Dominic Clifford's urban prints

As a born and bred Londoner, I love the rough and the smooth of the urban landscape I grew up in, and in which I still live. It's a different kind of beauty to a leafy vista of lake, tree and mountain – of course, but urban foxes, grimy pigeons and brutalist architecture fringed with trees have their charm too.  

I think so, anyway. So I'm always happy to find new, good artwork that depicts the lived-in, battered-about loveliness of a city, rather than anything santised and airbrushed (yes, Olympics organisers, ahem). Which is what drew me to this new trio of city prints by illustrator Dominic Clifford, from the Keep Calm Gallery (and scroll down to discover more artists of this ilk).

The prints feature a scene each from London (above) Paris (below) and New York (bottom), and instead of, say, featuring the London Eye, Empire State building and the Eiffel Tower, the artwork picks out an everyday piece of architecture and reproduces it – graffiti and grimy pigeons and all. The graffiti is apparently copied faithfully from examples in each city.

There are only a few of the limited edition prints left, so hurry if you'd like one. They cost £50 each, unframed, and measure 40cm x 50cm (so they'll fit in a standard-size, shop-bought frame).

New York

Paris  

See more of Dominic's distinctive artwork on his website, and if you like it – you might also like the work of these other urban-loving artists Trevor Burgess and Clare Scully.

Fresh fonts

Just when you think you're over a fashion – as I did with the trend for typographical art – along come some new ones you just can't resist.

Oh, and (in the case of "gin" down below) some oldies that just don't fade.

I'd quite like this quote from Coco Chanel to be the first thing I see when I wake up. It's by illustrator Ros Shiers and costs just £20 (A3 size) from A Little Bit of Art.

La Di Dada is by Robert Rubbish. Kinda joyful isn't it? £50, also from A Little Bit of Art. 

Try looking at this without singing along. Go on. This comes printed on recycled board, using one of the last-remaining vintage Heidleberg letter presses. It costs £38 (A3 size), made by Wasted and Wounded Letterpress and available from Made By Hands of Britain. They do Bob Dylan and the Beatles too – look.  

I've long loved the simple message on this print by Robert Rubbish (see above). £50 (48cm x 64cm) from A Little Bit of Art. You could also try the lovely Outline Editions, which sells it in black; they have all sorts of other goodies by exciting illustrators on sale too. It's where I bought my cherished tower block squirrel print by Claire Scully.

Another good message, strengthened by the simple illustration, that would be good in a child's room (unlike, of course, "Drink More Gin"). Start em thinking as you hope they'll go on etc. It's 40cm x 50cm (nice standard Ikea frame size...), is printed on heavy paper and there are only 100 of each colour (yellow, blue and black) and costs £47.50. Find it at the Keep Calm gallery.

And why say "bye" when you can say "hi"? 40cm x 50cm print also from the Keep Calm Gallery – and a snip at just £20.

Posh prints, swish wall stickers and affordable art

Maybe you can afford some serious one-off pieces of art for your walls. Maybe you can afford one or two. Maybe you're broke and your walls are bare. 

Either way - why not brighten up that blank space you're staring at with one of these tasty bits of design. The first in a series of three... 

This retro-style double decker bus print, 50 x 70cm, is just £15 from the V&A shop and designed by Japanese illustrator Takashi Furuya. You can find more of his lovely work at this online shop and, if you can read Japanese, learn about the artist on his personal website. Even if you can't read Japanese, it's a very sweet site and still worth a glance.

This pretty 1880 Yellow Bird print, by the Edward Lear, who is perhaps more famous for his crazy limericks, is quite weeny, at just 20x25cm, but costs just £10 and is one of a series of six from the V&A shop. Random Lear facts (if Wikipedia is to be believed): he was employed by the Zoological Society to draw birds, and briefly gave drawing lessons to Queen Victoria.

I want one of these Moose-heads from the Keep Calm Gallery. In fact I might want at least six of them for one big, bare and perplexing wall in the sitting room. I love, love, love them. But I also love the donkey wall sticker that I'll come to next time. And the idea of a whole wall of Penguin Classic postcards (see below), or some more of the garishly brilliant John Hinde prints from the incredible Martin Parr edited Butlin's book that I have just realised I really ought to blog about... But back to the Moose: he's £18, measures 546mm x 349mm and comes hand-printed on brown recycled kraft paper. Not sure what that is but it looks nice. 

Purchase this chirpy poster and When life gives you lemons you'll now know what to do. This uplifting old-school looking print is designed by Douglas Wilson (check out the very chirpy portrait of the typeface-mad artist on his own site: bold outfit!). The posters are hand pressed using an antique wooden type, making each one unique. They're £30 unframed and also come from the Keep Calm Gallery

Got a big wall to fill? Make a gallery of as many Penguin Classics postcards as you can muster (there are 100 in the box) and stick them in post-card sized frames (Ikea's cardboard ones are good for mass framing and don't look like cardboard if you squint - or even if you stand quite close). Or just pick your favourite jacket and stick it in a dinky-sized spot in a more extravagant frame. Staggeringly good value at just £14.99 from the Penguin online shop.

If, like me, the brutalist concrete archictecture of London's Southbank makes you go a bit oooooh, then this limited edition Southbank Centre graphic print by Paul Catherall, which measures £40x80cm, might be worth forking out £180 for. It's a lino-cut print, something Mr Catherall has become rather famous for, and there's also his take on the Hayward Gallery and several others to peruse. For more of Paul's prints, featuring other parts of London (and New York) in colourful and monochrome graphic form try the Paul Catherall website. I love his version of the Barbican Centre.