I love how Oliver Schwarzwald injects colour into the everyday with such imagination. He creates a completely unique colour palette by adding just a small dash of colour to nature. I especially love his use of colour when applied to ugly urban life. Those balloons add so much joy to an uninspired industrial wall. It remind me of the rainbow graffiti I mentioned yesterday. How can you not love artists who bring happiness and life to eyesores?
(images via behance)
This is such a genius idea by artist Helmut Smit. Who knew acrylic paint blobs and a windshield wiper could create magic? You may have seen this spontaneous rainbow before but it begs repeating and might be the perfect solution to Monday morning!
(photo via helmut smit)
I love this take on Pantone colour chips by Matt Stevens. He created icons or used colours to represent notable or infamous events in specific years. I love the Janet Jackson Superbowl icon, the perfect colour for Monica Lewinsky’s dress and other clever takes on events like the introduction of the iPhone, the O.J. Simpson glove, the Dolly sheep cloning debate and the BP oil spill. I think the whole piece is just brilliant and I hope Matt expands it to reference the last 100 years!
(image via Matt Stevens)
Using their famous colour palettes and graphic elements, Illustrator Fabian Gonzalez created icons to depict famous comic book characters and superheros in their most simple form. It’s amazing how these striped down symbols really capture the essence of the characters. I love Batman, Spiderman and Wonder Woman but most of all, the four Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and their colour-coded masks.
(Left to right, top to bottom: Batman, Robin, Batgirl, Superman, Supergirl, Barbarella, Mighty Mouse Ironman, Captain America, Thor, The Hulk, Cyclops, The Incredibles, Kick Ass, Radioactive Man, Fall Out Boy, Wonder Woman, The Flash, Captain Atom, Aeon Flux, El Santo, Wolverine, Invisible Woman, Human Torch, Professor X, Chapulin Colorado, The Darkness, The Tick, Ben (FF), Hellboy, He-Man, Freakazoid, Silver Surfer, Witchblade, Metamorpho, Spiderman, Mandrake, Mighty Man, Green Lantern, Falcon, Atom Ant, Green Arrow, The Phantom, Storm (Xmen), Birdman, Aquaman, Iceman, Captain Marvel, Spawn, Space Ghost, Blade, Blue Falcon, Dynomutt, Flash Gordon, Bartman, The Vision (Avengers), TMNT Raphael, TMNT Leonardo, TMNT Donatello, TMNT Michelangelo, Plastic Man, Duffman, Scarlet Witch, The Punisher, Dare Devil, Hawkman, Black Vulcan, Zorro, Hawk & Dove, Sandman, Antman, Gambit, Wonder Twins, Marshal Bravestarr, Electra, Spider Woman)
(image via fabian gonzalez)
I love typography made out of unexpected things (especially when it becomes 3D). The primary colours and teasing nickname Richard Perez used to create this woodblock piece are instantly childlike yet the typeface is handsome and so beautifully constructed. I hope there is more where this came from!
(images via friends of type)
These pie charts, created by Arthur Buxton, show the five most common colours in 28 of van Gogh’s most famous paintings (the size of the slice is the percentage of the painting it comprises). It shows van Gogh’s love for warm colours, yellows, browns, blues and greys. Such an intriguing idea as it really highlights how many artists and designers have a common colour palette from which they draw a lot of their work. I would love to see this idea expanding upon so we could find common themes among other icons. I bet Andy Warhol’s pie charts would be brilliant!
(image via arthur buxton)
Photographer Oliver Schwarzwald uses colour in such a dynamic and bold way. I just love how his mind works. The colour palette is beautiful and so brilliantly constructed. I’m not sure these photos would be as eye-catching without the grey sheet or the richly textured clothing choices. The white car topped with gifts in all shades of pink sort of blows my mind!
(images via oliver schwarzwald)
I am a huge fan of Kevin Van Aelst. His work finds so much magic in daily life and objects that might be deemed simply functional (note the sea full of sailboats created out of blue painter’s tape!). His use of colour, whether it is the perfect shade of purple for a diner counter or a keyboard made of Pantone chips, is similarly striking and full of imagination. In addition to his own work, Kevin creates a weekly piece for “The Medium” in the New York Times Magazine. As you can see from the length of this post, it is so hard to pick even a few favourites! Perhaps it is the Vancouverite in me but I really love the final photo above created out of raindrops. Its title? “And All I ask is a Tall Ship and a Star to Sail Her By”. Beautiful.
(images via kevin van aelst)
Artist Tom Fruin created this vivid outdoor pavilion in the plaza of The Royal Danish Library in Copenhagen, Denmark. The installation featured hand-cut and hand-welded steel picture frames and thousands of reclaimed plexiglass pieces. It really feels like a stained glass window folded into a house. Can you imagine a modern church like this?
(images via cool hunter & designboom)
Graphic Nothing reduced famous paintings and album covers down to 140 circles of colour. Step back from your screen and the image becomes clear. Definitely shows how powerful colour is in creating iconic images! (from top: Mona Lisa, The Beatles’ ‘Abbey Road’, Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’ and Nirvana’s ‘Nevermind’)
(images via some prints)
I love Steven Emmanuel’s “Sorting the hundreds from the thousands”. It’s amazing how rearranging an equal number of objects can result in such different colour patterns. It makes me a bit cross-eyed to imagine sorting all of those sprinkles!
(image via steven emmanuel)
Love the work of Malaysian illustrator Lim Heng Swee and his Doodle Everyday project. It is hard to pick a favourite but I fell in love with this doodle in particular. If you live in Vancouver or anywhere that gets a lot of rain, this should give you a new perspective on how whimsical and jolly rain clouds can be if you choose to see them that way!
(image via Doodle Everyday)
Now this is some intense attention to detail! Artist Lauren Dicioccio assigned a specific colour to every letter of the alphabet and a different shade of grey to every number. Laying a sheet of mylar over select pages of text from Vogue fashion magazines (such as the masthead up top), she meticulously translated the entire page into her very own language of colour. I love how she calls it “a system of Braille for the colour inclined”.
In the company logo’s signature red colour, Canadian designers Ibraheem Youssef and Paul Parolin created icons to represent YouTube’s 100 most viewed videos of all time. Amazing how each video can be distilled into such a simple yet perfect graphic. (Also incredible how many times the Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga icons make an appearance!)
(to see a larger version of the poster, click on the image twice)
