Jan 12
Me & My Pen: “
Me & My Pen. Lots of lovely, intricate hand drawn type and illustration work.
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(Via FormFiftyFive - Design inspiration from around the world.)
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Jan 08
Sterotype Packaging by Daizi Zheng: “
Chinese designer Daizi Zheng created a range of healthy snacks packaged to look like drugs and junk food, including these blueberries in a blister pack. Called Stereotype, the project includes carrot sticks packaged like cigarettes and celery sticks in a french fry carton.
Stereotype is about helping people eat more healthier through their everyday habits. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), unhealthy diet is amongst one of the leading causes of the major non-communicable diseases. Can design encourage people to rethink their relationship with healthy food to gain a balanced diet?
Via Dezeen
(Via core77.com’s design blog.)
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Jan 04
ARYZ: “
Barcelona based graffiti writer ARYZ is in the spotlight with his great style of characters. Some of them are huge! Check Aryz out on his brand new web page.
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(Via FormFiftyFive - Design inspiration from around the world.)
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Dec 24
Good Wives and Warriors - new work, new website: “
Christmas illustrations by Good Wives and WarriorsThe gorgeous Becky Bolton and Louise Chappell of Good Wives and Warriors have got a new website. It is GREAT of course, and showcases lots of new work - man these girls are so talented! (Remember their stellar paint-a-thon at Mr Wilkinson a few months back?)
Becky and Louise work their magic at Mr Wilkinson in September!Good Wives have been super-busy, with shows in Melbourne, Berlin and Copenhagen this year! At the moment they are in London, where they’ve just set themselves up in a shared studio space. Look at the super cute little video interview they did for their client Swatch at Illustrative 09 exhibition in Berlin… My fave bit is when the girls show off their Swatch watches and Louise says ‘we wear them everyday, to see what time it is’!! Awwww tooo cute!
Painting in Copenhagen
Swatch watches featuring Good Wives Illustrations
Swatch window graphics in Melbourne (top) and London (bottom)
Good Wives and Warriors are represented commercially by Jacky Winter.
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(Via The Design Files.)
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Dec 15
Web Services—Penguin Book Pastiche: “
A very witty take on some of the most popular web services from French illustrator Retrofuturs.
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(Via FormFiftyFive - Design inspiration from around the world.)
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Dec 14
Get Creative With Collage: Trends and Inspiration:
Collage is the combination of pieces of diverse materials and media, such as newspaper, magazines, package labels, fabric, paint and photographs, into one composition. The term itself derives from the French ‘coller,’ meaning ‘glue.’ It was coined by both Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso at the beginning of the 20th century, when collage became a distinct part of modern art.
Collage promises to be an important creative outlet for many years to come because it allows artists to explore and experiment with creating truly new, exciting and often unexpected results. This article showcases the pioneers of the collage movement, current trends and examples, contemporary proponents of collage and a wealth of resources. Please feel free to use the comments area to suggest other collages or artists you like.
You may be interested in the article Pop Art Is Alive: Classics and Modern Artworks that presents 75 outstanding examples of classic and modern pop art.
Pioneers
Pablo Picasso
Early in 1912, Picasso created ‘Still Life with Chair Caning’ (above) by attaching a piece of oilcloth with a caning pattern to an oval-shaped painting. It is said to be the first ‘modern’ collage; however, the claim is not definitive, because George Braque was developing a technique using papier collé in the same year.
George Braque
Georges Braque developed paper collage (papier collé) using shreds of mixed media to produce the effect of actual paint, layered on the canvas with paint later being added. He first used this technique in his 1912 painting, Fruitdish and Glass (above).
Kurt Schwitters
A collage by German Dada and surrealist artist Kurt Schwitters entitled ‘Das Undbild’ from 1919. Schwitters was famous for his collages, called ‘Merz Pictures,’ in which he attempted to make coherent artistic sense of the world around him using fragments of found objects.
Eduardo Paolozzi
Paolozzi is regarded as the father of pop art in Britain. This piece, ‘I Was a Rich Man’s Plaything’ from 1947, is considered the earliest standard-bearer of pop art. It was created from different pieces of commercially printed paper stuck to a single piece of card.
Henri Matisse
Late in his career, Matisse began to work increasingly with cut paper. He used sheets of paper washed over with gouache colors and then cut out his shapes and stuck them together, as shown above in a collage entitled ‘The Snail’ from 1953.
Robert Rauschenberg
Most famous for his ‘Combines’ series of collages (1954 to 1962), Rauschenberg extended the conventions of collage and found objects and incorporated trash and interesting urban debris, such as bottles, clocks, radios, clothing, wire and newspaper, into his work.
Richard Hamilton
Created in 1956 for the catalog of an exhibition in London, ‘Just What Is It that Makes Today’s Homes So Different, So Appealing?’ was the first work of pop art (or indeed collage) to achieve iconic status. It consists of images taken mainly from American magazines and advertisements.
Romare Bearden
Bearden truly embraced the collage technique, because the layered, fragmented form allowed him to freely combine ideas, shapes and cultural references in a modern and accessible way. ‘The Calabash’ (above) of 1970 is perhaps his most famous collage.
Current Trends
Now let’s take a closer look at current trends and examples. As you browse through the collages in this showcase, you may notice these trends:
Vintage
The use of vintage images, advertisements and materials is perhaps the biggest trend in collages today. Many collage artists take inspiration from vintage art because of its unique style and beauty.
Mixed media
Mixed media is simply the use of other media, such as paint, in a collage. Common media include pencil drawings, paints, pastels, charcoals and markers.
Advertising and slogans
Not surprisingly, slogans, branding and advertising play a major part in many of the collages featured here. Consumer culture has become a major force since its appearance in collages in the late 1940s.
Retro
Retro iconography and imagery have experienced a resurgence in collage, because their style is so distinctive from today’s culture and art.
Urban
‘Found collage’ relies heavily on urban wall art, such as torn posters, ads, paint, markers and signs. It is growing in popularity, partly because of artists such as Nick Riggio, who creates urban collage paintings.
Creative Collages
Tutorials
Here is a selection of the best tutorials on creating outstanding collages.
- Mixed Media
Use a combination of acrylic paints, brushes, gel and various scraps of paper and images. - Digital Collage
An in-depth tutorial from Teodoru Badiu on making his piece entitled ‘Atlas.’ - Fabric Collage
A simple way to use old fabrics to create a unique work of art.
Dedicated Blogs
And now, a round-up of the best collage blogs:
- Not For Paper
- Collage Lab
- Daily Collage Project
- A Collage A Day
- Daily Collage
- Collage Clearing House
- Scrapiteria
Flickr Groups
And some Flickr groups dedicated to mixed media and digital- and paper-based collage:
- Collage Crazy
- All Collages
- Creative Collage
- Collage Kids
- Collage A Day
- Paper Collage
- I Make Collages
- Digital Collages
- Innovative Collage
- Photos and Digital Collages
- Vintage Collage Art
- Vintage Paper Collage
- Retro Collage
- Photoshop Collages
- Your Collage
- Collage Jerks
- Collage Brut
- Urban Collage
- Shape Collage
- Photoshop Collages
(Via Smashing Magazine » Fonts.)
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Nov 21
Nov 21
Matias Corea shared this video with us at today’s CreativeMorning:
Poem by Taylor Mali.
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(Via swissmiss.)
Nov 01
Katie Kirk: “
The fabulous work of US illustrator / graphic designer Katie Kirk has been doing the blog rounds since it appeared on Grain Edit a little while ago… but I just love these wedding invites so much I had to jump on the bandwagon!
Aren’t they fantastic?? So original and so fun! The invites are for Katie’s sister who plans to get married in Mexico and then have big after-party in Wisconsin!
Check out Katie’s illustration website and her company website - Eight Hour Day.
Limited edition Stork print by Katie Kirk - available in Katie’s Etsy shop.
Illustrations by Katie Kirk for MyGofer (more here)
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(Via The Design Files.)
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Oct 21
Kate Endel collage illustrations: “
Collage illustration by Kate EndleOriginal collages and prints are available from Kate’s Etsy shop.
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(Via The Design Files.)
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