The Young Illustrators Award 2008 Exhibition in Zürich, Switzerland

[Press Release]
The Young Illustrators Award
can’t wait to be hold by the most ambitious hands.
In 2008, the „Illustrative“, the worldwide biggest art exhibition, exclusively dealing with illustration, proclaims, in collaboration with Swatch, a competition illustration, book art, comic, concept art or animation branch out into the field of art. The section of exhibition which is showing the laureates of the Young Illustration Award reveals the most imminent tendencies of the genre and is a thrilling seismograph for new development in the field.



Young Illustrators Award
In the sphere of the art festival „Illustrative“, which is going to take place in Switzerland, the organizers proclaim, in collaboration with Swatch, a competition
again this year, which addresses young illustrators. Young talents between 20 and 40 years are invited, to register and post their works in the field of graphics, illustration, animation, book art and audiovisual illustration.



Required are up to 8 freelance works, showing an “illustrative character”, which means: being in the broadest sense graphical or drawn. This includes freelance drawings, digital works, printgraphic, animation, book objects or graphical installations. Analog as well as digital works can be handed in. Artistic quality and originality are essential for the jury’s assessment. The international jury is represented by publishers or well known artists.

New FabCrew Portfolio Site

Ben and Dan of the Indianapolis based FabCrew are a graphic designer and illustrator respectively who do some seriously badass graffiti as well. Some of the best in the country, I do not hesitate to say.

Give them a look.

Matt Owens' Political Figures, Free Vector Illustrations

Frustrated by a lack of vector illustrations of current political figures, and inspired by campaign fever, Matt Owens whipped up ten speed-illo vector-heads.

Download Zip File.

Linzie Hunter's Spam Art: "One Liners"

Uk illustrator Linzie Hunter goes to town on custom lettering illustrations called Spam One-Liners inspired by spam subject lines.

Christopher Lee

His illustrative and motion graphics stylings are very inspiring. Go check him out if you haven't already. I know I've already seen him featured on motionographer and somewhere else. But even if you have visited before, he's worth another look.

New Shift Mag for May '07 - Cover by Jeremyville

The latest issue of Shift magazine has the fun cover by Jeremyville above. Jeremyville says "What most influences me is the little child inside me." An animator, cartoonist, illustrator, product designer, published author, fine artist, toy designer, clothing designer based in Sydney, Jeremyville is here! With the new book "Jeremyville Sessions" and Shift cover, enjoy his interview.

Check out Shift & Jeremyville.

W.A. Dwiggins Research Blog by Kelly Rakowski

Kelly Rakowski started a new blog on her research of Type Designer, Illustrator, Graphic Designer, Puppeteer and Book-Artist William Addison Dwiggins.




What I didn't know, is that Dwiggins also did a lot of work on marionettes. Very beautiful stuff:

All photographs by Kelly Rakowski.

Here is a short piece on WAD, as he called himself, from Wikipedia:

William Addison Dwiggins (June 19, 1880 Martinsville, Ohio - December 25, 1956 Hingham, Massachusetts ) was a U.S. type designer, calligrapher, and book designer. He attained prominence as an illustrator and commercial artist, and he brought to the designing of type and books some of the boldness that he displayed in his advertising work.

His typefaces—Electra and Caledonia are most widely used—were specifically designed for Linotype composition and have the clean spareness of the motor age. Metro is most notable as his most modern sans serif typeface. Metro was developed by Linotype in the late 1920s in response to similar type being sold from European foundries such as Futura, Gill Sans, and Erbar.

His scathing attack on contemporary book designers in An Investigation into the Physical Properties of Books (1919) led to his working with the publisher Alfred A. Knopf. A series of finely conceived and executed trade books followed and did much to increase public interest in book format. Dwiggins was perhaps more responsible than any other designer for the marked improvement in book design in the 1920s and 1930s. He gained recognition as a calligrapher and wrote much on the graphic arts, notably essays collected in MSS by WAD (1949), and his Layout in Advertising (1928; rev. ed. 1949) remains standard.

WAD (as he called himself) is credited with coining the term 'graphic designer' in 1922 to describe his various activities in book design, illustration, typography, lettering and calligraphy (his first typeface designs were released much later). The term did not achieve widespread usage until after the Second World War.

Recognition for the illustration work of Robert Meganck

Designer/Illustrator Robert Meganck –a Cranbrook Academy of Art graduate of '75– is getting wide recognition with four illustrations accepted into Communication Arts 2007 Illustration Annual ans well as four accepted into the Society of Illustrators 29th Annual Exhibition in NY.

2007 Illustration Annual
Communication Arts
St. Supery Wine Label/ St. Supery Vineyard / digital
Brooklyn Boy/ Barksdale Theatre / poster / digital
On a Wire / Fram Vegas CD cover / digital

Society of Illustrators 49th Annual Exhibition, New York.
Illustrators 49
Brooklyn Boy/ Barksdale Theatre / poster / digital
Intimate Apparel/ Barksdale Theatre / poster / digital
Not a Creature was Stirring/ CDI / Digital
Swimming Upstream/ CFA magazine / Digital

Chris Ware meets This American Life

One of my all-time favorite graphic designers/artists, Chris Ware created this animation for one of my all-time favorite radio shows This American Life. The new Showtime TV version.

[I stumbled upon this news at Motionographer.com]

Chris Ware books.

CHARLEY HARPER: AN ILLUSTRATED LIFE

The amazing body of work of under-exposed illustrator Charlie Harper finally gets the careful attention that it deserves.

Graphic Design by Kelly Rakowski. (My fabulously talented former intern at MASS MoCA and now designer at Todd Oldham Studio,

Charlie Harper, An Illustrated Life is certainly worth a look.

From the AMMO Books site:
"AMMO Books proudly presents this beautiful large format title as the definitive monograph of artist Charlie Harper’s lyrical illustrations, spanning his six decade long career. Renowned New York based designer Todd Oldham rediscovered Charlie Harper’s work in 2001, and since then has collaborated closely with him, combing through his extensive archive to edit and design this stunning AMMO Books release.

Charley Harper is an American original. At 84, Charley continues to make art in his studio in his hometown of Cincinnati, Ohio. He is beloved for his delightful, graphic and often humorous illustrations of nature, animals, insects and people alike. Charley likes to say, that when he paints a bird, he doesn’t count all the feathers in the wings – he just counts the wings. Minimal realism, he calls it, and his unique and precise style continues to resonate and inspire his admirers.

Charlie Harper - An Illustrated Life, showcases his illustrations that appeared from 1950-1975 in the Ford Times magazines, as well as in books such as the beloved “The Giant Golden Book of Biology” in 1961, “Betty Crocker’s Dinner for Two” in 1961, and “ The Animal Kingdom” in 1968, among many others. His well loved book “Birds and Words”, first published in 1974, is considered a classic. Remarkably, however, Charley’s work has never before been published in one complete retrospective.

Bringing his legacy to a wider audience, AMMO Books offers Charlie Harper, An Illustrated Life a large format standard book, or as a luxurious limited edition.

The Artist's Guide to Making Money

An exciting, decidedly eccentric, relentlessly well-crafted, and not without hope of being lucrative venture — The Artist's Guide series. The Artist's Guide is a topic-driven art journal produced
by Matt Cassity and Sam Spratlin.

This is a book/magazine full of inspiring, self-deprecating, insightful, intelligent and humorous creative discourse. Buy it for the words, buy it for the pictures... or both! Not by a Cranbrook grad, but the team behind "The Artist's Guide" certainly deserve your support for this exciting creative endeavor.

W+K Tokylab on Apple.com

A nice profile of Wieden and Kennedy's Experimental Graphic Design Lab in Tokyo, featuring Mr. Eric Cruz.

Wieden+Kennedy books.