If you frequent the Behance Network at all, you might have come across bits and pieces of this amazing calendar by Irina Vinnik. It’s completion took nearly 4 years. I recently stumbled across the now complete set, and thought it deserved a recap in full.

A close up shot of the detail of each illustration/calendar page.

What do you think?

No doubt it’s a little late to buy a 2011 calendar this late in the year. Fingers crossed that a 2012 version becomes available soon. You can check out more of Irina’s amazing work here.

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The Saurians Renaissance; Illustrations and calendar

The Sketchbook Project is a community project by the art house co-op where anyone from around the world can submit their purchased sketchbook for display in half a dozen exhibitions across the US, before being entered into the permanent collection at the Brooklyn Art Library.

Anyone can participate, and aside from using the provided sketchbook there are no restrictions on content or style allowing for total creative freedom.

Get sketching!

I’m expecting to head to the US some time next year, I’m sure I could spend the entire trip trawling through these. Read more about it over at the art house co-op.

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Sketchbook Project 2011

The little extras are often what make a business stand apart from the competition, the sketches on client envelopes by artist Jainai Jeffries certainly achieve that. I wish my mail arrived looking like this.

I like to decorate the envelope when I mail work to clients (both sketch and standard). It’s always random whateverthehellIwant sketches:

- I don’t charge extra.
- I do not accept requests on what I sketch.

What do you think?

Great hey? You can view more of Jainai’s work at her portfolio site.

• Toy Machine deck illustrations (0)
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• The Saurians Renaissance; Illustrations and calendar (1)
• Practice makes perfect – Using the Illustrator pen tool (3)

Mail out illustrations by Jainai Jeffries

Design software is capable of so much these days, and with that comes an huge array of tools to master. Looking through my student portfolio from years ago I found the above illustration.

I think it’s fair to say that the pen tool is the signature feature of Illustrator, and while it’s a great tool, it can be a bit unwieldy until you get the hang of it.

Using a photo of musician Kirk Hammett as reference, and drawn using only the pen tool ( and gradient for the glasses obviously… ) in illustrator, it was the first real illustration I ever did. I remember starting out and dreading how long it was going to take for the level of detail I wanted.

As the picture came together it turned into an enjoyable project, and using the tool became second nature. Although I was glad be to be finished, I was happy with the end result, especially for my first illustration.

Just don’t ask me how long the hair took… Higher res version available here.

How about you?

Stumbled across any old work lately? How does it stand up to your current work?

• Puntastic postcards (0)
• The benefits of sketching logo ideas (0)
• The Saurians Renaissance; Illustrations and calendar (1)
• Amazing illustrations by Si Scott (2)

Practice makes perfect – Using the Illustrator pen tool

BIG BANG BIG BOOM – the new wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

Words like incredible and amazing get thrown around a lot. Taking months to finish and thousands of litres of paint, this animated graffiti by Italian artist Blu truly is incredible.

The film comically illustrates the beginning of our existence, our evolution and our probable end, it’s a must watch.

What do you think?

Incredible.

• A pocket full of business cards (4)
• Illustrated hands (2)
• Designing the smiley face (1)
• The enemies of ideas (3)

Incredible time lapse graffiti – Big bang, big boom

It’s been a good 20 something years since I had had my face painted as a kid, I think the tiger was my creature of choice if memory serves. With this collection of amazing body art from WWF and AT&T advertising, as well as the uShaka body art and graffiti expo you might just be able to convince me to do it again.

What do you think?

I particularly like the WWF ads.

• 30 examples of strong and subtle advertising (2)
• Why equal point sizes of type are not the same (2)
• Vote #1 poster designs (4)
• Sea water. Only $33.50 a bottle. (4)

Illustrated hands

Having driven from Sydney to Melbourne not too long ago, I saw my fair share of fields and farms throughout rural Australia ( about 900 kilometres worth ). If only they had illustrations in them like these Japanese rice fields, to keep me entertained along the way.

What do you think?

Sure beats crop circles…

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• The enemies of ideas (3)
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• Amazing illustrations by Si Scott (2)

Farmers get creative with rice field illustrations

Of all the various styles / genres of design, Art Deco is probably my favourite. The shapes used and particularly the muted colours.

When I was a kid the most spoken phrase in my house was probably Why don’t you turn off that damn video game and go… do just about anything else. Music, art, culture, none of it was to be found in video games apparently.

This Bioshock 2 artwork says otherwise.

The game even includes an LP of the 1950′s music featured in game. Classy.

Don’t fret, there’s a CD included “just in case” you don’t have a record player.

Now about that LP…

I wonder if I can dig up the record player I threw out 15 years ago?

No related posts.

Bioshock 2 Art Deco

Glenn Jones is an illustrator and graphic designer from Auckland, New Zealand with a hugely diverse portfolio of clever, retro and wacky illustrations.

Available as prints, shirts, calendars and more, his illustrators are worth a look. Here is a dozen of so of his designs.

I’d love too see how the below stunt riding penny farthing manages to land…

Clever.

I think I’m going to have to treat myself to a few shirts.

• Square One coffee illustrations and package design (1)
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• Amazing illustrations by Si Scott (2)

Illustrations by Glennz

I’m not usually a fan of the whole swirly-vector style of illustration that gets used over and over for everything, but this series by Si Scott deserves a mention.

Their stylized forms are so elaborate and yet still realistic.

What do you think?

I love ‘em. More of Si’s work can be found at his studios site.

• Toy Machine deck illustrations (0)
• Square One coffee illustrations and package design (1)
• Illustrations by Glennz (2)
• Mail out illustrations by Jainai Jeffries (3)

Amazing illustrations by Si Scott

Graphic design is all about ideas, but for every great idea there is just as often something waiting in wings to squash it. Enter the new marketing director…

Created for the independent film group, Show Off!, each illustration depicts an idea personified ( give or take… ) in the form of a popular or infamous figure and their mortal enemy.

Originally in Portuguese, I’ve done my best to translate the captions but I speak precisely zero of it. Feel free to jump in if I’ve gotten something wrong.

Presenting an idea to the accountants.

The clients lawyers.

Budget. Isn’t it always…

Input from your creative director.

International brand guidelines ( I’m pretty sure… ).

Focus group testing.

Changes to the design brief.

Deadline for the advertising campaign to begin.

Insert translation here ( I have no idea what this says… ).

A creative client.

Client wants to save the idea for later. Poor Yoko Ono, she gets blamed for everything.

Great Illustrations, poor translations…

I was going to make a witty joke using the Portuguese word for terrible when explaining my translations. It turns out the Portuguese word for terrible, is “terrible”. So much for that joke.

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The enemies of ideas

I don’t know about you, but nothing tastes better to me in the morning than a steaming hot caramel latte ( very masculine, I know… ) and if said coffee should happen to come from a fabulously illustrated package, all the better.

After deciding a re-brand was in order, Square One set out to “refresh the current logo and completely overhaul the packaging, in hopes to increase sales and drive a new awareness of the brand’s professionalism.”

“A refreshed logo and packaging were developed that communicated the key sales messages and created a raw aesthetic that was instantly embraced by their customers. Square One experienced a 50% sales increase in the first week of launch and sales remain strong.”

Good design goes a long way, hey?

What do you think?

While I don’t think the new logo is anything to write home about, I do love the illustrated labels. You can see range including 8 more designs here.

• Coffee design to get you going in the morning (4)
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• Absolut-ly great vodka bottle designs (2)
• AOL’s new brand identity, 60 logo designs and counting (1)

Square One coffee illustrations and package design

I’ve known Jo for a few years now, and after nearly as much time spent nagging her, she’s finally launched a blog. In addition to showcasing some of her own great work, Jo’s blog features a range of styles from past and present of many talented illustrators. Featured here are a few samples of Jo’s work, all painted using gouache.

Inspirational illustration.

With a bit of luck Jo will find the time to upload more of her great portfolio.

UPDATE: Unfortunately due to other commitments Jo’s site is down indefinitely for the moment. Hopefully it returns in the future.

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The illustrated works of Jo Martin

Burlesque Design have recently released these great little illustrated alphabet keychains, based on their previous poster featuring the same characters. A little typographic fun if you want to spice you keyring up.

Groovy!

Their online store was down at the time of posting so I’m not sure of the price, hopefully it will be back up soon.

• Using comic sans in secret: Disturbing revelations (3)
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Alphabet keyrings

Here’s a few of the new Puntastic postcard series from Harvey Nichols. The series is based of food celebrities and features the likes of Cake Winslet, Banana Mouskouri, Pea Diddy and more.

What do you think?

• Amazing illustrations by Si Scott (2)
• Mail out illustrations by Jainai Jeffries (3)
• Toy Machine deck illustrations (0)
• Using the M word (4)

Puntastic postcards