Craig Atkinson

Craig Atkinson is a UK designer/illustrator/artist whose sketch work brings out the quality of a single line. You can find a few of his drawings on Etsy or at his website.

Celia Richards

Celia Richards is an artist from the UK. The works above are from her Altered Objects series. I find it very poetic - cutting out all of the notes from a piece of sheet music and housing them all in a plastic bag. What's left of the sheet is beautiful, too, especially the way she uses it to play with light.

Via Daily Poetics.

Diem Chau

My friend Betty sent me a link to Diem Chau's work, and it's pretty incredible. I don't know how she does it, but she embroiders each graphic onto a piece of porcelain dishware. This is just a small sampling of her work - check out much, much more here.

Thanks, BBRK!

(PRODUCT) RED + GIRL SKATEBOARDS

(Product) Red recently partnered up with Girl Skateboards to produce a deck to stop AIDS in Africa. Normally (RED) partners with huge global brands that can contribute massive revenue to their cause. This is one of hopefully many smaller companies getting involved with (RED). Check out the video featuring Girl art director/art dumper Andy Jenkins and Eric Koston, who needs no introduction. Don't forget about The Berrics getting the BGP's.

via The Skateboard Mag

The Rolling Exhibition - Kevin Connolly

Kevin Connolly started a great photo project to document the expressions and reactions to his skating by them. The expressions capture such a range of emotions because Kevin was born without legs. Check out the Rolling Exhibition and a video short segment called "What Are You Looking At?" on People of the Web to learn more

Eric Tan

Eric Tan creates some incredible retro-inspired print work for all sorts of projects. Working at Disney, his recent work focused on Pixar films Wall-E and The Incredibles.

Above are two limited edition movie posters for Indian Jones and X-men. Be sure to check out Eric's blog for updates on his great work.

Subliminal: JHill Design

We are very excited to introduce a new feature to the blog: Subliminal, featuring the designers we love and their influences - big and small. Being that I was inspired by this post on Places I Have Never Been - Jennifer Hill of JHill Design's blog, I am excited to feature her in our first Subliminal post.



Jennifer Hill is a Boston-based graphic designer who started JHill Design five years ago. You most likely know her for her paper line called Places I Have Never Been which revolves around drawings of her imaginary vacations. Besides making products, JHill Design also creates logos, websites, etc.



What are you currently working on?
I'm working on a new card collection which follows the Places I Have Never Been theme, but includes holiday, thank you and hello! cards. I'm also wrapping up 12 new patterns for the 2009 calendar.

What are you currently inspired by?
I've been finishing up my new 2008 collection (to be released in May) and there were some great influences. One of the big ones was Balenciaga's Spring collection, all the crazy florals patterns and those great knee high, black and white gladiator sandals. There is a lot of nature in this series and lots of color, maybe it is because of this looooong winter.

What websites can you not live without?
what would tyler durgan do
design*sponge
i suwanee
yourgirlfriendisugly - the funniest blog EVER



What magazine subscriptions do you currently have? (Bonus Q: How many of them do you actually read?)
oh boy.
subscriptions: lucky, domino, sherman's travel, new york, vogue, elle, vanity fair, portfolio, 7x7, gourmet. I know - it's a lot.

I always read new york magazine each week. I don't read lucky and domino that much, I usually go to them when I'm looking for inspiration for something. I adore elle. So I'd say I read 5 out of 10, browse 3 and 2 stay on the shelf til they are needed.

What are your favorite inspirational spots?
Spot 1: in my hammock under a big tree. We are lucky to live on a dead end next to a park in Boston and my hammock lays under a big tree. Of course there are also triple deckers all around me so it isn't that private, but private enough.

Spot 2: my bed. I can lay and look out the window (we have very tall windows) and watch the planes from Logan fly away, I always wonder where all those people are going.





What is your favorite music to work by?
I like a lot of different music. Right now I have been switching between rilo kiely, patty griffith and jay-z. I know, weird.


What books are you currently reading?
animal, vegetable mineral by barbara kingsolver.


Any "inspiring" deadlines coming up?
I'll be showing at the stationary show in May with Sub-Studio!!! Got to finish up that collection...

Thanks so much to Jennifer for being our first in the Subliminal series!

Walter Ruffler's Paper Machines

Walter Ruffler's Paper Machines show that you can do a lot with a little drawing, paper, scissors, glue and imagination. Each piece has a story that lives in the characters and their animation. Sailing into the Wind (left) and Stormy Sea (right) are my two favorites so far.

Heather Smith Jones

We took part in an exhibit with Heather Smith Jones at Artstream in November, and Heather just emailed us about the opening of her online shop. Heather's works are both beautiful and quiet, with splashes of color and simple line drawings. All of the pieces in her shop are originals, so be sure to check them out before they disappear!

The artist's statement: "My paintings intuitively originate with fields of abstract color. I use marks, patterns, pinholes, words, and imagery to visually sew information together. Through painting I examine relationships within the detailed world of human experience. Particular thoughts, objects, experiences, and memories, become in my mind, moments of beauty when understood on a phenomenological level. Replanting elements from the natural world in an abstract way allows new correlations to become recognizable."

Tyler Stout

Here are a few film screening posters of beloved movies of my youth, illustrated by Tyler Stout. Check them out on Tyler's site to see the incredibly dense detail packed into each of the posters along with some other great looking work.

Marian Bantjes

Marian Bantjes is an amazing Canadian typographer with a beautiful body of work. One recent project that caught my eye is her contribution to Stefan Sagmeister's “Things I have learned in my life so far” series. Marian used sugar to script the phrase "If I want to explore a new direction professionally, it is helpful to try it out for myself first." Writing out the phrase five times, she photographed each version, as well as the destroyed version. Check out her website for more images of the project.

Cai Guo-Quiang: I Want to Believe

I am not normally excited to see what's coming to nyc museums, but the Cai Guo-Quiang: I Want to Believe opening in two days at The Guggenheim looks so interesting that I will make a point to see it.

More than seeing the finished works themselves, I wish I could have seen the month-long installation process of the works. The museum staff documented the process and there are photos and a short video of the process for Inoportune: Stage One . I enjoy these because it reflects the idea that the pieces are part of a whole process and not just a final product. The documentation emphasizes the incredible theatrical nature of the complex installation. If only they had opened to the public during this, it would be far more exciting than the final show.

Photographs by David Heald and Kristopher McKay, Guggenheim Museum Photography Studio

Artist Collection Glasses

We were at IGF this weekend and saw these Artist Collection Glasses, available at Molla Space, are something I haven't seen before. I like that it's a limited edition of a banal and everyday object. Each glass comes with a coaster by the artist and the case with the artist's bio. The coaster is displayed in the top lid.

Frida Mälarborn

I could have sworn that I had posted Frida Mälarborn's work before, but I can't find that I have - so here you go! Frida is a ceramic artist from Sweden. Her website is in Swedish so I can't tell you what her intent was behind the project, but what I love about it is the reinterpretation of a set of feminine objects, rendered useless and permanent in porcelain, with cross-stitched graphics pushing that femininity further.

Via Bloesem.

Kirsten Hassenfeld

Kirsten Hassenfeld is a Brooklyn-based artist who works with paper, creating super detailed, sculptural light objects. Her Dans la Lune exhibit just closed at Rice University's Rice Gallery, but I thought it was worth a mention here. Dans la Lune is a French idiom that references daydreaming, which is a great description of Kirsten's over-the-top sculptures of imagined opulence. From a distance her sculptures look like chains of gems and crystals, but as you get closer, detailed images emerge.

Bertie of WWR

Bertie is the next piece from Ashley Wood to make the jump from paper to sculpture. Robot Bertie comes from WWR aka World War Robot and will be released in a April of this year. Save a spot on your desk for this one.

Wieki Somers

I remember seeing Wieki Somers' High Tea Pot make the rounds on various blogs and thinking that the tea pot was on the gruesome side - which it is, but that's the point. Made of bone china and modeled after a fox skull with a water rat fur cozy, Wieki describes the project as "tasty and unsavoury, harm and delight aren't discerned any longer. Nothing is more decadent than to satisfy the human need for status and extravagance through the harm of animals."



The rest of Wieki's work is as thoughtful - the Bathboat looks at the form and function of a small boat and inverts it by turning it into a bath. The bathtub legs make reference to the wooden frame that boats typically rest on when docked.



Some more projects (left to right): Come Clean (soap in the image of the traditional Dutch farmer, which when used disappears to reveal the form of the modern business man who has replaced the farmer), Mattress Stone Bottle, and Blossoms (a vase which takes on the shape of its contents).

All projects were done in close collaboration with Dylan van den Berg.

Seaspray Blue

Katrin, aka Seaspray Blue is a German illustrator. I love the muted colors used, and the architectural content of the illustrations. The digital prints are archival quality and are very affordable at $15.

Via Oh, Joy!

Furni and Emil Kozak

The Alba 'EK' is a handmade timepiece designed by Furni with graphic and packaging treatment by Emil Kozak. As with all of Furni's creations, the production run is limited, so pick one up while you can.

Furni also completed a Show Us Your Skills competition that anyone could enter. Buy a DIY Kit and start building!

Sheep Market

This might be old news, but I thought it was interesting enough to warrant a mention here. The Sheep Market was an experiment in public art - over a period of 40 days participants in Amazon's Mechanical Turk (Artificial Artificial Intelligence) could draw their interpretation of a "sheep facing left". I love the number of sheep facing right! I wonder how many were intentional? Anyway, The result is a very cool digital mural of sheep drawings. I love the flash interface which shows you line for line how each person drew their sheep. Each worker was paid $0.02 per sheep.

Some stats:
Average time spent drawing each sheep: 105 seconds
Average wage: $0.69/hour
Rejected sheep: 662
Collection period: 40 days
Collection Rate: about 11 sheep/hour
Unique IP addresses: 7599

You can still buy a one-of-a-kind plate block of lickable adhesive stamps complete with a certificate of authenticity for $20.

Artstream Mapping the Way

Sean and I are back from a lovely weekend in New Hampshire. We went up to Rochester to attend the opening of the Mapping the Way exhibit at Artstream gallery (and to get out of the city for the weekend). Thank you Susan and Rainer for making us feel so welcome!

I was really impressed by the other artists work - the pieces were all so beautiful (especially in person!), so I wanted to take a moment to highlight some of my favorite pieces from the show. Clockwise from the top:

Heather Smith Jones' "A Cottonwood Seed", which is so gorgeous in person. The colors are really vivid and the bird was so detailed. This was my favorite piece in the exhibit.

Edibeth Farrington's "Years of Travel". Her pieces were very quiet and subtle. I loved the repeated type and the super white canvas.

Susan Schwake's encaustic handmade paper pieces were lovely. She made the paper herself, and each piece was so layered and textured. Occasionally pieces of text from the recycled paper would show through.

Another piece from Heather Smith Jones. The pieces in this series are super affordable ($40, so I bought one!) and are really beautiful. I love her limited use of water color, and the way the shapes relate to one another. The piece we bought had text poked with pins in it, which was a very nice, subtle touch.

Check out the artwork online here!

Mapping the Way Exhibit

Sean and I are very excited about this weekend - we are heading up to New Hampshire tomorrow to attend the opening of our show at the Artstream Gallery. We are so thrilled to be in the company of these great artists - Susan Schwake, Heather Smith Jones, Edibeth Farrington, and Stephanie Levy. You can check out more images of the show here, and also on our process blog, Submerge.

Kate Wilson

Kate Wilson is a British illustrator with some fantastic illustrations. I love the pieces that use the negative space of the page in the illustration itself, and her limited use of watercolor is gorgeous. See a large body of her work on Coroflot, and read her blog here. You can purchase her work from her etsy store.

Life by Adonis Werther

Life by Adonis Werther is a set of 4 prints that depicts the passage of time through one's life. The prints have a similar narrative and structure of Chris Ware's work. The print is available at Thumbtack Press, a great site for affordable art.

Evan Hecox - Urban Abstract

Evan Hecox is one of my favorite artists. His work for Chocolate Skateboards always impresses. This year he will release a hardcover monograph titled "Urban Abstract". His work is definitely worth checking out, and if you have some money lying around, there are a number of prints available at Arkitip.

The Octonauts by Meomi

We got a little tip in the email jar from Amy Ma of Immedium about The Octonauts series of children's books from Meomi Design. The Octonauts and The Only Lonely Monster (above) was released in October 2006 and The Octonauts and The Sea of Shade comes out in October 2007. The illustration work is excellent and the book is definitely worth picking up.

Meomi Design is Vicki Wong and Michael Murphy and they are quite the character factory over there.

Tatiana Arocha

My friend Alice sent me this link ages ago. Tatiana Arocha is a versatile artist with work ranging from print, motion graphics to illustration. My favorites are her illustrative work. I love the textured, Japanese-inspired graphics. You can find Tatiana in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where she is involved in the arts community, Servicio Ejecutivo.

Peter Callesen

My mom reminded me of the work of Peter Callesen, a Danish artist who works primarily with paper, creating amazing paperscapes by contrasting negative and positive space and 2-D and 3-D, all within a sheet of A4 paper. It was really hard to choose my favorites because they are all so great! Thanks, Mom!

Andrew Grima - Royal Jeweller

The 'Gondola' (left) and 'Cerini' (right) watches, designed by Andrew Grima, are each 30+ years old. In spite of their age, they are years ahead of today, and will continue to be so. Be sure to check out some of the other watches featured in the Ideas column on the right and the archive.

Stef Kardos - Ratatouille

We went to see Ratatouille over the weekend and thought it was great. The posters above were for the European release. Stephane Kardos created the two on the left, taking a cue from the art deco aesthetic of the 1950's (see A.M. Cassandre's poster on the right).

Happy 4th of July and be sure to take in some fireworks wherever you are. We will be taking the day and night off, so see you Thursday!

Know Hope

Gorgeous street art from Israeli artist Know Hope. A statement from the artist:

The lanterns deal with the frail, temporary aspect of putting up art in street. Take the best case scenario: nobody takes the piece after a short while and there are no extreme winds or rain, the longest life span of these pieces will be that of the candles, which is probably just a few hours. Therefore, when someone runs into one of them on the street they know that it was placed there not so long ago and they, by coincidence, got there in the small time frame that the piece was "active", hopefully giving them the feeling that it was placed there especially for them, and maybe guiding them, following them home and subtly lighting up their way.

Via Rag & Bone.

John Solimine of Spike Press

This great print is by John Solimine of Spike Press. The caption reads:

Captain Lapoda bellowed to his crew over the roar of the wind, "Our only chance is to lose them! Release the ink!"

I love it, plain and simple. Spike Press does a ton of posters for the Chicago indie scene. Their art prints and t-shirts have just the right amount of snarkiness in them.

Michelle Brand

I love it when people rethink the way an object is used, especially when that use gives the object a second life. Michelle Brand has created a 'fabric' made of the bases of plastic bottles. Each bottle is cut, sanded, and assembled into the tapestry. Beautiful!

24SEVEN

The second incarnation of 24SEVEN, published by Image and compiled by Ivan Brandon, is a compilation of the work of some 60 writers and artists. The story of the book revolves around robots living within the city, but the work within takes vastly different directions and is a testament to the breadth of talent within the comic and graphic novel community. And I am a sucker for anything drawn by Ashley Wood, whose work is featured on the cover. 24SEVEN #2 should reach stores in July of this year.