black swan posters

these are fabulous. done by la boca. will keep an eye on their stuff. (source: booooooom)

luca barcellona

i think this video was posted just about everywhere a few months ago and for very good reason. i was pretty impressed with the control and smoothness of luca's marks but i just about had a fit when things started connecting so seamlessly. if you haven't seen this yet, seriously watch it - it's worth it. especially if you're at all interested in lettering of any kind.

luca posted some more videos to promote calligraphy, showing off his talent (not to mention crazy tools!) along with a very talented, fellow calligrapher francesca biasetton. my favourite of the new videos is below but go check them all out on his vimeo page.

i just bought myself some of those wide markers and i plan on making a mess of things. i really wish they made them in magenta though. are you listening, good folks at copic?? i also impulse bought one of their disposable fountain pens today as well. i realised that i really missed more fluid ink when i did leslie nielsen's portrait so i'm gonna try and mix things up a bit more again.

what type of print?

so i've been reading elements of typographic style by robert bringhurst. it's quite technical and thorough and i'm really enjoying it. honestly i wasn't sure if i should get it when i first came upon it in the bookstore but the endorsement in armin vit and bryony gomez-palacio's book, graphic design referenced, along with a strong recommendation from a friend convinced me. check it out if you've any interest in typography.

i'm not completely through it but i came across a line that gives me hope for print. i love printed posters, illustration, design, etc. and it seems like there's this huge forecasting of the death of print. in the case of wall hangings, it doesn't make sense to me since people seem to love to have nice art on their walls but they say it's too expensive. get a nice print! i think it's great that there's a contingent of people out there keeping it alive, especially since i feel like i'm joining the party (uninvited?) so late.

bringhurst's words were:

"because the Web, like the subway, is not a destination. Printing is still what type is for."

what's funny / ironic to me is that this is the exact punctuation on the page (209). although, the text before this is:

"Now that type is principally a digital commodity, printed type specimens are quickly disappearing. Yet they remain an invaluable resource. because the Web, ..."

perhaps the original quotation is not a complete thought then. either way, the grammatical error might've made this stand out but i like the statement. i should say that i don't completely agree with his sentiment though. i'm sure many people would love to see proper typography on more, if not all, websites (which i do see as digital analogues to printed matter - the web is merely the ether) but i do like the encouragement to keep on printing. i would guess that because of the inaccessibility to use nice type and apply one's preferences in support of it, bringhurst believed this to be true at the time he wrote this. maybe he still does. even apple still haven't fully gotten type right (exhibit a) and maybe that's a good thing.

the genius of design

a great first episode of the bbc's genius of design show. check out out the first episode:

The Genius of Design ep1 from Genius of Design 1 on Vimeo.

incredibox

kind of illustration related but more music related: check out incredibox. it's pretty fun. http://www.incredibox.fr/

23012010

a couple of weeks ago i was able to finally go to life drawing for the first time in months. i was out of practice but it felt pretty good. i should probably mix up the media i use more but i still find it challenging to capture something i'm completely happy with. every once in a while i'm ok with the session. the drawings below from an earlier session occurred on such a day. life drawing at ocad, in moleskine.

one minute poses.

five and ten minute poses.

twenty minute poses. i think i'm going to break out the brush pen more.

speaking of mixing it up, i really love francis vallejo's life drawings.

his other work is, uh, ok too. check it out and you'll see what i mean. this kid's a machine and seems to really breathe through his work. check out his blog here, too.

build

beautiful graphic design by build. michael place had a spot in helvetica and i believe he designed some posters for objectified as well.

jeff hamada

jeff is a vancouver based artist who participated in converse's 1hund(red) initiative. hypebeast has a nice little interview with him about it and other stuff as well. he also designs apparel and various other things. give him a google. he also runs this other little site you might have heard of called BOOOOOOOM. he started this blog about a year and a half ago and now receives about two million pageviews a month. i'd say he's a pretty talented dude.

christina ung

i recently came across christina's work and i think i like it a lot. she graduated from sheridan a couple of years ago. i haven't seen her work in any mags or anything yet but i'm guessing that that will be remedied quite a bit if she continues to improve. you can check out her blog here too.

sam weber

sam is jillian's husband. that's how i found out about him. these two are gonna have some pretty talented little kiddies, ha ha. i had seen his (and her) work quite a few times online and in magazines before really knowing it was his. anyway, he recently redesigned his site (no pop ups!) and i am all for the minimalist approach to it. his work is pretty spectacular. it seems to usually have a dark undertone to it yet everything looks elaborately delicate.

amanda nedham

i was able to check out amanda's tapping the admiral show at the le gallery and i have to say her drawings up close are incredible. i first heard of amanda through blogTO where she has a feature. when i first saw some of her drawings there, i thought they were pretty great. well put together. deconstructed. detailed. elaborate. painterly. i could go on. when she launched her site, the thumbnails showed a whole other dimension to her work. seeing it up close only awed me even more. if you have a chance and you're in the toronto area, check out her stuff while it's still there. i haven't touched graphite in the longest time but i'm now inspired to go back to it. just as soon as i'm done the projects i'm already working on. i hope.