Following on from JK’s comments here, here are a few images taken from Patrick Ness’ new book ‘A Monster Calls’, illustrated by Jim Kay. Using a mixture of relief printing, black pen and ink, and various printed textures digitally pieced together, Jim has created a wonderfully dark atmosphere. I’d love to see the original works; I imagine the textures would really bring these images to life. There’s a lovely german trailer for the book, and you can see more of Jim’s illustration work.

A Monster Calls, Book design, Illustration, Jim Kay, Painting, Patrick Ness

The illustrator Lucy Knisley has created a poster for each of the 8 Harry Potter films – summing each one up in a panel-free comic strip. Whether you like the films or not, these are charming and technically brilliant. I also love the colour coding used for each film. Head over to Comics Alliance to see them all.

Comic book, Harry Potter, Lucy Knisley

Came across this sample of exquisite three dimensional renderings at Aqua-Velvet, from the 1960 publication ‘Structures of Warped Surfaces: Combinations of Units of Hyberbolic Paraboloids’ by notable Argentine architect Eduardo Catalano (1917–2010)… You had me at ‘Hyperbolic’.

The drawings are by Gloria Catalano – more background info and drawings can be seen at Aqua-Velvet.com

Aqua Velvet, Eduardo Catalano, Structures of Warped Surfaces

Punctuation is not just a great friend of the copywriter and author. Designers and typographers have long valued the punctuation mark for its succinctness and beauty of form, bringing simplicity, clarity, homour and intelligence to design. This charming Print.Magazine gallery showcases a history of the question mark and exclamation mark in design through the years.

Art, Book design, Copy, Copywriting, Grammar, Illustration, Typography

My main take-out from visiting D&AD New Blood was how strong the graphic design and typography was this year. It was very encouraging to see the attention to detail and understanding of traditional typography on display, as well as a lot of screen printing. In this digital age of animation, apps and mobile interfaces it was refreshing to see that a lot of traditional skills are still being taught. That said, Creatives these days have to work across a multitude of new media and channels and it will be interesting to see how some of the graduates lucky enough to find work adapt to the current commercial climate that we’re working in.

It seemed to be an even bigger show that previous years so I can’t say that I managed to see everything however so I’d be interested to hear other people’s opinions on the standard of the work on show…

D&AD, Graduates, New Blood

Wikipedia is celebrating its tenth anniversary with a video (narrated by founder and CEO Jimmy Wales) and an infographic showcasing the organization’s major milestones over the years. This animation caught my eye – executed really well with a lovely style. The State of Wikipedia is the fourth installment in JESS3′s “The State Of” series. The first installment, The State of the Internet, made its debut about a year ago.

Wikipedia

Saw these and fell in love, brilliantly Saul Bass inspired, enjoy.

movie posters, Saul Bass

David McCandless shows how design can make sense out of the overwhelming amount of information in today’s world. He turns complex data sets (like worldwide military spending, media buzz, Facebook status updates) into beautiful, simple diagrams that tease out unseen patterns and connections. Good design, he suggests, is the best way to navigate information glut — and it may just change the way we see the world.

Data, Infographics, Information

We were very grateful for the artist, Rob Hart to come and talk about his work in the last Creative Forum. See below to watch an excerpt.

Creative Forum, Rob Hart

To coincide with it’s Kick-Ass edition, Little White Lies have just announced the winners of it’s latest creative brief competition – to transform a favourite film into a six panel comic strip. The winner was David Rigby, who cast an ironic eye over the nuances of the film Zombieland although I think that Total Recall by Matt Boyce and The Wicker Man by Hurk (excerpt shown above) are great. See all the winners here.

Comic book, Kick Ass, Little White Lies