I like to go dancing semi-regularly and sometimes I feel like this when dancing:
No, I’m not THAT tall, but this is exactly why I don’t wear higher heels when I dance— not because they’re uncomfortable (they’re not, generally) but because the “average” height for men in America includes children, apparently. (And yes, like the woman in the movie clip, I’ve almost been clotheslined with my own arm by guys who can’t/won’t lift their arm up high enough.
Hey Baltimore, MD and East Coast–
We made the news (not surprisingly) in Sweden:
View on SVT’s site, just in case
View on SVT’s Site
Schysst!
After what feels like the last eight months of obsessing a bit too much about work, sometimes it’s hard to remember just how to make yourself smile. Tonight, catching up on literally thousands of unread articles I found this beautiful short of Danny MacAskill exploring an old ironworks. Gorgeous, inspiring and a genuine delight to watch:
(via Imaginary Foundation)
Ok, not really… but it IS a good song… This is pretty much what the inside of my head sounds like heading to work in the morning…
Lately, I’ve found myself attending a lot of networking events and meetings; not surprisingly, one of the results is many conversations about the design services I offer…
Perhaps though, I should consider an ad like the following:
Great stuff, right? Especially that smashing logo at the end…
Despite unrelenting rain for the last few days, I’ve been in a pretty great mood lately, yesterday especially. But today, a warm, glorious sunny day, I’m feeling blah–seems I’ve strained my upbeat muscle(s). So, I’m trying to perk up with music in the form of a fairly ridiculous and silly playlist this afternoon. Among the tracks is:
Listening to this sort of music makes me want to cook up a storm and host a massive dinner party for all the people from around the world whom I love. Imagining everyone in one place for once in my life is absurd and thrilling, but maybe some day, right? Perhaps for my next house warming? Who’s in?
A brief video of the current installation at the Barbican in London by French artist Céleste Boursier-Mougenot which explores the unexpected rhythms of daily life.
I tweeted about this months ago but somehow overlooked sharing this wonderfully fun artwork here.
On display at the British Library in London is a painting by British artist, Patrick Hughes:
Beautiful!
As a jump-start to the week, here is a gorgeous piece to get your creative juices flowing, dear readers:
It has always fascinated me how seemingly trivial things can trigger one’s memory on a dime and transport you to another time or place in an instant– hidden snapshots of one’s life peppered throughout our daily comings and goings.
This morning, paying bills at my desk and watching the rain pour down, iTunes surprised me with a memory jolt– a musical time machine back to college:
This song always propels me back in time to a rainy night in Pittsburgh— biblical rain, soaking you to the bone and waiting on Carson Street for the 54C back to Oakland. The experience or night holds no significance to my present life, no new characters came into my life that night, no profound observations were made on that day, the rain did not catalyze anything other than hailing a taxi and yet it remains as a warm and vivid memory: Crumpled up in an old leather jacket, waiting beneath a street light flipping through sketchbooks with the other regular from my coffeeshop (who was also waiting for the overdue bus), wet licorice streets, headlights exaggerated by raindrops…
It seems strange to me that such an insignificant moment in my life remains so firmly imprinted upon my memory and yet it does.
What random moments are firmly implanted in your memory, dear readers?
It’s just one of those days; we all have them– you wake up and the world feels grey and unwelcoming. You scuff around and feel sorry for yourself and maybe mope a little. Well today, I’m having one of those days.
BUT instead of moping about like a fool when I feel like this, I rally my inner troops and forge ahead. This generally involves a longer visit to the closet– pulling out especially fun shoes and a colorful jacket, a bigger than usual cup of coffee, a longer lunch break and a tightening of the circle of dearest friends. When the world feels unwelcoming, I find it best to simply become the ultimate hostess– welcome the unwelcoming and just outshine the grey.
One of my longest standing friends from childhood, loved the Beatles when we were kids; countless weekend hours swam by to the soundtrack of the fab four and today my mind has drifted back to those days:
Watching this clip from the movie Help!, the semi-sad lyrics of the song mixed with the subtle silliness of Paul and George perks me up and makes me smile.
How about you, dear readers? How do you perk yourself up when you’re feeling down?
A few months ago, I had the pleasure of watching a documentary about the work and career of early French filmmaker, Georges Méliès.
His work is the sort of early silent film many of us have seen without realizing who the names behind the work were. He is the creator and mind behind the A Trip to the Moon (Le voyage dans la Lune):
Y’know that one… the one Smashing Pumpkins appropriated as a concept for their 1996 video Tonight, Tonight single?
Yeah, THAT one.
Méliès began his professional life as a stage magician in Paris and in 1895, after a demonstration of Lumière brothers’ camera, became fascinated with film. Within two years, he had established his own film studio and was creating elaborate films. In the eighteen years before his company went bankrupt, he directed over five hundred films.
Here is an amazing piece from 1903, Le Mélomane— a marvel of multi-exposures:
Le Mélomane, 1903
Le Cake-walk infernal, 1903
“Accuracy is the least significant part of drawing… but you have learn to draw accurately before you can do anything else…”
Five minutes with Milton Glaser on drawing from 2006.
Video by C. Coy
For the last two days, or evenings really, I’ve been reading The Barnbrook Bible as my break from work. It has been an absolute delight, leaving me further inspired by and in awe of Barnbrook’s work and perspective. I had the good fortune to spend some time with him at Grafic Europe in Berlin 5 years ago, but tried very hard not to be THAT person at the conference– the annoying fan who asks really specific questions about old work, celebrity clients and odd hypothetic situations.
Earlier this morning, I decided to catch up on what I’ve missed in the Virus Fonts and Barnbrook Design universe online. In so doing, I came across a number of his motion pieces from the last few years, here is one of the latest breathtaking pieces:
A Half-Rememebered Sentence from The Quiet Man
Here are a few pieces from a series of political pieces he did in 2004:
This is one of a series of three pieces produced in 1995 for BBC Radio Scotland:
See more of Jonathan Barnbrook’s amazing work here on his studio’s Web site.
It’s been an strange day– productive on the one hand but distracting. Oddly enough, today I tripped over an artist whose beautiful work simultaneously hit the nail on the head and sparked my imagination. I know I’m hardly the first person to share this video, but it’s so lovely it needs to keep being shared. Take a four minute break and enjoy this clever animation with which we can all identify:
While I’m on the subject of artists whose work gets my creative tail wagging this week, these videos of Lucy McLauchlan working just blow my mind. It makes me want to lock myself in an empty room with a gallon of paint or ink and have at it; though somehow I doubt the results would be comparable. Check it out:
WOW, I love this woman! The density of the illustrations she generates are incredible, and the intensity with which she works is so inspiring. There is so much work to be done…
Lately, I’ve been generating increasingly more work after having lapsed into a brief creative coma of sort earlier this year. As I shake off the creative cobwebs and jitters, I feel more compelled to work and tend to have more ideas than I can make good on or even record or realize.
Typically, when I get into this state of mind, I tend to pay even more attention to art, and find myself seeking out new ideas, inspiration, artists, etc. Recently, a friend turned me on to She One and not surprisingly, the cogs in my brain are turning and cranking out of control:
I’ve been dreaming of letterforms and just haven’t made good on the pictures in my head. Perhaps it’s time to roll up my sleeves and dig in… Where have you found inspiration lately, dear readers? Has it been from new stars in your own field, or seemingly more abstract sources? Talk to me people.
It’s been a quiet weekend around the studio, drawing mostly; but for some, it’s been quite a busy week. Released this past Friday, Leigh Delamere is the second video from Underpass’ debut album put out by Urban Planning Records:
A visual contrast to the first video from the album, which explores the urban Cardiff nightscape, this video takes us through the more organic side of Underpass’ world. It’s been hard not to watch this repeatedly as a visual break from my own work; even so, I’ve had the song stuck in my head all weekend.
Digging up that last batch of cartoons made me wonder about other old favorites from my childhood. Not surprisingly, the vastness of the Internet did not fail me. So I present to you two more childhood Disney favorites:
Man do I love Donald Duck.. the muttering KILLS me… and both the soundtrack and foley for these two are great. Even though I’ve probably seen each of these at least a hundred times in the last twenty years and I know exactly what’s going to happen next, I still smile and laugh every time I see these.
What are your old cartoon favorites?
