This cover caught my eye as I was flipping through MoMA’s holiday catalog. It’s subtle, beautifully balanced, and the full compilation of Alighiero Boetti‘s work to date.
I’m usually drawn to geometry, which is obvious if you frequent the site, so today during lunch, I figured I’d do a little mash-up of my own. I made a pattern to compliment…I think it works.
Olaf Hajek is currently one of the world’s most successful and well-known illustrators. His work can be seen in newspapers including the Washington Post and the New York Times, in magazines such as Rolling Stone and Time, in advertisements for international brands, and on stamps for Great Britain’s Royal Mail.
Despite the diversity of his clientele, Hajek makes no aesthetic compromises. His characteristic style, which is infused with a folkloristic naivety and freshness, is what makes his work appealing to a broad audience and range of customers. Now his personal work is garnering increasing attention on the international art market.
Black Antoinette is a beautiful and striking collection of Olaf Hajek’s most recent work. Consisting mostly of editorial contracts and commercial portraits, the examples in this book showcase a remarkable style that has become more free and painterly over the last several years. The preface was written by Dr. Philipp Demandt, the head of Berlin’s Old National Gallery.
If anything will remind you to appreciate the tangible wonder of books, it’s Joseph Albers’s Set, Interaction of Color. The new release of his original 1963 limited silk-screened edition is a chance for color lovers to own one of the most influential books on color ever published.
Lavishly produced as a two volume slipcased set, this book replicates Albers’s revolutionary exercises, explaining concepts such as color relativity and vibrating and vanishing boundaries through the use of color, shape, die-cut forms, and movable flaps.
Also included for the first time are new studies from the Albers archive, produced by the artist’s students in the early 1960s. Without a doubt, this gorgeous tome is a collector’s item for color and fine art book lovers.
Imagery via Apartment Therapy
Today’s visual culture is shaped by a vast wealth of influences from a diverse range of styles, cultures, and eras. Handcrafts including crochet, papercraft, and the design of costumes and masks are being melded with the techniques of more traditional art forms such as installation, sculpture, collage, photography, and illustration.
This new visual language is currently being formed out of the skillful and unusual combination of creative styles, as well as the use of an expanded range of materials and techniques. One of the most striking aspects of today’s visual culture is its intricate, handcrafted quality.
The term “high touch” is used in design theory to describe an accessible, human visuality. High Touch the book is a compilation of current work that is broadening and enriching this definition in a contemporary way.
Presenting a rich selection of innovative, often handmade design created with the full spectrum of materials and stylistic devices in existence today, the book explores all of the many ways artists are expanding this palette of visual possibilities. We’re excited to see so many of the fantastic design and art projects we’ve documented here on Pattern Pulp in the pages of this eye-catching book.
In his 8 years living in New York, Elliot Aronow has made quite the name for himself as a Creative Director, TV and radio personality and a well-respected scene maker & cultural hustler. Elliot is the Co-Founder and Creative Director of RCRD LBL, the world’s first free and legal curated download site. He currently produces and hosts a talk & variety show called OUR SHOW with ELLIOT ARONOW that has featured James Murphy/LCD Soundsystem, Vampire Weekend, Das Racist, TV On The Radio, and many more.
Aronow made a bold step last winter and turned his digital show into a seasonal arts & culture zine. An interesting mix of design, food, fashion & advice, Our Show maintains an inclusive, personal voice and pleasantly practical vibe.
“Brands are still having a really hard time talking to a guy like me–they’re addressing either the millionaire, up-in-the-sky, über-luxury guy alienating culture, or it’s total schlock… The era of quick-buck, over-saturated lifestyle marketing is coming to an end. The people they’re trying to reach are pretty damned sophisticated by this point; we’ve been messaged for almost a decade.” (fastco)
Elliot enjoys the tactile component of the zine and how you can flip through it with your hands and pass it through a network of friends. Unlike the internet, which can promote a passive sense of absorption and interaction, Our Show the zine invites itself into your life and circle of friends in real time.
Though we encounter graphic design all-day-every-day, we rarely contemplate it’s roots. Worldwide authorities on genre, Steven Heller and Véronique Vienne recently took to the task of combing the past 100 years of design and compiling a wonderful book examining the top 100 game-changing ideas.
The entries are arranged in chronological order and range from technical (overprinting, rub-on designs, split fountain); to stylistic (swashes on caps, loud typography, and white space); to objects (dust jackets, design handbooks); and methods (paper cut-outs, pixelation). This richly informative and lavishly illustrated book is both a great source of inspiration and a provocative record of industry greats.
Cover image via The Salt Lab