On the heels of our lastest post about rhythm and nature, it’s only appropriate to share this mechanical animation from English Hedgerow (via PSFK). Bringing ceramics and china to life through augmented reality, the calm and complex worlds of flora and fauna are intermixed with natural patterns.
We first noticed Dutch artist Nienke Sybrandy when we spotted her beautiful sheer curtains of trees composed in code that are now used at the James New York hotel. Her work is consistently interesting, innovative and playful and traverses mediums to explore her ideas.
“My work comes from observations of everyday life: small events in the house, the streets, actions and traditions: I walk around it and hold it upside down. My favorite material, and muse, are objects that are so obvious that they have to be overlooked. I lift them out of the shadows and put them in the light, so that their hidden meaning is visible. Each object is a carrier of stories and symbols. The smallest thing has a great theme. A nail is a sign of hope and desire and photocopied a bunch of flowers is about the same mortality as seventeenth-century painting. By using everyday objects can be small to the large unite and make a connection between today and earlier. This process of observing, analyzing and reinterpreting taking shape in images and objects by their “personal” story by no means obvious.”
Coverage by Emily Gup
Tuesday Bassen is an exuberant and bubbly illustrator and designer presently living in Brooklyn after studying at MCAD in Minneapolis and living around the world. Her ‘round the world travels are influences on her work, as well as art nouveau architecture, gas-light era design, and comic books. We love her use of color and how her work maintains a human, hand-drawn feel infused with a hearty dose of a warm heart and a definite sense of humor and quirk.
Recently, Tuesday was named one of GOOD Magazine’s “Top 25 Favorite Female Illustrators” and her clients include Fiat, The New York Times, Studio On Fire, Target, Thinktopia, BUST Magazine, as well as many small businesses. In addition to her own work, she also co-owns Studio Sweet Studio and The City Scout. Her twitter feed is a testament to her good nature and friendliness as she chats with friends and followers, quips about daily life and happily promotes the work of her friends. In recently adopting an FIV+ cat tweeted about by Grace Bonney of design*sponge, she serves as a reminder of how twitter can make a large world and community of creatives feel much smaller.
Book Art is a stunning 220-page compilation of art, installation and design created with and from books. The content is diverse in narrative and ranges from old printed pages wound into creative threads to laborious works of art, decomposed into organic matter. 
The fascinating range of examples is proof that—despite or because of digital media’s inroads as a source of information—the book’s legacy as a carrier of ideas and communication is an impressive one. Click here to buy online.
We’re mixing things up today! Whenever creative city tours go live, we usually try to focus on hotspots in a single city (not a bad thing, right?)- though today, I’m stringing a multiple city tour together, under the umbrella of a reoccurring pattern.
While I’m constantly in touch with friends and colleagues living abroad, grilling them on pop culture and random social trends, I’ll say that I’m quite fortunate to have a job that has me on the go when I’m not on the wacom tablet. Scouting inspiration and observing daily routine in cities and suburbs around the globe is absolutely fascinating and something I probably wouldn’t have fallen into had I not left my full-time job six years ago.
So today’s feature. Of the 9 photos, I took 5 of them over the past year. The theme is graphic with unexpected patchwork, reminiscent of mixed media mosaic tiling.
From the curated art world to reactionary street art to the commercialization of home, fashion and printed goods, it’s interesting to see how this trend has seeped into society’s subconscious, revealing an exciting departure from pixelated patterns.
From stucco wallpapering in Lake Como to cement work in Atlanta (via little_ekd in my instagram feed!), to painted patchwork in Glasgow (thank you Pinterest) to a painted grate on Hoiser Lane in Melbourne and a segmented condo facade in Hong Kong, it’s easy to see an outdoor architectural trend here.
In the home sphere, the reinterpretation on soft goods is also obvious. The featured geometric pillows from La Rinascente in Milan are quite similar in color and form to the stucco wall in Lake Como. The unbelievable quilting and embroidered techniques from Alabama Chanin which was recently featured recently in NY Times T Magazine mirror the Glasgow wall with stunning precision.
Mimicking this technique in print, The overlapping hearts are a simple yet striking design I spotted last month in Tokyo. Giving gravity to the theme and tying loose ends where necessary, John Squire’s current show in London features dazzling mosaic work undone in chaotic organic nature.