In the future, will the newspaper be around? The touch of the paper, the black and white ink, it all screams nostalgia. With more and more becoming digital (surprise, surprise), a group of artists and illustrators decided to use the newspaper PAPER as their medium, and create some amazing and whimsical illustration to purchase at a low cost.
What I like about these, is that they play on the newspaper medium, something that typically holds serious information, and contort it to let the medium speak to them, and become their canvas.
The designs themselves are fictional—they don’t try to portray realism, more of surrealism. A lot of the designs’ aesthetic and color palette hark back to the trends of the 70s, a lot of bright and milky tones of greens, blues, and browns.
I wonder when newspapers will run out of circulation….when they do, I’d love to keep one of these around to hang.
Architecture can mirror human form. With the explosion of blobitecture and the enhanced use of computer generated curvilinear forms, architecture is becoming more sensual, more human, and more stylized. Take for example, the Dolce and Gabbana headquarters in Milan, Italy. While this building doesn’t possess any major “blob” forms, the overall sleek aesthetic and design mirrors its content—a sexy high fashion Italian fashion company.
The use of black, white, metal, and transparent glass gives the building a signature and modern sleekness. Inside, the white walls represent the clean lines and modern aesthetic seen in many buildings today.
Note the dramatic use of lighting in this building as well. Tall spaced louvers, made of opal glassdiffuses daylight to give the building a dramatic but feminine softness. Backlighting of staircases and windows enhances the dramatic and sexier display in the evening and night.
Overall, I think that Piuarch did a wonderful job of translating a brand identity into an architectural form that will stand the test of time. The form of the building is modern, feminine, sexy, sleek, and definitely signature.
I bought a Moleskin (tm) sketchbook last week from the bookstore, and let me tell you, I was excited.
Finally, I would have something that great artists used to bring visual genius to life, and a place to pen my innermost thoughts, workings, and ideas.
The next morning I went to my Exhibition Design Studio class.
EVERYONE HAS A (*@%(*@)% Moleskin. How did I not realize this before?!?!
Excuse my francais. I watched everyone draw loose sketches, write down notes and lists, all with a fine micron ball point pen, and apparently, everyone seems to have my thought process. Buy a fancy $16 notebook and somehow the brilliance MUST come. Oh how I feel herded into the masses. My quest for individuality among the design community has been thwarted yet again! And how silly I feel, duped by incredibly simple yet amazing branding and marketing from the likes of Moleskin.
Moleskin wants you to associate yourself in the same circle as Hemingway and Picasso when you use their notebook. Its quality construction and craftsmanship notions to the past, when craftsmanship and imagination made these puppies bring inspiration to many famous artists and writers. So when you open the cream tinted pages.......you are capable of just about anything.
I'm not trying to dispel that it is a well made notebook; the strappy elastic part that holds the pages in is quite convenient, not to mention the neutral black color makes it match with any outfit.
I know what you're thinking: who cares, it's a NOTEBOOK. Write in whatever you want; your ideas can go anywhere. Napkins, Binder Paper, Manila envelopes (it's been done.)
But if artists sometimes get inspired outside of themselves, what's not to say that the actual medium that you sketch in can be a source of inspiration itself versus being merely a place to put ideas.
The notebook is still sitting on my shelf wrapped in its cellophane. Sometimes I'm just silly. Bah.
Trust the Japanese to use concrete and natural light for creative purposes.
Isn't this a breath of fresh air from all the McMansions you see today?
This house was designed by Eastern Design Offices from Kyoto Japan. There are no windows, just slits of light. The exterior is composed of glass and concrete. The forms of light created from the shape and placement of slits gives this house quite a unique character, almost a solemn holiness. It's hard for me to form analysis on architecture when I haven't actually walked through the building. The experience of physical presence is one that I cannot mimic digitally.
This style of house reminds me of a famous Japanese arhictect, Tadao Ando, and his style of architecture, see below:
The use of light in architecture can be just as important as the physical materials themselves. In Ando's "Church of Light", the negative space created from the void in the concrete becomes the symbol and light of God, literally. Gestalt is used, even in holy places! Hallelujah.
Back to the Slit House. I'm sensing a form of duality happening within the architecture that balances the overall spatial composition created from the light sources and material used. Even the interior design breathes a warm sigh when contrasted with the "cold" concrete and voids of glass.
The visual rhythm created from the light sources, gives the space depth and a fluidity in motion that is visually pleasing as one walks down the long hall.
The overall mood and tone of the home is quite different than typical "western" style architecture. The architecture seems to respect the Japanese culture....even more general...Eastern thinking and philosophy. It employs principles of architectural balance and combines it with the aesthetic minimalism of its culture. Well done.
I have discovered the art of infographics, and I'm in love.
I love visualizing things, organizing data, and retelling information beautifully. Until recent times, I thought that meant boring grided layouts, 2D charts, etc.....
There is this new burgeoning field of information graphics, and it's VERY trendy right now. But let's not forget our history! Information Graphics has been with us for a long time!! The image above is the Paris Metro System, designed by Harry Beck in 1933, and it's still an example of the blending and representation of information in visual form. Now we just have fancier computers that make everything look better.
Info= Information Graphics= Images.
The goal is to communicate information in the least amount of words. Visual images communicating language and meaning to you. How very semiotic. Peirce would be so proud *tear*
Some of the computer generated images created are really.....well just look! This little blurb explains it way better than I ever will:
For 2006, the concept was based on a very old concept of encoding text. As Muller explains: "We assigned a numerical value to every letter of the alphabet. Adding the values of all letters, one gets a number that represents the overall word. (For example, the number 99 would represent the word "poetry")".Using this system, an entire poem could be arranged on a circular path. The diameter of the circle is based on the length of the poem. So the short poems are in the centre of the poster, while the longer ones form the outer circles.
Red rings on the circular path represent a number. As many different words can share the same number ("poetry" shares the 99 with words like "thought" and "letters"), most rings represents different words. The thickness of the ring depends on the amount of words that share the same number.Finally, gray lines connect the words of the poem in their original sequence. So solid lines represent repetitive patterns in the poem.
And here are more images: I'm not going to post their blurbs because it's too much reading, I know you'll get bored. Just enjoy!
And since I love Astronomy...I love this art installation on celestial mechanics (don't ask me to explain it because I can't....)
On an aesthetic note (how could I ever forget to speak aesthetically....it's really in my nature), I love to observe the modern organic forms created in these images. The repetition of form, the colors, the visual space and spatial motion created through these images can truly help to understand them. I mean, what better way to showcase celestial mechanics than to visualize data in space?
I also love that information graphics can have the ability to visualize sensoral data that is not visual in form.....ie smell? sound? touch?
I don't know about any of you but I put on my Itunes visualizer and sometimes ZONE out for half hours at a time.
Whilst browsing at the Nelson Gallery, I quite enjoyed seeing patterns created by these African American quilters.
Beside getting into the history of African Americans and quilting, on a more FUNDAMENTAL level, I feel like there is a personal satisfaction of actually quilting something together, actually CREATING visual rhythm and patterns. The act of designing with intention: grabbing a scrap of fabric and making it work.
As a non-quilter, I feel like quilters really get that personal satisfaction with themselves.
Anyway, back to the quilts. The visual forms they create are truly hypnotic!
In, Sharecropper's Masterpiece, little scraps create big scraps which create even bigger geometric alternating blocks. The detail on this is purely incredible. And it's all handmade! Imagine the hours of work that went to even one quilt? It's no wonder that quilts have been seen in history and culture as a prized possession that stays within the family, a visual gathering and stitching together of family's history.
I realize that I keep mentioning personal satisfaction with the quilters that created these masterpieces. I can’t really say that I knew or know how people feel as they design and carry out their own process; it seems odd to think that someone wouldn’t enjoy immersing themselves in their craft. The act of quilting is an incredibly daunting task: collecting scraps, deciding which fit your pattern, stitching fabric together. There’s this tactile sensation with touching fabric that is unique from many other mediums. I’m sure, like Pollock or Hoke, that quilters get inspired from the materials (fabric in this case) they use. The options in texture, color, and pattern are varied, and quilters have the creative know how use these design principles to tell stories through their quilting styles. It’s this process which fascinates me. I would love to see a time lapse video of someone hand quilting. How very Andy Goldsworthy, textile style.
Remember when books were all the rage, when no one knew what Kindle was, let alone online reading? Yes these are now amazing conveniences, but there is something about a well created book that gives me this sensory and visual (and obviously fake) nostalgia, I was after all only born in 1989...scary.
How luscious are these book covers though? Penguin classics commissioned new cloth bound and embroidered book covers for some of their most classic and beloved novels, such as Pride and Prejudice, Great Expectations, Jane Eyre, and MY personal favorite....Dorian Gray.
My favorite design blog, designspongeonline.com, was able to capture an interview with the book cover illustrator and designer, Coralie Bickford-Smith.
I loved reading about her design process for these covers. Her challenge was to create a series of unique covers that represented each individual book but that was still conformed to the general series.
Her solution: create "patterns that all conform to the same grid – it seemed the best way to impose a recognizable style that could work across a series of ten or more books, while allowing the covers to convey something of the character of the individual titles." (Coralie BS).
I love this. The idea of keeping it on a super imposed grid is genius because it unites all the novels when together, but their separate color palettes and motifs give them their own look. It might not be a novel idea (oh me and my puns....) BUT, it's a great design solution; it's clean and modern but still has an edge that give books that old world character, and it definitely fit my aesthetic. Who wouldn’t want to collect them all??!?!! (And a brilliant marketing tool for aesthetes like myself who like pretty things)
Some of the motifs she uses really play on themes and emotions from novels. Dorian Gray, for instance, has motifs of peacocks on a grid. The blatant color contrast between black and white in Dorian Gray also play on the theme of duality in the novel.
It is really interesting to gain insight into the design process of books. A lot of people see novels and actual books as something that will die out eventually to the technological monster. In the long run, it might be the more eco-friendly route.
However, lest not forget the feeling of holding a well crafted novel in your hands, designed immaculately and with intention. Don't you just want to dive into that creativeness?
