paper art, portait of a woman with long hair smoking a pipe.

colorful portrait made of paper of a woman smoking a pipe with big billows of smoke.

Close up view of the details of the artwork on the face.

Russian paper artist Yulia Broskaya turns the constraints of paper illustrations into beautiful works of art. Pictured above is a new portrait she has completed of an older woman smoking a pipe.

She has mastered the ancient technique known as quilling; coiling and shaping of narrow paper strips to create an illustration or design. Coiling has been around since the Renaissance. French and Italian nuns and monks used roll gold-gilded paper remnants trimmed during the bookmaking process, as an economical way to decorate religious items. Later it became a pastime of 18th and 19th century English ladies, who would decorate tea caddies and furniture. Quilling often imitated the original ironwork of the day.

Yulia Broskaya papergraphics of people, typography, nature, and more, has taken the quilling method to an entirely new art form. She says “this material limitation turned out to be a strength for me: there is the potential to contain thoughts and ideas in unique ways so that the medium can become a significant part of the message.” Since her art is three dimensional, each piece provides different viewpoints and perspectives that change when you have the ability to see it in person. (I would love to see some of her work in person!)

By pursuing a way to combine her love of typography, paper, and detailed hand-made crafts she has created art and design that is loved by people and businesses world-wide. See lots more of her artwork.

I dream of a world where we all follow a driving passion to do what we love.

paper curling technique, image of an old woman
Via Colossal

Our friend Jonathan Nawn—actor, comedian, and bartender extraordinaire—hired us to design some business cards for his increasing bartending gigs in L.A. The combination of photography, textures, typography, and graphic design skills quickly translated to a professional, yet fun business card.

Bartender mixing a drink in monochromatic texture

Business Card Design (Front)

 

Typography that reads: Bartender—Temporary pharmacist, limited inventory.

Business Card Design (Back Detail)

 

colorful drawing with seattle space needle, ferris wheel, fetties, Starbucks, and all famous seattle icons.

I love this amazing illustration created by second grade students at Seattle Jewish Community School. These creative kids captured all of Seattle’s famous landmarks; from the Space Needle, to the Public Market, to the Duck tour, to the pink elephant neon sign, to the brand new waterfront ferris wheel. This artistic drawing shows young creative minds at work—the colors, the textures, the DETAILS—every time I look a see something new. (Click the image to get a larger view.)

SJCS provides an excellent, egalitarian Kindergarten through 5th grade General and Judaic education that promotes Jewish identity and practice, respect for diversity, responsibility for our world, and lifelong learning.

SJCS has been our client since 2009. Our very first collaborative design project with the school was the interactive Tz’dakah caterpillar sculpture installation.

Public Interest Design Week delivers a sneak peek screening of IF YOU BUILD IT. The official World Premiere is in April 2013 at Full Frame Documentary Film Festival.

The documentary IF YOU BUILD IT spends a year in the life of one of America’s most innovative classrooms. Designer/activists Emily Pilloton and Matt Miller of Project H Design, together with their high school students, unleash the power of humanitarian design to help their struggling community in rural North Carolina.

Emily Pilloton launched Project H Design with the desire to teach design for social change. In their own words “Project H uses the power of creativity, design, and hands-on building to amplify the raw brilliance of youth, transform communities, and improve K-12 public education from within.” I admire Pillonton’s optimism and conviction that through design we really can build the change we want to see in the world.

Pillonton has also written two books. Design Revolution: 100 Products That Empower People, features safer baby bottles, a high-tech waterless washing machine, low-cost prosthetics for landmine victims, Braille-based Lego-style building blocks for blind children, wheelchairs for rugged conditions, and more. Products that are that are as fascinating as they are revolutionary. Avid book review blogger Maria Popova says it “reads like a manual, thinks like a manifesto, and feels like a powerful jolt of fire-in-your-belly inspiration.”

Her second book—Tell Them I Built This: Transforming Schools, Communities, and Lives With Design-Based Education (TED Books)—tells the story of Project H through the eyes of her students. It shows how creativity, critical thinking, citizenship, and dirt-under-your-fingernails construction can radically transform both high school education and the local community. It is a way to connect in-school learning to out-of-school possibility.

Via Public Interest Design

Happy first day of Spring! Or Autumn depending on your hemisphere. These brilliantly animated nature gifs created by Head Like an Orange are sure to make you start this season—wherever you may be in the world—with a smile.

A vibrant frog watching a river running over rocks.

two ladybugs having sex on a blade of grass

baby turtles sliding down a hill of sand

Aren’t these brilliant? Head over to the Head Like an Orange’s blog for endless animated gif entertainment. Enjoy!

High contrast large scale art installation created with reflective black video tape ribbons.

Large textures created from unspooled video tapes at an art gallery

Close up of unspooled curling VHS ribbons

Simple yet large art installation with high contrast and texture.

London artist Robert Currie transforms gallery spaces with the simple materials of old cassette and video tape ribbons. His large scale installations explore the contrast of positive and negative, rational and irrational, and as stated in his artist statement “the inevitability of the emergence of order from disorder.” These repetitive reflective textures change based on your physical position and create dramatic optical experiences.

I would love to have an installation like this integrated into my future home or office entry way. This is just a taste, peek at more of his installations and sculptures.

All images are courtesy of the artist, Robert Currie.

bright yellow die cut honeycomb textured labels

Most Viewed Blog Posts for 2012

1. Riley’s laser cut honeycomb labels were a big hit with our clients and our online readers.

2. Surprisingly, everyone loves an Indesign template for making CD labels.

3. Dazzle camouflage, a painting technique used on ships during World War I and II.

4. Sketches of our logo design process for Simplicity Home Energy.

5. Seattle street art books, document the evolving art and graffiti in the Seattle area.

6. The RedBall public art project—invites us all to engage and to collectively imagine.

7. Peter Clark’s artwork, from fashion to beloved pets these paper collages exude character and wit.

8. Arcano Type—Beautiful hand drawn letterforms.

9. We had fun creating a new website for Seattle Folk Band, Hannalee.

10. A glimpse at street art in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

 

excited boy and fingerprint texture showing students excited about school

Most Viewed Design Project Posts for 2012

1. Pacific Crest Montessori Middle School Brochure Design

3. Simplicity Home Energy Website and Identity Design

4. Remarks Wholesale Catalog

5. Invitation design for the opening of  Exposure—an exhibition featuring national park photography by Nathan, Cameron, and Conor Myhrvold.

6. NPCA–Wildlife Conservation Exhibition Graphics

7. Booklet design for The Way In—The Future of Access to Northwest National Parks.

8. Not so politically correct, Fathers Day website banner ads.

9. Pacific Crest Montessori School Website

10. NPCA vision exhibition design, informs the public about national park conservation issues in the Pacific Northwest.

Happy New Year! Wishing you all a prosperous 2012!

Image from Seattle Street Art Book Vol. 2

 

Awhile back we posted about a Snapshot of  Seattle Street Art. Since then A. Tarantino has been busy documenting the ever evolving street art in Seattle. He is following up his original book with Seattle Street Art: A Visual Time Capsule Beyond Graffiti (Volume 2), and is in the process of publishing Seattle Street Art (Volume 3) due out in early December. [If you want the whole series don't miss out on Volume 1.]

Aside from its rain and coffee, Seattle is known for many things subversive, from Grunge music to the activist driven WTO riots. This region of America raised the likes of Jimi Hendrix and Bruce Lee. Today, there is a culture here that is only represented anonymously in the reclaimed public spaces of the city.”
—Introduction Seattle Street Art Book

 

Image from Seattle Street Art Book Vol. 2

 

Art books make the perfect birthday or christmas gift for your art loving friends and family. A portion of the proceeds from these art books will benefit SOS Outreach, an international nonprofit building character in youth through outdoor adventure. To learn more about these books visit Seattle Street Art a website dedicated to cultivating awareness of street art in Seattle, Washington USA. 

See our post about street art in Rio de Janeiro and street art in Buenos Aires.

 

 

gritty textured mural of a fish on cement

While visiting Buenos Aires in Argentina it is impossible to miss the abundance of graffiti. Large murals, small wall paintings, tags, stencils, and stickers—typically referred to as Street Art—abounds the streets of Buenos Aires. A walk in this creatively curated city is a feast for the eyes. You never know what visual art you may stumble upon. It certainly makes going for a run that much more exciting.

 

Street Art in Barrio San Telmo

 

View of the Feria de San Telmo (San Telmo Fair)

 

Famous for his classic tango songs, murals of Carlos Gardel are everywhere in Abasto barrio.

 

For many, Gardel embodies the soul of the tango style. Street view in Abasto.

 

While these photos are from my own wanderings, there are several street art tours available: Graffitimundo (tours available by bike or walking), BA Street At, and the San Telmo Art Walk. The tours take you to particular areas of the city with concentrated areas of public art. The guides share the political background behind individuals’ artistic expression. In Buenos Aires the public embraces graffiti, and the graffiti artists’ embraces creating public art.

See our post about street art in Rio de Janeiro and a snapshot of street art in Seattle, Washington.

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