Say it with an illustration

Say it with a quote or illustrate one? Malaysia-based illustrator Tang Yau Hoong pairs each of his illustrations with a famous quote. As simple as that, as beautiful as these posters…

See more after the jump

I will not make any more boring art

A portrait of the godfather of conceptual art, John Baldessari. A brilliant video for its inspiration, editing, graphic design and, of course, for its narration by Tom Waits.

See also:

• The quest of an artist
• Kubrick’s animated odyssey
• Ceci n’est pas une post

The hardly spoken words

The difficult words, the unusual words: all these words that are rarely spoken and whose meaning we cannot even imagine. Designers James and Michael Fizgarald, the illustration duo from Ireland, also known as The Project Twins, have ‘gathered’ all these words that are rarely spoken and managed to visually explain them.

Acersecomic: a person whose hair has never been cut.

Zugzwang: a position in which any decision or move will result in problems.

Do you know any of them? See more peculiar words after the jump.

Finnegan woke up and got illustrated

To read James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake, is quite an experience; I cannot even imagine how could anybody try to illustrate its world of dreams and illusion.

In February of 2010, Paris-based designer and illustrator Stephen Crowe decided to undertake this task; to illustrate chapter by chapter one of the most difficult works of fiction in the English language. The result is an ongoing project entitled Wake in Progress, in which different techniques and design styles are mixed together.

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Six degrees of artistic influences

We have seen her work before, illustrating the food habits of famous writers and poets.   Now Wendy MacNaughton illustrates in a visually engaging manner the Circles of Influence, created by Michelle Legro and Maria Popova, which reveal the creative encounters and intersections of different writers, scientists, genres and eras.

See also:

• Food for inspiration
• I shall not live in vain
• Social networks from the Enlightement

Food for inspiration

Walt Whitman used to have oysters and meat for breakfast, Emily Dickinson preferred her own home-baked bread, whereas Marcel Proust used to drink espresso to write his “In Search of Lost Time “, and not madeleine as we would have guessed.  Even great writers and poets want some little treats for inspiration.

lllustration by Wendy MacNaughton.

via New York Times

See also:

• I shall not live in vain
• In literature / hidden haikus I have found / unexpectedly
• In their own words

Darwin, the rock star

Rene Descartes, a pop idol and Charles Darwin, the rock star. That’s how graphic designer Simon Bent decided to re-popularise some of the greatest scientists in history. In his series of illustrations Science vs. Delirium, he renders these iconic figures in the kinds of psychedelic patterns and colors, just like in 1960s acid-rock posters.

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Infographics: now and then

Yeah , we live in the age of infographics. We know it, already. It is the new way to convey information from the most trivial to the most complex. However, the need to visualise data doesn’t seem so new after all. From the beginning of the last century, artists and designers were looking for new ways to share information in a visually engaging manner, as these 1940′s copies of the Fortune magazine reveal. It seems that the only things that have truly changed are the techniques and the media.

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Killing time on a tablecloth

Killing time is never easy either you are in an airplane or in restaurant, but it can be creative. Illustrator Guibo draws his napkin tablecloth while he waits for his food, integrating in his drawings elements of the table.

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Illustrated cities

Find your way to some of Europe’s landmarks, including archaeological sites, museums but also bars, clubs, markets, via designer Owen Gatley‘s city map illustrations.

Sketching reality

How would you feel if you could affect reality and fill in the picture just by drawing your own version of it? That’s what painter and photographer Ben Heine has thought, or at least I suppose he did, in his series Pencil Vs. Camera  and has blended his beautifully taken pictures of landscapes with some of his illustrations.

See more photos after the jump.

91 New York movies

Correctly identify the 91 movies depicted in the New York City movie map by Bernie Hou and win a copy here.

P.S. As one would expect, lots of Woody Allen in here.

via holykaw

See also:

• See the object, guess the movie
• A riddle for 2010

Lolita butterflies

Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta; the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.

She was Lo, plain Lo in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita.

Beautiful hand-illustrated butterflies by legendary author and amateur entomologist Vladimir Nabokov on copies of his masterpiece Lolita. Today would be his birthday. April 22nd.

 

via flavorwire

See also:

• Write like Kafka
• What should I read?
• The physical act of writing

10 + 1 ways to visualize lyrics

Really good songs have usually really good lyrics. And good lyrics stay with you. When we were at school we doodled them on our books and carved them into the desks. What do the digital natives do? Here are the best ideas (and, incidentally, really good songs for the most part) we found around the web:

1. Pick a photo, apply a vintage effect and write the lyrics in helvetica

Paris by the Friendly Fires (the Aeroplane version featuring Au Revoir Simone  kicks major ass, too)
(visual first seen at letlooselove, our title inspired by this)

2. Make a flowchart*

Should I Stay or Should I Go by The Clash
(visual first seen at Urlesque)
*but be careful not to be trapped on an infinite loop

See 9 more ways after the jump

Creative truths

The most valuable truths that rule both life and art, are often the simplest ones.  Shirley-Ann Dick reveals some of them in what appears to me at least as Rothko-like posters.

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Tweets say the darnest things

It’s true. Among tons of trivialities there are some truly witty tweets. Twaggies is a blog that selects and illustrates some of these tweets. 

See also:

• Real birds’ tweets on twitter
• Facebook in Bamako
• Truly social

True dat: rap advice, illustrated

I ‘ve told you, I ‘ve never been a huge fan of rap music, but I love everything that has to do with language and music. And I have to admit it: I stick more to lyrics than to music and I just loved Jessica Wright’s illustrations revealing some of the most inspirational words of rap music.

More after the jump

Words without words

Which one is stronger? A word or an image?

In Words without words, a visual dictionary of words with abstract, complex or underused meanings, these two are beautifully combined by illustrator, designer and new media artist, Veronika Heckova.

More definitions after the jump

69 love illustrations…

…inspired by The Magnetic Fields’ 69 Love Songs. This is what you can find in How Fucking Romantic, a great little blog. It was launched by a bunch of London-based illustrators, comic-artists and writers who wanted, well to illustrate all of the 69 Love Songs. But the project is open and anyone can submit an illustration.

To paraphrase my favorite song by The Magnetic Fields (even if not from the 69 Love Songs): Please stop dancing in my heart / I can seem to make it art.

See more illustrations and listen to my favorite song after the jump.

When Kraftwerk met Mozart

Impressed by just a poster.

In this poster series, Hye Jung Ba combines newspaper illustrations from the 1800′s with contemporary optical patterns to present a concert of electronic music bands playing classical music with digital media.

As simple as that.

via NotCot

See also:

• Cinematic pictographs
• Your face is awfully familiar…
• Deconstructing the perfect drink
• Color outside the line