iancul

Poland’s poster design never ceases to blow me away:

Poster made by Tomasz Boguslawski, a Chicago International Poster Biennial finalist. Read the article on Design Observer.

Always inspiring. Still hard to understand. But, God’s permit, we’ll have a lifetime ahead of re-reading and re-watching until we’ll come to understand Mr. Rand. Dying trying is not that bad either. After all, there’s more than just one way to reach Rome, right?

Description from YouTube: A short film by Preston McLanahan interviewing Paul Rand, the great American Modernist designer. Filmed in 1996, shortly before his death he talks about his process, art, aesthetics, and design in general. A very inspirational video and soon to be released on DVD.

(via Swiss Legacy)

Last year I had the pleasure of playing with a “brush pen”. The beauty of its lines blew me away. Writing and drawing with it was such a pleasure! Drawing type, logos, sketches, everything looked different from a normal pen, free, vibrant, ever-changing in thickness, ranging from hairline-thin to broad, thick brush strokes. And everything without the hassle of dipping it in ink every three or four strokes. Just cap it back and put it in your pocket. I had to have such a wonderful tool.

Several weeks of searching on the web only brought me frustration. Sure you could find it easily. But finding someone that would ship it to Romania was a different story. After a few months, a colleague told me she was going to Tokyo. You can easily guess my plea :) She brought me some brush pens—thank you Delia—and I was finally able to enjoy drawing with them every day (another friend brought back from Paris a big Corto Maltese poster, one could not ask for a better subject to copy and practice the brush pen). But the pleasure would’ve soon ended, since you can’t refill them (there are other refillable brush pens, a little more expensive, but the problem is the ink, you have to use special ink since other types would dry and make the brush tip useless).

Fortunately, last weekend I showed the brush pen to my sensei and he told me its real name: fude pen (”foo-day” pen). Searching again on the web, this time with the proper name, gave me the much expected results: someone that would ship fude pens to Romania. So here you are, JList ships almost everywhere in the world a lot of Japanese merchandise, fude pens included. Be sure to check out the wide variety of fude pens. I’d recommend the bold line one, the others I still have to test (the shipment’s on the way, can’t wait).

So, if you’re an illustrator, any kind of designer or artist, or just an asian-caligraphy enthusiast, the fude pen is a must have—no other drawing tool will ever compare (ok, fineliners excepted) :)

(foto taken from wikimedia commons)

Great typographic take on Milton Glaser’s Bob Dylan poster (you can view the large image here):

(via Kottke)

Mr. Pascal Blanchet’s illustrations left me speechless. Rarely have I seen such beautiful colours and expressive hand-made typography (at many times interacting with the illustration). Reminding of Chuck Jones and Les Goldman’s animations or american modernism, Pascal Blanchet’s style manages to seem perfect for book covers, record covers, advertising, social posters or even product packaging.

(via grain edit)

An “American Da Vinci”, as they say it on the Viktor Schreckengost Fundation site. Insane watercolours. Check his sculptures and other works.

Echochrome is a new game by Sony for PS3 and PSP. Using Escher-like puzzles and environments, it seems to be “infinitely” fun. Made in Japan.

(thanks Arpi for the tip)

A very interesting Flickr set about street art in Japan.

(via PingMag)

I was still in Poland, third year of study, when I discovered, among tons of other short animations, the work of Marc Craste. His “Pica Towers” short series left me craving for more of that bleak, spooky, twisted, but nevertheless beautiful and fascinating universe (check the site to see them). Then I read about a longer short, still in production at that time, called “Jojo In The Stars”. I’ve watched the trailer over and over again, haunted by the eerie music, searching frantically for the full version. And since then, I’ve still done it from time to time.

Today I was very glad to find it, mainly because I remembered I should try searching for it again, reading CRBlog’s entry about Marc Craste’s work for Guinness (which is great, btw). So here it is, enjoy it properly by turning off the light and bumping up the volume:

jojo in the stars

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By the way, AnimWatch is a great resource for finding and reading about new or old short animations.

Today I received my package from Amazon with four books, 3 design books and a story one: Where the wild things are (wiki).

I wasn’t very sure about it when I ordered, but after reading it I must say that I’m glad I did. It’s wonderfuly illustrated, it’s a great story and it manages to make you feel “the magic” of a child’s world. It’s actually a classic, and it seems Hollywood are making a movie inspired by it. Hope it turns out allright (Burton’s Big Fish is a great movie that has a similar feel to “Where the wild..”)

I also posted some weeks ago this Hulk comic cover, which as you can see is a tribute to “Where the wild things are”: