More nice and nonsensical images (and info-graphics for nothing in particular) right here
(Via Oh Colour Me In)
Tagged with Illustration …
STAROWIEYSKI’S GRAPHIC UNIVERSE OF EXCESS
Franciszek Starowieyski: Polish painter, drawer, printmaker, poster artist, theater and TV set-designer; born in the 30s and passed away a few years ago. He wanted to ‘create a world which is independent from our notions of humanity.’
And so he did.
More here, via Design Observer.
MONSIEUR MYSTERE 04, ETC
Says the Hey, Mammoth blog:
I can’t decide which I like better, Julien Pacaud‘s illustrations, or the bio section on his website, which reads, “I’m a french illustrator, currently living in Le Mans, France. Before becoming an illustrator, i was, by turns : an astrophysician, an international snooker player, a hypnotist and an esperanto teacher. I hope i can someday have enough free time to devote myself to my real passion: time travel.â€
Awesome.
(We agree)
OH
Tagged Anya Triestram, Illustration, Shark Fin
HEALTH & WOODBLOCK PRINTS IN 19th CENTURY JAPAN
Says Pink Tentacle:
The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) maintains a collection of 400 health-themed woodblock prints from 19th-century Japan. The collection — which includes drug advertisements, illustrated instructions for treating and preventing contagious diseases, and visual guides to the human body — offers a unique look at Japanese medical knowledge in the late Edo and early Meiji periods. Here are a few images from the collection.
AN ATLAS OF ANATOMY
Says Bibliodyssey:
‘An Atlas of Anatomy: or, Pictures of the Human Body in Twenty-Four Quartro Coloured Plates Comprising one Hundred Separate Figures, with Descriptive Letterpress’ by Mrs Florence Fenwick Miller, 1879.
The remarkable Florence Fenwick Miller (1854-1936) was a leading British vocal supporter of women’s rights, particularly in respect of education. She received her medical degree by the age of twenty and was a member of the London Board of Education. Her unpublished autobiography was shared by her family in the last decade and became the basis of a 2001 biography by Rosemary T. Vanarsdel: ‘Florence Fenwick Miller: Victorian Feminist, Journalist and Educator’
***
consider O
this
my body
for it has
lain
with empty arms
upon the giddy hills
to dream of you
-ee cummings
***
MEMORIES OF BROOKLYN No. 001: MYTHIC MINDS
Saw Joshua Ray a couple of weeks ago in NYC. Besides talking our heads off as always (and getting the grand tour of Red Hook), I was also excited to see his new work: which looks amazing in the flesh. Above only a very tiny taste.
(And gracias gracias da Josh for the multiple presents–will be diving into them as soon as I get back to Mexico City.)
IF THE RIVER WAS DEEP. WHEN THE MOUNTAIN WAS HIGH
Comparative Heights of the Principal Mountains and Lengths of the Principal Rivers of The World, from the 1800s.
Oh, the poetry of graphic information, once upon a time.
(Read more here.)
FORTUNE 000
Fortune Magazine commissioned Chris Ware to do the cover for their annual Fortune 500* issue: as seen above. And  then they promptly rejected it of course.
(Via Amy Stein)
(*a yearly issue that ranks the largest American corporations)
MANY MANY JELLYFISH FLOATING IN THE SKY, SOME OF WHICH FELL TO THE GROUND AND BECAME MUSHROOMS
Images by Zhou Fan, artist and illustrator from China
“A series of my paintings is based on dreams that I had as a child of many many jellyfish floating in the sky, some of which fell to the ground on parachutes and became mushrooms. These dreams had a strong impact on me, and I remember them vividly. Somehow I feel that it is easier to focus on dreams than reality.”
THE OLDEST BOOK FROM THE AMERICAS
Says Bibliodyssey:
The Dresden Codex  is a fig bark paper manuscript in concertina style, produced around the beginning of the 13th century (a contentious point). The seventy-four pages are sewn together producing an eleven foot long document which was originally folded up between protective wooden covers bearing engraved jaguars. As the most complete of the few remaining Maya manuscripts, it is a comprehensive source for Maya calendar and astronomy systems and an aid to glyph interpretation in the wider iconography of the Maya culture. The Dresden Codex was written by eight different scribes using both sides. They all had their own particular writing style, glyphs and subject matter. [..] Its images were painted with extraordinary clarity using very fine brushes. The basic colors used from vegetable dyes for the codex were red, black and the so-called Mayan blue
BECOMING-BIRD
Woodblock prints of men posing as birds (1809)
“In early 19th-century Japan, it became fashionable for the culturally sophisticated theatergoing population of Edo to entertain themselves at parties by imitating the voices and gestures of famous actors. As this fad spread, people began to expand their repertoires by mimicking animals, and as animal poses became all the rage at parties, writers and artists collaborated to produce illustrated books containing model examples of these poses. One such document written by poet Santo Kyoden in 1809 included copies of these Utagawa Toyokuni ukiyo-e prints of men imitating birds.”
(Via Pink Tentacle.)
PERSPECTIVA CORPORUM REGULARIUM
‘Perspectiva Corporum Regularium‘ [1568] –featuring engravings by Jost Amman after designs and drawings by Wenzel Jamnitzer: Perspective of the Regular Solids: that is, a diligent exposition of how the five regular solids of which Plato writes in the Timaeus and Euclid in his Elements are artfully brought into perspective using a particularly new, thorough and proper method never before employed.
Via BibliOdyssey
HISTORICAL ANATOMIES
[nggallery id=40]
Historical Anatomies is a site dedicated to the preservation of old anatomy books from around the globe.
ARCHITECTUAL ABSURDITIES. OR, IN PRAISE OF UNCOMMON SENSE
Images by Toronto-based artist Tom Ngo
Says Denzeen:
Architectural Absurdities, Ngo’s imagined structures include a monument for people with eight arms, a park for carpets and a house designed for a collector of meat grinders. These drawings are created through fracturing rules of concept/design and then obeying them ad absurdum,†says Ngo. “The result is a nutty and whimsical brand of social commentary
Says Ngo:
“Common sense and conventional practice prohibits the evolution of architecture. Through reproducing past models for efficiency and economy, routine thinking preserves the flaws of the standard model. Using different frameworks of thought, architects can create new solutions, which rectify the faults of the norm, and distance themselves from making habitual design decisions. Built on the foundations of Victorian Nonsense, Alfred Jarry’s ‘Pataphysics, and Absurdist Theatre, Absurdity expands the limits of human reason by presenting a paradoxical solution. By allowing solutions which would normally have been ruled out due to irrationality, absurdity provides non-linear alternatives which interrogate contemporary logic. Unbound by strict conformity to logic, the liberated architect breathes new life into architecture.”
(Via C-Monster and Oh Colour Me In)
FOLK YOU OUT, SET THE DEAL STRAIGHT
[nggallery id=51]
Images by Clare Rojas
I WOULD READ YOU IF I COULD
Extraordinary book covers from early 20th century Japan, via A Journey Round My Skull
(Gracias Blak)
ART SPIEGELMAN. BE A NOSE
[nggallery id=49]
The recently Mc-Sweeney’s released “Be A Nose, Three Sketchbooks by Art Spiegelman” is an amazing collection of unseen material and scribblings of one of the United State’s most important authors. Spiegelman is known as the father of the modern graphic novel and is the author of Maus, Wacky Packs and the Garbage Pail Kids.
LAS BESTIAS DE BUENO
Imágenes de Manuel Bueno.
(Manuel tomó el Tóxico Workshop de Colors y Fabrica, y estará involucrado en un par de nuevos proyectos de Tóxico. Noticas pronto.)
INFOGRAPHIC FAIRY TALE
[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/3514904?pg=embed&sec=3514904[/vimeo]
Red Riding Hood, reinterpreted into infographics by Tomas Nilsson. Quite enjoyable. Click play.
BROOKLYN DIARIES No. 04: JOSHUA RAY
Oh. Yes. Flames out of mouths, million tongues at the speed of lightning. Sat down with Joshua Ray during the recent snow storm at a Thai restaurant in Brooklyn, and we talked for more than seven hours straight sitting in the same spot with out noticing how many hours had gone by. As we invariably seem to do when we are once again in the same room; entering left to Thursday City.
(Images by the unmistakable hand of Joshua Ray.)
BARCELONA DIARIES No. 01: TOÑO CAMUÑAS
Images by Toño Camuñas.
(Ah. Spain, and things in Spain. Finished Tóxico 5 -day workshop and lecture last week at the Instituto Europeo de Diseño of Barcelona, and now, at last, I am hitting the streets. Looking again. And again. I will be posting Spain-related things this week. Starting with these images of Toño Camuñas, a Spanish artist that a friend introduced me to in a Mexican cantina, not too long ago.)
(KNOCK-KNOCK)
[nggallery id=37]
Illustrations by Mauricio GarcÃa. (website coming soon)
(Mauricio was part of La Incubadora, a series of international workshops directed and created by Tóxico for the 12 best students of a private university in Mexico City.)
THE MAN WHO COULDN’T CRY
Scotty Reifsnyder has created a children’s book that is based on the lyrics of a Johnny Cash song entitled “The Man Who Couldn’t Cryâ€. The book has a die cut that runs throughout adding a dimension of interactivity for the reader. More of his work here.
Via design-milk blog.
VALERO DOVAL
Tagged Graphics, Illustration, Valero Doval
70s SCIENCE FICTION IN JAPAN
In the early 1970s, artist Kazuaki Saito’s fantastic alien landscape illustrations graced the covers of SF Magazine, Japan’s first successful and longest running science fiction periodical. More at SF Magazine review. Via Pink Tentacle blog.
LOVE STORIES DE MARIAN BANTJES
Marian Bantjes creó una serie para Monograph del Creative Review. Fue una serie que realizó durante tres semanas. En cada imagen cuenta la historia de alguien a quien quiere.
JENNIFER TONG
Tagged Falling, Forest, Illustration, Tong
THE INSOMNIA SERIES – MILLER FOR PAST MIDNIGHT
Henry Miller´s daughter writes: “In the mid 60s Dad became infatuated by a cabaret singer from Japan named Hoki Tokuda. He would spend hours at the piano bar in the Imperial Gardens Restaurant in Hollywood, listening to Hoki sing. He eventually wooed and married her. In 1965-6 he got insomnia worrying about the relationship and wrote a small book called Insomnia or the Devil at Large and during those sleepless nights painted a dozen watercolors, the Insomnia series.
In Insomnia or the Devil at Large he describes the paintings by saying, ‘They reflect the varying moods of three in the morning. Some were sprinkled with bird seed, some with songes, and some with mensonges. Some dripped from the brush like pink arsenic; others clogged up on me and came out as welts and bruises. Some were organic, some inorganic, but they were all intended to lead their own life in the garden of Abracadabra.’ “
CRAP CARS: DF
Rick Shearman, ex-Fabricante y diseñador de Australia, vino a México a visitar y a tomar el Tóxico Workshop de Stefan Sagmeister. Estando aquà se enamoró perdidamente: se quedaba durante horas sentado de banqueta en banqueta dibujando en su cuaderno negro coches viejos que se iba encontrando en las calles cerca (y no tan cerca) de mi casa. La serie se llama “Crap Cars”.
