Nov 04
Nov 03
Feliz Dia de los Muertos
Posted in: Uncategorized
The Day of the Dead is one of those holidays that seems to prove irresistible to illustrators. Vicky Newman just sent us this rather fine wooden badge to celebrate the November 1 festival…
From Telegramme’s lovely skull prints, to Faye Dowling’s recent Book of Skulls, the influence of Mexico’s most famous festival is spread far and wide. Newman’s skull badge is a beautifully etched piece of wood and, may we say, looks great on a lapel.
Wishing CR a happy Dia de los Muertos, Newman also says she is “a lover of ink work and under appreciated holidays.” Thanks for combining both those things in this great piece of work, Vicky. More of her illustration work at vickynewman.com.
Nov 02
#CR500K: Five Saul Bass books to give away
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To celebrate reaching 500k followers on Twitter, we are giving away five copies of Saul Bass: A Life in Film & Design, kindly donated by Laurence King. The book contains a great list of quotes by Bass on the subject of working in the creative industry, and we’d like to hear your own personal favourites for a chance to win a copy…
This competition has now closed. Thanks to everyone who entered. The winning entries are listed below.
The 400-plus page book features a wealth of imagery of work from the US design legend (Rick Poynor takes an in-depth look at the man and his work in the latest issue of CR) but the last chapter is dedicated to Bass’s thoughts on various subjects, from clients and problem solving, to collecting things and retirement.
Publishers Laurence King have kindly given us five copies (worth £48 each) to give away. To win one all you have to do is share with us your favourite piece of wisdom from a figure in the creative world. It could be a few words from an eminent designer on the subject of inspiration, or a sharp piece of advice from a seasoned ad creative.
Leave your quotes with the name of who they’re attributed to in the comments below, and we’ll pick our five favourites. Where repetitions occur we’ll refer to the first posting of the quote, and we’ll announce the winners tomorrow (Thursday) on the blog and via Twitter. The deadline for your entries is 12pm GMT this evening.
To get you started, here are a few examples from Bass himself, taken from the new book.
On work:
“Work? It’s just serious play.”
“Unless I have to stretch, then I’m not really interested.”
On clients:
“Clients? I have a sign in my office that reads ‘They need us more than we need them’ but on the other side reads ‘We need them more than they need us’.”
On process:
“So, the good news, I say to students, is that what you are experiencing is exactly what everybody else experiences, even those people you most admire. The bad news is that it doesn’t get any better.”
On creativity:
“Interesting things happen when the creative impulse is cultivated with curiosity, freedom and intensity.”
“Sometimes when an idea flashes, you distrust it because it seems too easy. You qualify it with all kinds of evasive phrases because you’re timid about it. But often, this turns out to be the best idea of all.”
This competition has now closed. Thanks to everyone who entered. The winning entries are listed below.
After much deliberation, here’s our list of five winning quotes.
“You are obliged to go off at a tangent if you want to stop going round in circles,” Alan Fletcher, posted by Lee.
“What I’m trying to produce is the visual equivalent of the chord change that makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up,” Rian Hughes, posted by George.
“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler,” Albert Einstein, posted by Marcus.
“When people tell you something’s wrong or doesn’t work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong,” Neil Gaiman, posted by Mark.
“Design isn’t about what something looks like, it’s about what people think when they see it,” Craig Frazier, posted by Marc.
Lee, George, Marcus, Mark and Marc, please get in touch via mark.sinclair@centaur.co.uk with details of the address that you would like the book sent out to. Thanks again to everyone who entered.
Not getting Creative Review in print too? You’re missing out.
In print, Creative Review carries far richer, more in-depth articles than we run here on the blog. This month, for example, we have nine pages on Saul Bass, plus pieces on advertising art buyers, Haddon Sundblom, the illustrator who ensured that Coke will forever be linked with Santa Claus, Postmodernism, Brighton’s new football ground and much more. Plus, it’s our Photography Annual, which means an additional 85 pages of great images, making our November issue almost 200-pages long, the biggest issue of CR for 5 years.
If you would like to buy this issue and are based in the UK, you can search for your nearest stockist here. Based outside the UK? Simply call +44(0)207 292 3703 to find your nearest stockist. Better yet, subscribe to CR for a year here and save yourself almost 30% on the printed magazine.
Nov 01
Maira Kalman Illustrates New Edition of Michael Pollan’s Food Rules
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Rule #82: Cook
Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. Michael Pollan elaborated on this omnivorous mantra in his 2009 book, Food Rules, which offered 64 “simple rules for eating healthily and happily.” Having spawned reader-created t-shirts, market bags, posters, and plenty of reader-submitted maxims, the book has been reborn in a glorious illustrated edition. The enhanced hardcover version of Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual (Penguin) goes on sale today and is awash in colorful, witty paintings by Maira Kalman. Elegantly designed by Claire Naylon Vaccaro, the book includes a new introduction and 19 additional food principles, such as “Love your spices” and “Place a bouquet of flowers on the table and everything will taste twice as good” (Kalman opts for a green fluted vase of hot pink poppies). And while there are plenty of fresh veggies and farm scenes to admire, Kalman’s signature way with pastry is featured in such rules as “Treat treats as treats” and “Eat all the junk food you want as long as you cook it yourself,” which is matched with a Hostess cupcake. “When Michael asked if I would like to illustrate this book, I said two things. First, Yes. Absolutely Yes. Second, that Cheezdoodles had a beloved place in our family history,” explains Kalman in her handwritten introduction. “He did not hold that against me. This is a great country. Vast. Complicated,” she notes, pausing for a painting of a plump sausage floating on a pink ground. “With plenty of room for extremes.”
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Oct 31
Tom Gauld’s Goliath, the giant’s story
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Comic book artist Tom Gauld is set to release a new book next year through Drawn & Quarterly. The Montreal-based publishers recently put some preview pages from the forthcoming Goliath up on their site…
There are two other pages from the book up on the Drawn & Quarterly blog, and on receipt of Gauld’s recent email newsletter, we wanted to share two of them here on the blog. (The joke on one of the other pages is well worth the visit to D&Q’s site.)
As the title implies, the story is Gauld’s take on the famous tale of little guy with slingshot taking on apparently forbidding huge guy – but this time told from the battle-shy giant’s perspective.
Goliath is available to pre-order in the UK from Amazon here. More of Gauld’s work at tomgauld.com.
Read the other two pages from Drawn & Quarterly’s preview of Goliath, here.
Oct 31
Black cats…
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Illustrator and designer Laurie Rollitt was born in the city of Winchester and raise in the seaside village of West Lulworth. He graduated from UWE Bristol in 2011 with first class honours in Illustration then moved to Stoke Newington, London where he now lives and works.
See more of his portfolio here.
Oct 31
Mill Co and Monotype’s type-tastic art show
Posted in: Uncategorized
Creative agency Mill Co teamed up with Monotype Imaging and tasked a selection of image makers to create artworks using one are all of three Monotype fonts – Akko, Neue Haas Grotesk, and Rotis II. The resulting exhibition runs at the Mill Co Project gallery in East London until November 24 and features work by artists including Kavel Rafferty (above), Adam Smith, Kelly Angood, Lisa Stannard, and Rob Flowers…
Here are a selection of images of works in the show:
Under Milk Wood, by Stewart Scott-Curran of Ony More Never Less, graphic print, £100
Risograph print (£15), by graphic designer Thanyaporn Jarukittikun
Detail of an untitled, two-layer illustrative work by Anne-Kathrin Schubert’s and Oliver Harrison. £250
Here Be Dragons, by Rob Flowers, giclée print, £180
We also really liked this film made for the show, Expanded Font, directed by Mark Jewitt and shot by Paul Lilley. Sound by Bent Ear.
Expanded Font from Mill Co. on Vimeo.
The exhibition runs until November 24 at the Mill Co Project gallery space at Lime Wharf, Vyner Street, Tower Hamlets, London E2 9DJ. All the work is for sale via the Mill Co store with proceeds donated to The Billie Butterfly Fund.
See more of the work created for the show, visit pixeldisco.millco.co.uk
CR in Print
Not getting Creative Review in print too? You’re missing out.
In print, Creative Review carries far richer, more in-depth articles than we run here on the blog. This month, for example, we have nine pages on Saul Bass, plus pieces on advertising art buyers, Haddon Sundblom, the illustrator who ensured that Coke will forever be linked with Santa Claus, Postmodernism, Brighton’s new football ground and much more. Plus, it’s our Photography Annual, which means an additional 85 pages of great images, making our November issue almost 200-pages long, the biggest issue of CR for over 5 years.
If you would like to buy this issue and are based in the UK, you can search for your nearest stockist here. Based outside the UK? Simply call +44(0)207 292 3703 to find your nearest stockist. Better yet, subscribe to CR for a year here and save yourself almost 30% on the printed magazine.
Oct 28
Hokusai: original mangaka
Posted in: Uncategorized
The sketchbooks of 18th century artist Katsushika Hokusai are packed with humour, charm and glimpses of everyday life. Pie Books in Japan has just published them as a beautiful collected edition…
Shunro, Taito, and, later in life, Gakyo Rojin or ‘Old man mad about painting’: Japanese artist and illustrator Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849) went by several pseudonyms.
But the Hokusai moniker by which he’s best known was adopted when he was 38 and used for the next 18 years. In showcasing the pick of his ‘manga’ sketches in a new 700-page edition, Pie has revealed a man who was certainly crazy for his art.
Hokusai drew anything and everything but his cartoons of human figures, sketched in just a few bold lines, convey character, expression and movement in a way that we can still relate to. Some of them look like they are straight out of contemporary manga. Just look at the sketches of hands (above) – the one on the right seems to depict someone deterring an unwanted grope.
Hokusai’s take on ‘Ukiyo-e’ woodblock printing depicts ordinary folk and the houses they lived in, tackles proverbs and the Japanese landscape (his most famous and most recognisable series of works is probably Mount Fuji in 36 views).
With Hokusai Manga, Pie has produced a wonderful book that includes a brief but astute commentary on a man whose work proved to be an influence on Art Nouveau but, in his own time, captured the breadth and character of everyday life in Japan.
Pie Books; £35. More details at piebooks.com.
Oct 27
Mark Your Calendar: Illustration Week
Posted in: Uncategorized
Get out your fancy pens and draw an elaborate box around November 4-13. That’s Illustration Week, an event bonanza featuring exhibitions, talks, panel discussions, and parties that will draw out a crowd of people who don’t blink when faced with questions such as “Prismacolors or Copics?” The fun begins next Friday, November 4, as Parsons the New School for Design plays hosts to the third annual Pictoplasma Conference, which invites designers, illustrators, fimmakers and producers, artists, and character connoisseurs to discourse freely about the world of character-driven art and design. The two-day event features lectures by global superstars such as Siggi Eggertsson, Wooster Collective, Jon Burgerman (whose work is pictured above), and French-Swiss Technicolor enfants terribles Ben & Julia. The Society of Illustrators follows up that character-building bunch with a presentation on the history of illustration by Murray Tinkelman, an Illustrators Sketch Night featuring the musical stylings of the Half-Tones (illustrators Barry Blitt, Joe Ciardiello, and Michael Sloan, joined by guest guitarist Kenny Wessel), and an evening with children’s book icons and illustrators including Ted and Betsy Lewin and Jerry Pinkney. Check out the full schedule of events here.
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