Phenomenal Posters of the New York Film Festival

Posters are some of our favorite, yet challenging, projects. Poster design is a marriage between visual aesthetic and the delivery of information, between textual and graphical elements… the very fundamentals of graphic design. It should come as no surprise, then, that an institution as important and influential as the New York Film Festival places great emphasis on this visual embodiment of its annual event. Festival organizers manage to recruit some truly respected artists and photographers year after year for its remarkable posters. Below is just a sampling, starting with this year’s by renowned sculptor Richard Serra.

Via nytimes.com

Lighthearted LEGO Masterpieces

LEGO bricks are no longer just plastic construction toys, they have permeated all facets of pop culture lately… showing up on the silver screen, in video games, on clothing and even fine art. Classically trained Italian artist Stefano Bolcato has had such a penchant for the timeless toys since childhood that he began using them, and specifically the yellow minifigures, as subject matter for years. Recently, Bolcato took this a step further by reimagining classic paintings with LEGO figures in his series titled People. From Andy Warhol’s legendary Marilyn Diptych to Frida Kahlo’s Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird and Leonardo da Vinci’s Portrait of an Unknown Woman (La Belle Ferroniere), Bolcato’s oil paintings are fun and approachable. We’d love to see him expand on the series…. The possibilities are endless.

More LEGO art here and here and here.

Via stefanobolcato.com and Instagram

Perfectly Arranged Movie Posters

It’s true that we’ve seen our fair share of movie posters through the years (here, here and here), but nothing quite like these. Manchester, UK-based designer/photographer/poster artist Jordan Bolton doesn’t rely on highly stylized shots from the film, or even the film’s actors. No effects-laden titles or much typography to speak of at all. Instead, for his Objects series, Bolton meticulously arranges prop elements from each film, paying careful attention to color palettes and composition to relay the film’s themes. For his Rooms series, Bolton applies that same attention to detail, focusing instead on recreating floor plans from keys scenes in the films. We cannot imagine how much close watching of these films Bolton does to be able to create these works. This is a true cinephile’s dream, and lucky for them Bolton sells prints here and here.

Via Tumblr and Facebook

Ridiculously Clever Lego Riddles

Believe it or not, for being such a simple, uncomplicated product, Lego has some particularly clever and thought-provoking advertisements (here and here). Already three years old, this campaign celebrating 55 years of the Lego brand is basically a series of 55 visual riddles, fittingly featuring little more than the iconic bricks. The great minds at Swiss agency Cavalcade are behind these fantastically clever designs, which, much like Legos themselves, inspire a great deal of imagination. We must admit, we’re still struggling to solve many of these, but it’s so satisfying having solved the ones we did. Answer key to the few ads featured here at the bottom of this post. No peeking, try to figure them out for yourself!

Via Behance

Answers (in order of images): Yellow Submarine, Alice in Wonderland, Three Little Pigs, Purple Rain, Jaws, Spider-Man, The White Stripes, Hunger Games, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Bob Marley and the Wailers, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Jackson 5, King Kong, Titanic, Stairway to Heaven, I Walk the Line, The Beatles, New Kids on the Block, Little Red Riding Hood, Clockwork Orange, Men in Black, Rolling Stones

EveryHey: Daily Pop Culture Illustrations

Barcelona design firm Hey Studio has a thing for pop culture and illustration. They married these two loves into a fruitful serial project (others here and here and here) that has boosted their social media presence to over 50K Instagram followers. Though the project, called EveryHey, seems to have since ceased, Hey Studio posted over 400 minimalist illustrations of a very wide variety of pop culture figures, from Prince to Parker Lewis, to Baywatch babes to Beyoncé. We love Hey Studio’s bold, colorful style, and their smart choice of details to make each illustration just recognizable. This is a very small sampling, so be sure to check out the entire collection online or in their EveryHey book (available here).

Via Instagram

Circadian Creativity, One Film Quote at a Time

It’s no secret that we’re fascinated by “365 projects” and the dedication they reveal (previous posts here and here and here). Done well, these daily doses of artistry not only help develop a robust portfolio, but also serve as an exercise in on-demand creativity… a must in the field of graphic design, as we know all too well. And Nebraska-based designer/illustrator Ian Simmons tackled his serial project expertly. We are in awe of not only the diversity of his work, but the sheer quality of his typography. Clearly a movie buff at heart, Simmons masterfully depicted a wide variety of film quotes through illustration and typography, for 365 days straight (actually, 366)! Yes, an entire year. Just incredible. This is just a sampling of a few of our favorites, but be sure to check out his Instagram for the complete collection. He even sells select prints (here).

Via Instagram

Meticulous Movie Director Portraits

Movie buffs rejoice! While we certainly love movies, we are more excited about this incredible series of posters from a design and conceptual perspective. German multidisciplinary design studio Stellavie, in collaboration with illustrator/artist Julian Rentzsch, hit the mark with this superb series of prints paying homage to some of the foremost movie directors in history. Each piece features the director’s portrait as the focal point, with an array of references from some of their impressive body of work. Each composition is quite beautiful with really thoughtful details, and we especially love the traditional movie credit typography incorporated into each layout. Each edition is limited to 200 copies each, and they are signed and numbered, and printed with museum-quality inks on textured, acid-free cotton paper (available for purchase here). Fantastic work on may levels. Bravo.

More killer movie designs here and here and here.

Via stellavie.com and julianrentzsch.de

Dreamy Series of Flying Houses in France

Surrealism is alive and well. Perhaps it’s a product of the often dismal state of the world, and our need to escape. Or maybe it’s just human nature to bring musings of the unconscious mind to life through art. We suspect it’s a bit of both. And the work of French artist Laurent Chéhère is a prime example. There is something inherently charming about his Flying Houses series. Chéhère manipulates photographs of a wide variety of dwellings to appear as if they are floating around in a dream-like world. These fantastical compositions are layered in details and nuances, and we credit Chéhère’s vivid imagination and masterful skills. These works are almost cinema-like, easily translating into moving images in our minds. In his own words, Chéhère explains how he “isolates these buildings of their urban context and releases them from the anonymity of the street to tell the life, the dreams and the hopes of these inhabitants. Technically, it’s a photomontage.” After a sketch, he “photographs hundreds of elements: roof, windows, gutter, fireplace, characters, antennas, graffiti and sky, then assembles everything with a digital retouch software on his computer. In gallery, the images are shown in large format and let the curious observer to discover details and hidden references of these accurate reconstructions by proposing a double reading, one by far and one closely.”

Via laurentchehere.com

Real Life Disney Royalty

Disney characters are often the subject of artwork in this particularly pop culture-centric moment in time (here and here and here), so it’s no surprise that someone has envisioned what Disney royalty might look like in “real life”. And that someone is Melbourne, Australia-based Finnish designer/illustrator/art director/photo manipulator Jirka Vinse Jonatan Väätäinen. The rise of live-action Disney fairytail movies in recent years has certainly increased public consciousness about these beloved characters, but Väätäinen depicts a much wider variety with astounding results. Gathering an assortment of photos online, Väätäinen digitally blends them together and manipulates them in such a way that looks natural and realistic. It’s an interpretation, of course, but pretty spot-on in our opinion. His work has been floating around the internet for years, and his newly released set of princes has regenerated interest in his excellent work. Just a sampling here, so be sure to check out Väätäinen’s site for the full collection. Magical, indeed.

Via jirkavinse.com

31 Day Caricature Challenge

Only an immensely talented illustrator could accept a challenge from a friend, and adapt his style so masterfully. This was exactly the case with Russian illustrator/designer/art director Viktor Miller-Gausa. He never really earned his stripes as a cartoonist per se, but when a friend said he could not draw a caricature, Miller-Gausa honed his skills by creating incredible portraits for 31 days of both his friends, and familiar celebrity faces. Here’s a sampling of Miller-Gausa’s awesome work.

Via Cargo Collective