The holiday season really is a time to honor tradition, and that manifests itself in different ways for different people. For us creative folk, it often involves producing some sort of holiday greeting. And for British photographer Peter Thorpe, it also involves his beloved dog Raggle (and a handsome food incentive as payment). For over twenty years, Thorpe has concocted increasingly elaborate holiday photos starring his (very cooperative) pet pooch, who he transforms through the use of good old fashioned costumes and staging (no Photoshop here). Imaginative, fun and inspiring work. Well done!
Via Blogspot
A favorite pastime of many, during the holiday season and throughout the year, is assembling jigsaw puzzles. Children around the world usually start with an elementary 24-piece puzzle, and graduate to more advanced puzzles containing many more pieces. Australian artist/illustrator/designer Clemens Habicht has created perhaps one of the most difficult (and beautiful) puzzles we’ve ever seen. Even we as designers, who have a bit of an edge given our intimate knowledge in the nuances of color, see this is quite daunting. Rather than recreating an image, this puzzle requires you to assemble the pieces based on a CMYK color gamut. That’s right, a 1,000-piece puzzle made up of simple 1,000 different colored pieces. In his own words, Habicht discusses: “The idea came from enjoying the subtle differences in the blue of a sky in a particularly brutal jigsaw puzzle, I found that without the presence of image detail to help locate a piece I was relying only on an intuitive sense of color, and this was much more satisfying to do than the areas with image details. What is strange is that unlike ordinary puzzles where you are in effect redrawing a specific picture from a reference you have a sense of where every piece belongs compared to every other piece. There is a real logic in the doing that is weirdly soothing, therapeutic, it must be the German coming out in me. As each piece clicks perfectly into place, just so, it’s a little win, like a little pat on the back.” Sweet satisfaction, indeed. If/when we tackle this, we will be sure to post the result!
Via Tumblr and lamingtondrive.com
The shipping season has been hitting its peak over the past few days, so we thought it appropriate to share the typographic explorations of Barcelona-based design studio Lo Siento (previous post here). Among their highly creative undertakings are works in which they experiment with injecting colored liquid into individual pouches of plastic bubble wrap to form typographic figures. And these projects represent a larger theme in Lo Siento’s work: tangible typography. They are so in touch (no pun intended) with the nuances of letterforms, that they’re able to transfer that heightened awareness into physical objects, which is pretty astounding. We are sort of desensitized to design in some ways with advances in computer generated graphics, but when work like this comes along, it really catches our eye. Other works of Lo Siento’s include hand-formed muselet typography, cardboard typographic “skeleton”, and 4D letters, among many others. They are masters, and we really admire their work.
Via losiento.net
London-based installation artist Rebecca Louise Law turns floral arrangements on their head, quite literally. Law’s stunning work often consists of thousands of individual flowers suspended overhead by copper wire, which is not only visually arresting, but also expresses her personal exploration of the relationship between humans and the intrinsic impermanence of flowers. It’s very clear that Law’s work really flourishes on a grand scale, and she is often commissioned by high profile clients, including Hermes, Jimmy Choo, Tiffany & Co, Royal Shakespeare Company, Max Mara, and others, to transform spaces in dramatic and beautiful ways.
More floral-related posts here and here and here.
It’s said that what’s old becomes new again… trends are cyclical to some degree. Our recent past (the 1980s) featured a rise in technology, and 8-bit graphics found in Atari and Nintendo gaming systems. These now rather primitive looking graphics have influenced fashion, music and entertainment, and in this case, art. New York-based artist Adam Lister has been exploring digitalized representations of famous works of art and pop culture figures through watercolor painting, and even 3D printing. Lister’s subjects have included everything from the Mona Lisa, to Monet, to Iron Man. All novelty aside, Lister’s work is an interesting examination in visual familiarity. Most of his works are extremely recognizable, yet they are simply made up of a series of large squares and rectangles, and most details are not apparent. Our visual cognition is quite powerful, and Lister capitalizes on just that, with great success.
Let’s be honest here, food and typography are two of our favorite things. So when the two are paired with great skill, we take notice. This well-executed poster by Russian art director Alexander Eliseev as student work a few years back is one such example. According to Eliseev, the piece came together very quickly… just two hours from conception to print. Which is fitting, given the subject matter. But it certainly doesn’t look like it was done in a hurry, but rather thoughtfully composed over time. We do know what it’s like to have things fall into place perfectly when a deadline is looming, though. Regardless of the turnaround time, this piece is a great example of experimental (and indulgently delicious) typography. More examples here and here and here.
Via Behance
Collage is often thought of as an amalgamation of different materials. But for Brooklyn-based artist Mark Wagner, his ongoing collage work is almost always comprised of a single material: one dollar bills. But to simply refer to what he creates as collages probably doesn’t do them justice. Wagner’s work is extremely intricate and meticulous; he gives purpose to the placement of each shred of currency. We don’t doubt that whatever the material, Wagner could compose a masterpiece beyond our wildest imagination. But part of the intrigue here is certainly the taboo nature of destroying dollar bills. In his own words, Wagner discusses his choice of material: “The one dollar bill is the most ubiquitous piece of paper in America. Collage asks the question: what might be done to make it something else? It is a ripe material: intaglio printed on sturdy linen stock, covered in decorative filigree, and steeped in symbolism and concept. Blade and glue transform it-reproducing the effects of tapestries, paints, engravings, mosaics, and computers—striving for something bizarre, beautiful, or unbelievable… the foreign in the familiar.”
Be sure to also check out the terrific process video below.
People show appreciation for their friends in many different ways. Milan-based illustrator/artist Thomas Cian reserves pages of a Moleskine journal for emotive pencil drawings of those closest to him. And given his supreme illustration skills, we’d say each mini-masterpiece is quite a tribute. His sense of composition and use of the spreads is terrific. The details and nuances of shading he achieves with a simple piece of graphite is really impressive. Cian is a very gifted artist, and we should consider ourselves lucky to be exposed to such raw and personal work.
Via Behance
As technology advances, so too does our ability to track motion, as is exhibited by the iPhone, Fitbit, forthcoming Apple Watch, and others. But Canadian Stephen Orlando is more fixated with the beauty of motion, and innovative ways to capture it visually. Orlando, a mechanical engineer by trade, blurs the line between science and art in his stunning ongoing series Motion Exposure. By utilizing programmable LED lights and long exposure photography, Orlando is “able to tell the story of movement.” Though we’ve featured light painting before (here and here), Orlando’s work is a bit different. We love the spectrum of colors and intriguing patterns of motion he captures. In his own words, Orlando says “I’m fascinated with capturing motion through time and space into a single photograph…. This technique reveals beautiful light trails created by paths of familiar objects. These light trails have not been artificially created with Photoshop and represent the actual paths of the objects.” This growing series features motion captured by kayaking, canoeing, soccer, tennis, swimming and even waterfalls, and more. Absolutely beautiful.
BARBOUR DESIGN 