Artist Highlight: Kristina Collantes

by evie s. on March 7th, 2008

Kristina Collantes’ work is just beautiful to look at. She is a talented young artist currently living in San Diego, California. Some of her illustration work has been used for CD covers, posters, and textiles. Her online store features some of her products: t-shirts, buttons and original drawings.

Lovely Book Covers

by evie s. on March 5th, 2008

I adore these book covers with perfect spring colors, playful typography and contrasting black artwork. These lovely designs are illustrated by the talented Christopher Neal Silas. You can see more work on his website that features editorial work as well as prints he has for sale.

[ Via typophile ]

Topography as Art

by evie s. on March 4th, 2008

Is anyone else mesmerized by the cool wavy lines of a topographic map? I came across a clever artistic interpretation of this map style in these ceramic tiles from Osuma Design. Arja Rantala and Sami Haikonen are the two young designers behind the Finnish design company. The ceramic tile fittingly entitled Soil, is inspired by the topography of the Toolo bay area of Helsinki city center. Uncut tiles create a continuous pattern, while cut tiles create a broken landscape with emergent structures. Unfortunately it’s only a prototype right now and not available for sale. But it’s great inspiration!

The image on the right is a topographic map of San Francisco from Berkeley. You can download the full image here.

[ Via ffffound ]

Creating Environment with Art

by evie s. on February 29th, 2008

I love these photos of an experiential environment built by Formavision, a company that develops original art campaigns that capture one’s imagination and reinforces the brand’s vision. This particular installation was for cutting edge fashion designer duo, Marithe and Francois Girbaud. Part of the construkt series, their goal was to create limited edition design objects created by some of today’s best product designers and exclusively offered for sale at their New York flagship store in Soho.

[ Via Creative and Live ]

Laser Engraved Goodness

by evie s. on February 27th, 2008

It’s really something when you can take a great thing and make it better. Take these already classy products — the ever-popular Moleskine and the ultimate cool computer, the MacBook. They’ve been vamped up a notch (or two or three) with beautiful laser engravings. These designs are from engrave, where you can order online and they can even etch your own customized artwork.

If you want to see more photos, go here.

[ Via authenticboredom ]

Nautical Art by Jeff Canham

by evie s. on February 19th, 2008

Jeff Canham is an artist and designer whose work has been in exhibitions around the world. His style hits me as a nautical-meets-hippie-surfer vibe. He’s certainly found himself a niche painting specialty signs and banners in Venice and New York, just to name a few locations. I think the two pieces with the flags pictured below would give a little guy’s nursery a real whimsical charm.

For more details, or to contact Jeff, you can email him at jeff_canham [at] yahoo [dot] com

[ Via ffffound ]

Pattern and the Beauty of Tessellations

by evie s. on February 15th, 2008

Pattern is certainly a staple of design, and tessellations are some of the most beautiful and elaborate forms of art patterns that you can find. Tessellations come from the early Greeks, and has a rich history. The famous M.C. Escher is known by many as the “father of tessellations” because of the Mathematical and crystallographic aspects of his work. His 1938 work entitled “Fish” is one of my favorites.

So, my love for these beautiful patterns was recently ignited when I came across these tessellation related photo plates from Owen Jones’ 1853 classic book, “The Grammar of Ornament” on Flickr. [ Via Veerle's blog ]

I hope you enjoy the beauty and vibrancy of them as much as I did!

Graphic Design Is…

by evie s. on February 11th, 2008

…the endless search for beauty in things. -büro für form

I completely agree. This quote inspired me to enter a poster competition run by the talented Belgian artist, Veerle Pieters. Since I gain most of my artistic inspiration from the world around me, I am constantly trying to capture the beauty I see in some form of design, so this was a great opportunity for me to do so.

For this project, I really wanted to create a beautiful image that would complement the theme, so I got out my sketch book, pencils, and my Zig Millennium marker to work on a concept. After sketching an image that I liked, I just traced over the pencil marks with the marker and added in some details. I really wanted to use watercolors, even though they are not my best medium (I prefer acrylics). I absolutely love the organic quality of watercolor, and that was the look I was going for. When it was to my liking, I scanned it into Photoshop and added typography and more color.

I’m pleased with the final outcome, and I really enjoyed the project! You can see some pictures of my process and the final design here.

What is Graphic Design?

by evie s. on February 8th, 2008

That is the question I will be asking myself this weekend as I work on a special art project. It’s really more for fun and practice then for anything else. Hopefully it will be complete by early next week.

Sprawled out on my office floor sketching, I was thinking that I need to make time every week to draw. That was one of my goals for this year, and so far this was the first time. Fortunately, drawing for me is like a good friend that you haven’t seen in awhile. You just pick up right where you left off. That’s good, otherwise I would probably be quite drawing impaired by now for lack of practice!

Here is a sneak peek…a sample of the beauty that is to come. Stay tuned!

Heart Art: Silk-Screened Posters

by evie s. on February 4th, 2008

If you are an independent music fan, you’ll love these silk-screened posters from The Small Stakes. I’ve selected a few from Jason’s collection that had a heart theme, but he has a myriad of great designs to choose from.

From left to right:

The Shins // Mates of State (San Francisco) // José González // The American Analog Set (Hearts) // Camera Obscura

These and many more are available at The Small Stakes poster shop, each for $25.