Month: March 2013

Album Inspiration

Half of creativity for me comes from enjoying other people’s art. These days I’ve been really inspired by album covers. The challenge here is in articulating the essence or feeling of music visually, and it can lead to some wonderfully creative stuff. I love album covers with storybook illustration qualities, colorful and busy expressiveness, the surrealist takes, and the spare minimalist styles. A quick google search brings me a wealth of all of these.  Here are just a handful of the great images I’ve encountered recently:

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Hosier Lane

So I swear this isn’t a travel blog, but there were just so many cool art things to see in Australia that I have to share them.

In Melbourne I tracked down the famous Hosier Lane, where graffiti artists are encouraged to turn the walls into riotously coloured, ever-shifting public art. It’s tiny, more of a back alley, and the walls are so close together that it’s like you’re in a small canyon of paintings. And there’s a tapas place tucked in there too! Amazing!

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Fonts, Fonts, Fonts

So, fonts.

Fonts are so cool because they are the place were visual representation and textual meaning come together. What you mean to say in your text is highlighted by your font choice – given the subtleties of meaning brought in by visual associations. Power, trustworthiness, fashion, intimacy – fonts can colour the texts they contain with a slew of additional meanings.

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Resistenza’s “Bodoni at Home” gives us an intimate handmade quality as well as a nostalgic academia.

I love typography, but it’s a constantly unfolding word with new fonts being designed all the time.  Every time I look, there’s something new to learn about.  This is why I was so happy to find MyFonts.com

Not only do they have a huge collection of fonts listed by use as well as type (no pun intended), but they have this cool “What the Font” feature that allows you to submit an image of an unfamiliar font to find a match, or you can ask about it in their “What the Font Forum.” I really enjoy their newsletter the most, where they showcase new font families and interview designers, both emerging and established. This website is a great place to explore and learn about the wide world of fonts.

Artspeak

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Artspeak is a very exciting Vancouver project, linking both contemporary art and writing practices through multiple publications and gallery shows. As a past student of English and contemporary art this is exactly the kind of interdisciplinary project that floats my boat. Plus it’s so pretty. Check out it’s textual and visual gorgeousness here: artspeak.ca

Hello World!

Welcome to my art and design blog! I’ll be posting anything of visual interest I get my hot little hands on – any element of visual culture that moves and inspires me – as well as some of my own projects and crafts. Hope you enjoy them!