Grain Edit friend and design champ Chad Kouri, of Long Live Analog and The Post Family, has a wonderful solo show opening this Friday at Chicago’s Rotofugi Gallery. Chad’s work, like his moniker, is based in the analog. It’s a compelling collage of found images, hand drawn elements, and textures.
It’s out with the old, in with the new. Goodbye 2009, hello 2010!
Netherlands based illustrator, Esther Aarts, created this holiday greeting card for van Ditzhuijzen accountants. Its charm lies in its personified objects, such as the gleeful teabags and toothy stapler, set against coarsely textured backgrounds. I really like the color scheme with its varied pink hues in stark contrast to the grainy black, and the hand drawn type is also an added plus…making way for a fresh new year.
Identity for Ohio Arts Council designed by Noel Martin
Noel Martin was a self taught graphic designer who taught at the Art Academy of Cincinnati and served as the in-house designer for the Cincinnati Art Museum for many years. He was one of the first to modernize art museum exhibition catalogs. In an article at the New York times Steven Heller also notes, “With the ubiquitous branding and expert merchandizing of museums today, it is easy to forget that graphic design was once a low priority for them. In 1947, when Mr. Martin became the Cincinnati Art Museum’s first graphic designer, most museum publications were staid and musty.”
The Container list has a nice post on a self-promotional piece titled, Identity Programs, that presents some of Noel’s iconic minimalist logos.
Jez Burrows – Walden (Part of the Kitsune Noir Poster Club)
Over the next several months, several design blogs (including grain edit) will be collaborating with the stellar art & design social network Society 6. First up is the Kitsune Noir Poster Club. Bobby of the excellent Kitsune Noir asked five of his favorite artists to interpret books they really enjoy into a print that will be a lasting work of art.
The project includes:
Jez Burrows – Henry David Thoreau’s Walden
Mark Weaver – Herman Melville’s Moby Dick
Frank Chimero – Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughter House Five
Cody Hoyt – David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest
Sanna Annukka Limited Edition Wooden Soul Birds
Sanna Annukka recently launched a new portfolio and online store. I love these solid brown oak Soul Birds which are now available for pre-orders in her shop. I’ll have to add these to my Christmas list!
On her website, Sanna shares this bit about the the Soul Bird which stems from Finnish mythology. “In Karelia there was an ancient belief in the Sielulintu or Soul bird. The Sielulintu was thought to deliver the soul to newborn babies and also to transport the soul to the afterlife at the moment of death. It was believed the Sielulintu protected a persons soul at it’s most vulnerable; when dreaming, and it was tradition to keep a carved wooden bird by the bedside to keep the soul safe during sleep.”
Cover for The Bad Sleep Well (1960) – Directed by Akira Kurosawa
The Criterion Collection is well-known for restoring rare, unique and cult classic films from famed directors like Akira Kurosawa, Jean-Luc Godard, Luis Buñuel, and Wes Anderson. Equally respected is their cover art and supplements to their DVDs. For 25 years, Criterion Collection has been pairing art house films with strong design. From typography to photography, they elevate box art to poster art with work that never cease to impress.
Just found this vintage Audi poster over at AisleOne. Looks like it was created sometime between 1968 and 1972 by Armin Hofmann. Simple and elegant.
Nakagin Capsule Tower (AKA The BC25 Capsule) designed by Kisho Kurokawa
The 60s and 70s were an exciting period for Japanese architecture. In particular, the Metabolist Movement which was founded by a group of futuristic visionaries, including late architect Kisho Kurokawa, puts forth ideas of “large scale, flexible and extensible structures that facilitate an organic growth process”. Perhaps the most exemplary metabolist building is the Nakagin Capsule Tower built to accommodate bachelor salarymen in downtown Tokyo.
I spy with my little eye—a dapper gentleman suffering from writer’s block!
Created for Markkinointi & Mainointa (Marketing & Advertising) magazine by Finnish illustrator Lotta Nieminen, this illustration has varied textures and layers that work so well together. The color palette is cool and complementary, and I really dig the different shapes that she uses to accentuate the man’s face and clothing…symmetry at its finest!
