star Wars!)

images © David Sykes 2015 All rights reserved.

Christmas all wrapped up.

images © David Sykes 2015 All rights reserved.

Before Christmas I was asked by BBH to shoot a Christmas poster for British airways. It was great to work with Harry Orton and Robin Warman again, they came up with a clever idea to use the belts as a bow. The poster was used on their 96 sheet poster site that welcomes people as they arrive at Heathrow airport as well as 48 poster sites.

Tools for life

images © David Sykes 2015 All rights reserved.

Last year I was asked to shoot for my favourite issue the double issue with all the inspiration for christmas in it.

This year was slightly different it was a called 'tools for life' taking different places in our everyday life and helping out with the best tools for each situation. As always it was great to see all the fantastic things that Josh found from all over the world.

I also shot the cover for the travel top 50, a lovely paper craft aeroplane.

Adventgram 2014

images © David Sykes 2015 All rights reserved.

December 2014 saw the return of my annual instagram project adventgram, Every day in December I look for and photograph the number that matches the date of that day counting up to December the 25th (Christmas day). All the numbers are shot on my iPhone and have to be found and not made by me.

This year was great as I had lots of people join in using the hashtag #adventgram, I enjoyed seeing other peoples interpretation of my project.

You can see all the numbers in more detail here.

And the winner is...

Thanks to all those that took part in my christmas sock craft pack, apologies for the late arrival of the results, it has been a busy January!There were some great sock characters created and in the end I couldn't chose just one favourite so I've decide to award a bottle of bubbles to two creations. The winners are Marion Thibaudot from BBH and Alex Bamford from RKCR/Y&R. Both of them put a smile on my face so congratulations to you both! Here are the two winning entires

Below is the shot that started it all.

image © David Sykes 2013 All rights reserved.

Adventgram final 25

All images © David Sykes 2013 All rights reserved.

Happy New year!

Thanks to all of you that contributed to this years adventgram and followed the project. It was great seeing all the different ways people interpreted the project. I look forward to doing it again at the end of this year.

Hope you all had a great festive break here's to a great 2013

All images © David Sykes 2013 All rights reserved.

The proof of the pudding

All images © David Sykes 2012 All rights reserved.

This Festive season I decided it would be good to create a Christmas inspired shot that I could send out to the people I've worked with over the years, so I started to think up ideas and came to the conclusion that everyone loves festive food and presents at christmas so why not combine the two. That is how I came to create my sock christmas pudding, for those that have followed my work over the years you'll know that I have liked to create food images but not using food but everyday objects to create faux food. So I dusted off (and repainted) my giant 4 foot plate and went about creating my giant sock pudding, the pile ended up being 3 foot high and nearly 4 foot wide and Katie Cordell the stylist had to source over a hundred socks. It took us the best part of a day to create the perfect sock pile and at the end I was tempted to go for the flaming Christmas pud and set fire to them! But I couldn't as I needed them for the next part of my mailer.

All images © David Sykes 2012 All rights reserved.

I thought it would be fun to send people one sock from my pudding as a memento and as creative inspiration, I custom made some sock tags with a challenge on them to make the lonely sock into a festive stocking or christmas character. To help them on there way I supplied a starter kit of some fake fur some red and green felt, googly eyes and some buttons. (see below) I'm asking them to send pictures of the results so I'm looking forward to seeing the festive creations.

All images © David Sykes 2012 All rights reserved.

This will probably be my last post of the year so I'd like to wish everyone a merry christmas and a happy new year thanks for following my blog.

Adventgram 2012

This is adventgram from 2011

All images © David Sykes 2012 All rights reserved.

We are surrounded by numbers every day as a result they tend to go unnoticed, there are 1000's of different typefaces out there, some beautifully crafted some not so. I've decided to celebrate the humble number, and what better month than December the one month that most of us count down to an event, Christmas day. I'm shooting my adventgram project for the second year running. Every day I find and shoot the number of the day on my phone using instagram to publish it. This year I'm being joined by some fellow instagramers using the hashtag #adventgram

Monocle, the gift that keeps on giving

All images © David Sykes 2012 All rights reserved.

It's that time of year again the gift guide issue of Monocle and this year it's themed. All the gift ideas are from vienna (who knew they made so many cool things!).

I also shot some of the new Monocle mechanise they are selling this christmas, they have there own umbrella now and I have to say it's probably the best made umbrella I've ever seen but if you're thinking of getting me one for christmas don't I have a tenancy to lose them!

We had lots of fun with paper and boxes this issue and I thought Richard spencer-powells choice of colours for the boxes worked so well I had to give them there very own photo.

Last minute gift ideas

All images ©David Sykes 2011 All rights reserved.

For those of of you who are looking for those last minute gift ideas have a look at the December issue of Monocle they have some fantastic gift ideas in there gift guide.

I was asked to create a Monocle version of a department store window display for each of there gift guide sections. I always love shooting Monocles gift guide as I get a sneak preview to all the latest and greatest gifts on sale (and I have to admit that quite a few were added to my charisma list.)

So this is my last post before Christmas so I'd just like to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New year!

Party season

All images ©David Sykes 2010 All rights reserved.

As we're in middle of the party season I thought it was a good time to show you my party inspired new personal work. And I'd like to wish all my friends and followers a fantastic Christmas and a very happy new year. I have lots planned for 2011 so watch this space for all my latest news and photography.

Monocle gift guide

Here is my latest work for Monocle magazine. This month issue is there excellent christmas gift guide one of my favourite issues to work on every year as I get a sneak preview of all the latest and greatest gifts and gadgets out there, and some fantastic cheese to sample!If you struggling for gift ideas would recommend a look its a bumper issue!

All images ©David Sykes 2010 All rights reserved.

All images ©David Sykes 2010 All rights reserved.

All images ©David Sykes 2010 All rights reserved.

Monocle Christmas gift issue

All images © David Sykes 2009 All rights reserved.

A couple of shots from the series for the Monocle magazine Gift issue on sale this week.