When advertising’s paired with texture, there’s a good chance our team will take note. This round up’s not overly clever, though the product focus is unmistakable. Using negative space and a contour profile, Ceasar Stone presents an elegant thoughtful message. Showcasing a simple swatch, ABC Stone and Rug Art share their wares. Are you a fan?
Nowadays, with all of our forms of media, we are constantly confronted with a barrage of images, sights and sounds. All of these combine to create the visual & societal texture that will come to define our time.
Here are some of the year’s most interesting textures in media:
1. Gap & JCPenney’s bright ideas for Spring.
2. Die Antwoord & T by Alexander Wang collaborate for Spring ’12.
3. Diet Coke revamps their cans hoping to reach a fashion customer base.
4. Investigating the increasing abundance of textures in advertising and infographics.
5. J. Crew’s walk-through of the process of painting and pattern-making for product and social content.
6. Hound Design & INDO’s inventive backdrops.
7. Ian Hall’s Patterns of Science presents a mashup of cultures through pattern.
8. Watercolor and photoshop for clothing label Mimi & Maximus.
9. Does the ease of smart phone photography fuel or hinder our creativity?
10. Meara O’Reilly uses cymatic effects to reflect the texture in sound through vibration in matter for Björk’s Biophilia world tour.
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.
When flipping through the January 2012 Vogue, it took us about half a second to notice something familiar about the Lexus ad (as seen on the left). Immediately, we called to mind the meticulously dissembled works of Todd McLellan (example on the right) that we spotted last February whose images were quickly disseminated throughout the blogosphere with glee. Could Lexus have gotten their inspiration from Todd who incidentally also photographs cars and advertisements?
A little digging finds that this photograph from Lexus was only the beginning of a project in which four fashion designers – Moss Lipow, Eddie Borgo, John Patrick and Alejandro Ingelmo – were challenged to “rethink their notions of automotive design” for an ad campaign slated to appear in Vogue.
A Lexus CT 200h hybrid car was taken apart and from the pieces the designers created clothing and accessories. The results of the project were on display at the recent Art Basel Miami Beach.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=GwQp7969lHY
We think the approach is interesting and certainly touches on a number of markets. Of course, fans of Todd’s work (and probably the mechanically inclined, too) will appreciate the peculiar beauty of seeing a machine taken apart and laid out piece by piece. Enthusiasts of repurposing goods, especially the parts of gadgets (example: watch parts) to make accessories will also likely take note. Intent on showing off both their goals for sustainability and their innovative engineering – and likewise an apparent appreciation for creative thinking – Lexus also might make you think about the cycle of inspiration and of the lines in which art, advertising and design blend, merge and where, if any, are there boundaries.
Coverage by Emily Gup
As 2011 heads steadily toward the New Year, people start to think about the holidays and review the past twelve months. With that in mind, for this week’s book review we have up for offer D&AD 2011, which feature’s the year’s best creative work. The D&AD awards panel judges over 20,000 works from design studios, ad agencies, branding consultancies, film production agencies, digital media pioneers, and other creative firms from all over the globe. Winners receive the legendary D&AD Yellow Pencil Award—or in the case of exceptional and outstanding work, the rare Black Pencil Award. This review of the winners serves as a one-stop-shop for everything that’s hot in the field. Anyone interested in creativity, communication, design, or advertising would love to have D&AD Annual for their coffee tables and book shelves.
D&AD is a nonprofit educational charity launched in 1962 by a group of London-based designers and art directors. Created to support and nurture creative professionals, D&AD recognizes and awards the best work coming out of the design industry. Over 20,000 works from design studios, advertising agencies, branding consultancies, film production and photographic agencies, digital media pioneers, and other creative firms from all over the globe are sent in to be reviewed by the D&AD panel of judges. Winners receive the legendary D&AD Yellow Pencil Award—or in the case of exceptional and outstanding work, the rare Black Pencil Award. The annual review, which covers the past year’s best creative work is a testament to the constant evolution of the design world, a documentation of what’s hot in field and, of course, a perfect piece for any coffee table.
