Hasta La Ideas

Chi ha bisogno delle banconote dell’Impero?
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Illustrator Thomas Fuchs has been on our radar for a minute. A while back, he began ‘A Heart a Day’— where he explored clever, witty illustrations that pertain to the theme of “love and hate”. Week after week, it appears as though he ups the anty – so to speak. In light of V-Day, we’d like to showcase a few of our favorites.

Valerie Roybal has a new collection of original collages available through Enormous Tiny Art. I personally own one of her collages and their surface appeal and finish in person is quite exquisite. (Valerie participated in our Old School exhibition/book and is contributing an article on collecting vintage photographs for the next issue of UPPERCASE magazine.)

Valerie’s artist statement: “My work is primarily composed of and/or inspired by vintage, salvaged, and collected materials. I enjoy the process of finding materials and the possibility of re-purposing them: reinventing use, intention, or aesthetic, and the transformation into something dissimilar or unexpected. Much of my work frequently consists of layered surfaces: bits and pieces from discarded books and magazines, found vintage pottery and glass, antique postcards, handwritten letters and recipes, obsolete reference material, thrift store textiles, and mysterious random objects, especially objects of the natural world. Order, association, and reverence emerges from the collecting, sorting, arranging, and placement of each accumulated piece into a whole.”

Pictoplasma, a Berlin-based organization devoted to the art of character design, recently published a lengthy 328 page book all about character design and art. Its not your average compilation either. As written on Pictoplasma’s site: ‘By engaging the viewer on a direct emotional level they bypass language and cultural barriers – but do abstract designs really have the potential to fulfil a utopian fantasy of global visual communication?’. The book strives to do a lot more than just showcase some nice eye candy (though it does succeed quite well at that too). It’s filled with a number of interesting essays by folks like Paul McCarthy and Lev Manovich, just to name a few. Order a copy or find out more about Pictopia here.

We just received a copy of this small but beautifully formed book (published by Nieves right at the end of last year) which collects some of Geoff McFetridge’s drawings created whilst working with Spike Jonze on the titles, type treatments and marketing graphics for Jonze’s film, Where The Wild Things Are…

The book is a little under A4 in size and has just 16 pages of work – but it’s beautiful. As well as illustration work, a page in the book has a little bit of blurb about the collected work by McFetridge – who has worked with Jonze on various projects before. Here’s an extract from the text:

“I noticed a difference when I began working on Where the Wild Things Are. For the first time I felt that Spike and I were working on a project where I could actually contribute in a significant way. Much less of what I was making was being thrown away, which was a first. I was given the opportunity to interpret not only Spike Jonze’s interpretation of Where the Wild Things Are, but also Maurice Sendak’s original book.

Like any kid growing up in the 70’s I was greatly influenced by Mr. Sendak’s books. His books are not just on my bookshelf they are in my blood. What I did with the titles, type treatments and marketing graphics also owes greatly to the heavy creative lifting done by Sonny Gerasimowicz who designed the creatures in the film and the Art Direction of K.K. Barrett.”

Here are a few spreads:

The 16 page book measures, 19.5 x 25.5 cm, and is printed on Color Offset and a copy will set you back $14 from nieves.ch