2010 Eustace Tilley Contest

The New Yorker’ dapper gent, Eustace Tilley is offering himself up for another make-over. Deadline is January 18, 2010. Learn more about the contest.

Found via The New Yorker

Prepare to Laugh/Cringe Your Way Through Neutra Face

Found via MediaBistro

77 Gift Ideas

It’s that time of year again and Core77 has again presented their 2009 Gift Guide. A great list with well-designed and creative items.

My favorite is the Woolly Pocket which allows you to grow plants on your wall.

It’s perfect for us apartment-dwellers!

Sculptor Meredith Dittmar

Interview with sculptor Meredith Dittmar. Cool stuff!

Found via Fecal Face

Ah! Letterhead

Great letterhead by Herb Lubalin. One of many great pieces of ephemera on AMassBlog. This one is by Herb Lubalin.

Found at AMassBlog

What Can You Do When You Have No Internet Connection?

It’s happened to all of us: losing our internet connection. Frustration and anger are the intial reactions to what seems like a catastrophe. But all is not lost, as this one web designer figured out in What Can You Do When You Have No Internet Connection? is a wonderful list of 13 ways to take advantage of the situation. It almost makes me want to lose our connection for a couple hours.
Found via Smashing Magazine

Charity Feat: Put Yourself In Christoph Niemann's Shoes

Charity Feat: Put Yourself In Christoph Niemann's Shoes

Found via Unbeige

The Evolution of the Coca-Cola Contour Bottle

To mark the 94th anniversary of the iconic Coca-Cola coutour bottle, The Dieline takes a look at the its design history.

Found via the TheDieline.com

300,000 Birds

Found via SwissMiss

The Complex of All of These

A wonderful video going through the intensive process of bookbinding an edition of 35 books in about 5 minutes.

Mil Besos: Afanador Photographs Flamenco

Noted fashion photographer Ruven Afanador's most recent work is called Mil Besos, or one thousand kisses. He creates an intricate choreography of poses and gestures that embody the passionate song and dance of flamenco. Photographs of older and more traditional dancers are joined with images of younger women who today infuse flamenco with other musical traditions.

Selected works are exhibited at Throckmorton Fine Art through December 12, 2009. And the book, published by Rizzoli, is available on Amazon.

Lubalin Now

Lubalin Now is the inaugural exhibition in the newly re-located Herb Lubalin Study Center of Design and Typography at the Cooper Union.

The show includes recent posters, publications, and motion graphics by internationally recognized graphic designers that spotlight an emerging trend toward expressive lettering and typography.

Original sketches, magazines, logotypes, and posters selected from the Lubalin Center Archive will illuminate Herb Lubalin’s influence on contemporary graphic design. Work by artists include Marian Bantjes, Deanne Cheuk, Gretel, Jessica Hische, HunterGatherer, Justin Thomas Kay, Like Minded Studio, Christopher Martinez, Non-Format, Roberto Quiñones, Strange Attractors Design, TV Land and Herb Lubalin.

On view through December 8, 2009.

Image by Post Typography

Pushpin Masterpiece

Just got back from our whirlwind tour of universities in the UK and have been slogging through the enormous accumulation of emails in my inbox. Before my eyes, completely glazed over, I saw the good folks at Photojojo are selling the nifty Pushpin Frame. Easy to use on cubicle walls or other surfaces that aren't conducive to large nails. The frames are a little pricey, but perfect for a Christmas gift.
Found via Photojojo

On Tour

Whew! We’ve been quite busy the last week or so and need to catch our breaths. Charles and I have been traveling through Paris and London, visiting illustrators and universities. So far Charles has given lectures at University of Hertfordshire, Central St Martin's College of Art & Design and Sheffield University. Today we're visiting Loughborough University and tonight Charles is speaking again.

Charles has written about this trip on the 3x3 Blog, where he describes in-depth our experiences in school and in Paris where we met illustrators Eric Giriat and Rick Tulka.

Art of the Samurai

One of the first things I'd like to do upon my return to New York in a few weeks, is visit the Met's Art of the Samurai exhibition. It looks absolutely beautiful. And apparently because some of the items are so delicate they will be on view in rotation for a couple of weeks at a time.

Hello Stranger

With a bitter wind, whipping through the crimson-tinged trees, it dawned on me that it is truly autumn. Time flies. And it especially flies when you're totally engulfed in a project. For the past 6 weeks I've been concentrating on our sister publication 3x3's Illustration Annual No. 6. The result? A beautiful 264-page compendium of today's top illustrators and the fact that this blog has been sadly neglected.

Have no fear though, in the next few days I will be more diligent in my posts. And in the coming couple of weeks, I will hopefully have no shortage of inspiration to share as we will be taking a journey across the pond. There, we will meet students and educators of design and illustration.

From A to Z: LetterPlayground

LetterPlayground is a brand new site presented by Nate Williams where you can play with letter forms. Unleash your creativity on any (or all) 26 letters, upload and make comments and promote favorites. Nifty fun!

CQ17: Winners Announced

The winners for CQ17 have been announced. View the list of winners. CQ17 will be published in December 2009. Winners’ and runners-ups’ work will be shown on our online gallery in December as well. Our thanks goes out to all who entered. Don't forget that you can compete in CQ18, enter now.

Typedia

Typedia is a new website that is a community-based encyclopedia for typefaces. Definitely worth watching.
And you must check out their blog post on how they created their logo. You get to see the initial sketches and all the back-and-forth emails between the designer and the client. A great way to see how a project successfully comes together.

Designing Your Website

A List Apart has pulled together a couple of great articles on redesigning websites. The first article looks at the site redesign at a small advertising agency. And the second article looks at how a freelance designer redesigns her own site. Both articles show the (always difficult) process of designing your own website; sometimes you are your own worst client.

Tokyo Camera Style

Tokyo Camera Style is a great blog that documents old film cameras in Tokyo. These cameras are primarily used by young people. The camera above is a Leica Map camera with the original lens hood.
Found via Swiss-Miss

We Snap Pictures and Toot Our Own Horn

Stefan G. Bucher, talented designer/illustrator and monster-lover has just completed his newest book, The Graphic Eye: Photographs by Graphic Designers from around the Globe. And Charles and I are pleased to have our photographs included!
The Graphic Eye is published by Chronicle in the US (and Rotovision in the UK) and is due out in November.

Passions & Jupiter

This post has absolutely nothing to do with art, design, illustration or photography. Instead it is about cosmic impacts and having a passion. In case you haven't heard, a possible asteroid, about the size of the earth, crashed in Jupiter. And the person who discovered this incident? An amateur astronomer. Not NASA or any other professional organizational, but someone with a passion for astronomy and a large telescope in his backyard.
I found the man's story quite inspiring and was so impressed with his passion for his hobby. Obviously, not everyone's hobby pays off in such an unexpected way, but it illustrates the way that you can't stop yourself from pursuing your interests outside of work. You never know where it might lead.
Found via New York Times

Fonts on the Web

One site I like to peek at now and then is Typophile: 99% of the time the comments are informative and polite. So there had been several discussions about @font-face, which ostensibly allows browsers to read any font. Replace that old Georgia with Museo! However, it is a sticky subject, full of industry-jargon that is way beyond me. As a designer I want to use more fonts, but foundries are understandably worried about font piracy.
Fortunately, there’s a nice summary of the situation as it stands now, that is relatively light on the jargon posted by the good people of I Love Typography. It seems as if the big questions haven’t been answered yet but Typekit seems poised to take the lead as one part of the solution.
And hopefully the new changes will be a boon to type designers, who will have to design typefaces specifically for the web.

Visiting (not living in) a Glass House

Yesterday Charles and I finally had the opportunity to visit Philip Johnson’s Glass House now part of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. In case you haven't heard of the Glass House it is one of the iconic mid-century modern houses in the country. Johnson actually lived in the house (although not full-time) and continued to build other structures and extensively landscape the vast property. I had seen photographs of the place before (there are multiple books on the House), but was not quite prepared by the wonderful play between the buildings and the landscape. Even if you're not sold on modernist architecture, don't worry as Johnson moved on to various styles and those are reflected on his property.
If you're in the New England area, I encourage you to take the trek out to New Canaan, CT and take this tour.
And if you do take the tour, you just might have the opportunity to meet Tricia White. Not only was she gracious, knowledgeable and in possession of a charming British accent, but she also is a talented artist. Her work is currently on show at hpgrp Gallery in New York.
And on somewhat related news, noted photographer of modernist homes, Julius Shulman has died. Although Schulman was known for photographing homes in California, he too made it out to Johnson's Glass House and some of his work can be found on their website.

Aliens Love SpongeBob

This image illustrates how long it takes for our television signals to reach the rest of the galaxy. On a side note, now that we’ve changed to digital TV those signals are no longer projected and the galaxy will become a slightly quieter place.
Found via Quipsologies

Plastics!

An interesting article on Slate that looks at plastics in art and how it is proving problematic to museums, curators and art restorers.

“As plastics revolutionized the making of furniture, toys, health care products, and electronics, museums of industry, design, and medicine began snapping up plastic objects that were either historic (the first artificial heart) or culturally important (Barbie dolls). Plastics hold up well for the decade or so during which a consumer uses most products. But museums, unlike consumers, are in it for the long haul, and when plastics crash, they crash precipitously.”

Found via Slate

Google, Illustrators and “Exposure”

A NY Times article picks up a controversy that first hit the illustration community a few months ago. Apparently Google contacted numerous, well-respected illustrators and offered them to design "skins" for the new Google Chrome. Great job, right? Except that Google doesn't want to pay for the work.
Apparently offering a job to already established illustrators and saying their only compensation is "exposure" makes perfect sense to Google.
I am terribly disappointed that a hugely profitable company has so little respect for artists that they don't feel the need to pay them. Artists & illustrators are professionals; no different than any Google employee. Too bad Google doesn't see that.

Hue Knew?

Check out this Hue Test. Fun for whiling away a Friday afternoon.

CQ16: Winners Announced

The winners for CQ16 have been announced. View the list of winners. CQ16 will be published in September 2009. Winners' and runners-ups' work will be shown on our online gallery in September as well. Our thanks goes out to all who entered. Don't forget that you can compete in CQ17.

CQ Update

I have been sadly negligent in my blogging duties. Mea culpa! The reason? We're preparing to announce the winners and runners-up for CQ16. The word will be going out late next week, so keep your eyes peeled.
Next up, CQ17 call for entries.

FPO Blog

The good folks at UnderConsideration have launched a new blog: FPO: For Print Only. An interesting look a print projects.

Eye Candy and Drop Shadows

A couple good articles from a couple of my favs, A List Apart and Smashing Magazine that I've read over the last couple of days. The articles may only be tangentially related, but both push for the same outcome: good design.
In Defense of Eye Candy and Bring Light and Shadow into Your Designs.

CQ16: Just 1 More Week...

CQ16's deadline is May 1st and rapidly approaching. Make sure you buckle down and submit your work before spring fever hits you!

Roman Klonek Gallery Show

For those of you who will be in or around London in the next few weeks, you should note that Roman Klonek will be having his first solo show at the Kemistry Gallery from April 17–May 20.

Breaking into Editorial Photography

MediaBistro is hosting a seminar lead by award-winning photo editor Stella Kramer. Register now! MediaBistro subscribers get a discount.
Via MediaBistro

Toilet Roll Sculpture

Yup, sculpture made out of toilet rolls. The artist is Junior Jacquet.
Via Quipsologies

Tangled Alphabets: León Ferrari and Mira Schendel

Tangled Alphabets is a new show at the MoMA that looks at the work of 2 Latin American artists, León Ferrari and Mira Schendel. Their work has never been exhibited in the US in its entirety.
The show is on view from April 5th–June 15th.
And if you can't make it to New York, check out the exhibition website. It allows up-close views of these detailed works.

Continental Shift

This is a Flash animation by Kentaro Nagai that creates the animals in the Chinese zodiac from the world map.
Via Swiss Miss

Eco Zoo

Eco Zoo is a fun website from Japan (with English text as well). You get to "climb" a tree and read "pop-up" books about little creatures. An engaging website even if you're not a kid.

CQ16: Call for Entries

Calling all artists, designers, illustrators and photographers! Time is running out to enter Creative Quarterly 16. The deadline is Friday, May 1. All winners will be exhibited in the next issue of CQ, due out August 2009.
We look forward to seeing your work.
The deadline is Friday, May 1st.
Learn more about eligibility, fees and preparing your work.

Seeing Mario Hugo

Last night AIGA presented a lecture by Mario Hugo. He's a talented artist/typographer whose career has gotten off to a big start.

Scanwiches

A truly beautiful (and yummy) blog of scanned sandwiches.
Found at Design Observer

Hangin' Out with Aaron Meshon

Yesterday we got to meet up with illustrator Aaron Meshon. And as a parting gift he handed out his most recent project: zipper pulls. These cuties are available at KidRobot.


And special thanks to Jessica was kind enough to model be our model.

Free Apps for Macs

I love Macs and I love free stuff and this list combines my 2 loves. Granted, I haven't had the time to download and test any of these, but i've got my eye on a couple...

Via Smashing Magazine

CQ15: Winners Announced

It's been a while since any new posts have appeared, but it's been crunch time over here.
First, we've sent out CQ14 to the printer. So you should see the new issue on the newsstands in a couple of weeks.
Secondly, we just announced winners for CQ15! It's a great showing. The list of winners is posted online. And because there were so many great pieces, we've decided to expand the winner's categories and include a new category, Runners-Up. The work of Runners-Up will be shown in our new online gallery premiering later this month. And as always our medal and merit winners work will be shown both in the magazine and now online as well. As soon as this new online gallery is up, we'll let you know.
And finally, the third item we've been working on is opening up the CQ16 competition, but more on that later....

Winterhouse Design Writing & Criticism Awards is Open

This competition is open to professionals and students. Deadline is June 1

Creating a Cover: CQ14

Phewwww! CQ14 is off to the printer. And the cover image selected is by Howard Schatz! And the runner-up is Amanda Small whose work will be on the inside front cover.

Creating a Cover: Narrowing our Focus

So this weekend we narrowed down our favorite cover images. We've now reached 5 images!
Everyone in the office offers their opinion. And it is always interesting to see who likes what. But in the end, you have to choose what works best—aesthetically, conceptually, as well as on the newsstand!
The next step, and possibly the most difficult step, is to start putting type on the cover. We'll post those results in the next day or two.

Fine Art Photography: Call for Entries

The Center for Fine Art Photography has announced a call for entries for 2 contests. The first is an open theme and the second one's theme is "Works of Man."

Tropicana's Old Packaging Is New Again

No doubt you've heard a lot about Tropicana's new packaging—and much of it not very good. It seemed as though much of the design community was less than impressed with the new packaging. Well, it appears as if designers weren't the only ones unhappy with it, as Tropicana's parent company is going back to the original design: ie the straw in the orange.
I would venture a guess that not only were consumers unhappy with the new design, but that as a result they weren't buying the product. No doubt design can help or hinder the bottom-line.
Via the New York Times

Creating a Cover from the Ground Up

Right now we're pulling together our next issue, CQ14. And we're at the point where we begin the process to choose the cover. Now as some of you may know, when your work is included in CQ, we request an 'inspiration' image from you. And we select one them as the image for our cover.
Laying the mock-ups on the ground, we slowly start to pick our favorites...
I will be posting updates on this process over the next few days.

Lunch with Steven Tabbutt

Yesterday we took a break from our busy day to have lunch with illustrator Steven Tabbutt. I am a huge fan of his work and was glad that he trekked all the way out here to meet us. Charles has written more about Steven and his work.

Via 3x3

Introducing our Interns

Creative Quarterly's interns (left to right):
Valerie, Jin, Jonathan

Sketchbook: Craig Frazier

A wondreful look at Craig Frazier's sketchbook.

Found at Quipsologies

Creative Quarterly Goes Across the Pond

We're pleased to announce that CQ will be distributed in the UK. Beginning with our current issue, CQ will be in select Borders stores. Brilliant!

Drawing Obama

Political caricaturist Taylor Jones breaks down Obama for you.
Found at Design Observer.

Handmade Nation

I admit that I'm a bit of a frustrated DIY-er. I have cross-stitched, knitted, flirted with sewing and continue to do some basic crochet. I would love to make my own books. Yet I've never been able to fully immerse myself in any one field. So I am so inspired by these upcoming events. Princeton Architectural Press is publishing Handmade Nation: The Rise of DIY, Art, Craft, and Design by Faythe Levine , Cortney Heimerl. And it is accompanied by a documentary film.
And, thanks to the good people at DART, I have learned powerHouse Arena is hosting a panel discussion with the authors on Feb. 11. The film premiere will be at the the Museum of Art & Design the following day.

James Castle Documentary

Last night, flipping through the channels trying to find something to watch before Flight of the Conchords came on, I stumbled across an hour-long documentary on artist James Castle on the Ovation channel.



I've been a fan of Castle's work for years. It was nice to see such a lovely little look at this artist. He captured not only his surroundings (rural Idaho in the mid-20th century), but also his inner thoughts. To see the entire documentary, here are the show times.

Paul Sahre's Problems

Last Friday night the NY chapter of AIGA hosted a lecture by Paul Sahre. The subject of his lecture? Problems. Specifically problems he's run into as a graphic designer.
It was refreshing to see a designer talk about his career and take a look at the pieces that (for whatever reasons) did not work. It was a nice reminder that a piece you work on can fail for reasons within your control and out of your control. Sometimes it fails on a technical or formal reason. Sometimes it can fail on a more personal level. And not matter how embarrassing or aggravating your problem is, you always learn something from it.
It was an engaging talk and Paul provided everyone with a lovely little pennant. A lovely little reminder when you're in the midst of a bad day that, yes, you're not the only one that has problems.

Everything tastes better with bacon. Even the internet.

Is your website missing something? Add some bacon!
Fount at Swiss Miss

Paper, Plastic, or Canvas?

Amidst all the despair in the last few years about the slow extinction of various design-friendly formats—the vinyl LP, the newspaper, the book, etc. — one vehicle for graphic design has vaulted to almost instant ubiquity: the canvas tote. More....

Found at Design Observer

CQ15 has been closed.

We've just closed the call for entries for CQ15. We're in the midst of processing what appears to be our most competitive show thus far. Our thanks to everyone who has submitted their work. We expect the judging to be complete by March 15, all entrants will be informed with our list of winners; be sure to add Creative Quarterly to your address book to make sure you're receiving our emails concerning this show and upcoming events.
And if you've missed this call for entries, don't worry, the deadline for CQ16 is Friday, May 1, 2009. Check here for updates, or join our mailing list.

Book Review: The Art Instinct

I have been a fan of the website Arts & Letter Daily for almost 9 years—I can't start the day without a look at it. A&LD is run by Denis Dutton, a professor of the philosophy of art, and he has recently published the book The Art Instinct. 

And this weekend the New York Times published a review:

[Dutton's] considered view (though he sometimes strays into more ambitious explorations) is that Darwinian aesthetics sheds light on literature, music and painting not by demonstrating them to be evolutionary adaptations, but by showing how their existence and character are connected to prehistoric preferences, interests and capacities.

I'm so intrigued! Yet another book to add to my wish list....

And don't forget to check out Arts & Letters Daily.

Photography Scholarship

The Ike Royer Memorial Scholarship For Traditional Black and White Photography is a $1,500 scholarship awarded to a student who incorporates traditional black and white photography into their photographic studies.
View details for this and other scholarships.

A Camera that Stares Back

An awesome camera by Thomas Keeley.

Found at itsnicethat.com

CQ is on Facebook

Join our Creative Quarterly group on Facebook!

Gallery Opening: Daniel Horowitz

Illustrator Daniel Horowitz's work will be on view at Highland Park gallery. Opening night is Thursday, January 29. The gallery is located at 175 W Broadway (between Leonard & Worth St) New York City. The show runs through March 31. www.daniel-horowitz.com

Just 3 Days Left to Enter CQ15

We're busy processing all your entries for CQ15. Fortunately, you've still got until Friday, January 30 to submit your work.

Learn more about eligibility, fees and preparing your work.

Raising Eyebrows

An advertisement from Britain for Cadbury's.

Dangerous Curves

Doyald Young's book Dangerous Curves is a roadmap on how to create your own logotype.

“The only way to create a logotype that is truly unique is for the designer to transcend the limitations of the available fonts and typefaces on the market. Dangerous Curves provides a roadmap for that very worthy endeavor.”

Found at Thinking for a Living

USB Calculator

“Immediately retro, yet utterly futuristic, this calculator is USB enabled so can either be used via a computer screen or as a standalone regular calculator.”

Found at Brand Spanking New

CQ15: Call for Entries

Calling all artists, designers, illustrators and photographers! Time is running out to enter Creative Quarterly 15. The deadline is Friday, January 30. All winners will be exhibited in the next issue of CQ, due out end of March 2009. 

We look forward to seeing your work. 

The deadline is Friday, January 30th. 

Learn more about eligibility, fees and preparing your work.

Creative Quarterly 13

Creative Quarterly is on the newsstands.