Textile Inspiration & Plate Illustrations

For those of you on holiday last week, welcome back! Today we’re featuring the after to this before post from May. Remember the plate face collection and Pebeo pens? They’re these amazing markers that let you draw and paint on ceramics and pottery. So…from the collection of thrift store plates, here’s what I came up with.

I find when I’m searching for inspiration for patterns or textiles I often start by looking at objects rather than the actual patterns on things. I love to find (or make) a collection of objects with a similar purpose or hand that I can group together to discover a new shape or texture. Here’s my most recent inspirational collection.

Coverage by Kimberly Hall

July 9, 2012 | By: Shayna Kulik

Textile Inspiration & Children's Illustrations

I find when I’m searching for inspiration for patterns or textiles I often start by looking at objects rather than the actual patterns on things. I love to find a collection of objects with a similar purpose or hand that I can group together to discover a new shape or texture. Here’s one of my recent inspirational collections:

Children’s Illustrations:

On the heels of my Pebeo Pen project, here’s some more inspiration. Tom Seidmann Freud was a woman, and, yes a relative of the Sigmund Freud. She died young, suicide, after her husband’s career failure. You can read more here.

Aren’t these beautiful? They are mostly children’s storybook illustrations, but I love how they have a natural narrative quality that makes the idea of words seem non-essential. The fifth image today is not from Tom Seidmann Freud, but these German Christmas ornaments seemed like they could be characters in her illustrations, don’t you think?

By Kimberly Hall

June 6, 2012 | By: Shayna Kulik

City Perspectives from Above

It’s always fascinating to see how illustrators, photographers and editors choose to portray a city. Recently a crop of overlapping interpretations have been surfacing online and in print. Vasco Mourao is an illustrator-turned-architect with an arsenal of highly detailed drawings. This Mourao image of Manhattan recently appeared in The New Yorker.

Stepping into a more commercial category, the Blackberry Bold campaign has chosen to express mobile diversity by taking an overhead shot of a city intersection on a rainy day. Rounding out the category with the overhead image frequent flyers are all too familiar with, we have a photograph that was recently published in The New York Times T Magazine (photographer unknown).

June 6, 2012 | By: Shayna Kulik

Strawberryluna

Allison Glancey and Craig Seder are the designing, illustrating and screen printing husband & wife team behind strawberryluna. The Pittsburgh-based self described music and film nerds are self-taught when it comes to design and screen printing, but we think that that’s exactly what gives their work such a unique, distinct flavor. They first got their feet wet by making stunning gig posters which launched their collective career.

In addition to their silkscreened posters and prints, strawberryluna also does custom illustration work, CD & vinyl packaging, logos & identity packages, traditional-print ready pieces, web-ready icons and designs, t-shirt designs, and much more.

June 4, 2012 | By: Shayna Kulik

The Colors of Summer

Living in New York, you can hardly ignore The New York Times and The New Yorker. I find both publications to be really enjoyable, not to mention illustratively informative and telling of the trends. A few weeks ago I pinned an Olimpia Zagnoli illustration from The New Yorker’s literary section. The simplicity in line, color and shape is reminiscent of patterns I personally enjoy. Fast forward to this past weekend, and The New York Time’s Book Review had an awfully similar layout. At first I wondered if it was an oversight, or perhaps a form of flattery, but after a little research, it looks like Zagnoli’s the artist behind both illustrations, proving this aesthetic and palette will be a summer literary mainstay.

June 4, 2012 | By: Shayna Kulik

Drawings from Burma

Officially back from two weeks of incredible travel. As I sort through priorities and start playing a wonderful game of catch up, I figured I’d share an illustration that came home to New York with me. Every time I visit a new place, I like to buy art from the region and this was a very special find from Bagan. Many of the children sell postcards of pre-printed photos by the pagodas. This boy made his own interpretation. Regardless of where you go in the world, children’s drawings are unfiltered and universally special. What do you collect when you travel?

May 29, 2012 | By: Shayna Kulik