Hennie Haworth

Illustrations by Hennie Haworth! Her work has been published for example in Time Out, Bulb, Cent and Plan B magazines. She has also done work for Waitrose and Urban Fresh Fruit. She is probably not one of my favourite illustrators but I really like her sketchy, colourful style - even the type is always hand drawn. I also like the humour in her work. 

Check out her pen project! 

Mark Jenkins' human sculptures

 Washington DC  6/06

São Paulo 2007

New York 8/06

I would love to see how people have reacted when they have walked past these human sculptures! Street artist Mark Jenkins makes them out of tape and then dresses them and puts in public places. Sometimes you can tell or guess that it's not a real person.. for example the one with the man's face inside a wall! but these are all very clever!

He placed a sculpture that looked like a human in a horse costume in an area in Barcelona where there are a lot of street artists. Everyone assumed it was a performer staying very very still! And he was just sitting somewhere near it watching people give money to the 'performer'. Like he said, 'It's much easier to make pretend people than to pretend to be a sculpture all day.'

UNICEF well

I came across this brilliant campaign by UNICEF! In order to raise money for the kids in Vietnam who don't have access to clean water UNICEF placed these containers around shops, restaurants and clubs in the wealthier parts of Vietnam. When you drop coins into the container the water level rises closer to the boy trying to get water from the well! The container is visually connected to the cause of the campaign. I think it's a very clever and creative idea!

Laura Laine illustration

Illustrator Laura Laine has an amazing way of drawing clothes and hair. She has recently done illustrations for example for the NY Times, Zara and Escada. A lot of her illustrations are of women with long flowing hair and interesting clothes and most of them are black and white. The women are very feminine. I love the contrast between the skinny and long legs and arms and big hair and clothes! 

Sacre Blö!

100% Finlande en France was an event that introduced the best new Finnish design, art, architecture, fashion, music and literature in the heart of Paris. There was a Helsinki Market at the Place de Saint Sulpice. A group of young Finnish architects called PARASIT3 was invited to take part in the project. They formed an ensemble called Sacre Blö with graphic designers, architects, painters, photographers and dancers to do installations in different locations in Paris.

Photos and videos etc - www.sacreblo.com

They've also got a blog - scrblo.blogspot.com

www.helsinkiasaintsulpice.fi

www.100pour100finlande.fr

Leverty statue

'the entrepreneur's statue' or 'Leverty', Helsinki

This statue has been in Helsinki city centre for about two years now. There was a competition to design a statue for this city square and this one won! I've never really liked it but I think it's interesting how it was made attaching simple squares together and now I've read that it's based on a penrose tiling.. which I guess we all should have known! At night there's a light inside the statue and the shadow looks really nice.

Jen Gotch photography!

'she was completely exhausted'

'honey, drink this!'

'me & my shoes'

'the candles blew out, the party ended and she couldn't help but cry'

Here's a website of lovely photography by Jen Gotch : www.jengotch.com(where you can also play hopscotch!)

I absolutely adore her style! Most of her photos are polaroids. I love the way she uses colour and light and how sometimes the photos look quite misty and mysterious. Somehow she manages to make a simple photo of a kitchen counter look interesting. She also has two blogs; polaroid blog and becoming a foodie (more polaroids + drink recipes!)

Heringa/Van Kalsbeek

Sculptures by a Dutch artist duo Heringa / Van Kalsbeek I saw in Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. We actually went to see an Andy Warhol exhibition and just thought we'd see this one aswell because we still had some time and in the end I thought this exhibition was so much more interesting. These photos are of the same sculpture! The artists have said that hey get most of their inspiration from the unpredictability of nature. They use a mixture of materials like porcelain, artificial resin and feathers. I really like the complexity of their work, I could have looked at a sculpture for a long time and still be able to find a new interesting detail. Even though some of the sculptures are a little chaotic they are carefully planned in advance. I like it that they almost look like they're moving! More sculptures here.

the girl effect

This animation is for a campaign to help girls in developing countries to get education. 

I really like it how they've only used typography to get their point across and they've done it in a very affective way.. for example the flies and the words husband, baby, hunger in a pile. The animation is quite fast paced which I think is good, makes it more interesting to watch when you have to read pretty quick. They've also managed to put some humour in and not make it too serious. The website for the campaign is really nicely designed too: www.girleffect.org 

Love Story

Set design isn't something I've really given much thought to.. but then I came across some work by Molly Findlay. These are from a series called Love Story she made for Tresor Magazine. I love the humour and quirkyness and weird little details especially in this series. These made me want to go and make fun paper characters of my own. I like the warm and earthy colours in most of her work. For example the work she has done for Gourmet Magazine looks amazing! Check out her portfolio here!

Moomins and Midsummer Madness

Hooray! There's a new moomin film out based on an old felt animation tv series from the 80's. This is easily one of the most inspiring films I've seen all year. It starts with an ordinary summer day in the moominvalley but soon there's a flood and the moomins have to leave their house and go live in a theatre. In the original series there was no dialogue but they've added that now. The music in the film is perfect for it but I'm still not sure if I loved or hated the dialogue, some of the character's voices were just so high pitched! But it's a brilliant film. A film review from The New York Times here. The trailer is on the film website www.muumielokuva.fi, but unfortunately only in Finnish and Swedish.. 

Ellen Gallagher

"Mr. Terrific"

"Bad Skin"

"Millie Christine"

I saw these pieces by Ellen Gallagher in a modern art museum in Stockholm and I don't think I've seen anything like this before! A lot of the pieces were inspired by old advertisements she had collected from old black and white magazines. Most of them were for cosmetic products. She has left the adverts in the background and manipulated them by covering some bits using a lot of different techniques and materials (paint,ink,plasticine etc.). In most of them the faces of the people are covered so you can't see what the people really look like. What first caught my attention was how in most of her work she had painted the eyes entirelly white. More Ellen..

Cool designs by young Finnish designers!

I was looking through designs that Design Forum Finland has given prizes to recently and I came across with these three that I thought were quite unique. All these three designs have a certain clarity typical to finnish design. There are not that many details but there is something playful about all of them. The Design Forum awards one or two best young designers every year. These are from a couple of years ago. The shoes with wooden heels by Julia Lundsten, a lamp (inpired by a coneflower) and limited edition packaging design for L´Oréal by Janne Kyttänen. 

Design Forum Finland

Allusion

Illustrations by Yellena James. I thought there was something very interesting about her style. Most of her illustrations are very abstract and you don't really know what they are about.. which is one of the reasons I like them. I wish I knew what was on her mind when she drew these. I love the details and different techniques she has used. More lovely stuff here.