271 Year Old Color Guide

Posted on May 7, 2014May 7, 2014 Posted in Art, Grid SystemsTagged color, guide, painting

1692 Boogert Color Guide

This blew my mind.

“Traité des couleurs servant à la peinture à l’eau” is an 800-page color guide, written in 1692 by an artist known as A. Boogert. The book describes and shows in detail how to use and mix colors. I can’t even begin to imagine how long this took to make, and the fact that the colors are still so vibrant is astonishing. This is a work of art, and I would bet that most of what is in this book is still relevant today.

It’s also great to see that Boogert was also educated in grid systems. Have a look at how those swatches are organized.

A hi-res gallery of the entire book is available here

Via Colossal

Bianca Chang

Posted on June 8, 2011June 8, 2011 Posted in Art, Design, TypographyTagged Art, graphic design, letterforms, paper, typographic4 Comments

Bianca chang

Stunning. This is a series of paper cutouts by Australian designer, Bianca Chang. The 3-dimensional letterforms are created with multiple sheets of 80gsm paper. These much be really amazing in person. The form must change depending on the angle of view.

Loose Leaf Edition 01

Posted on April 21, 2011July 11, 2011 Posted in Art, Books, Design, PhotographyTagged Art, graphic design, Photography, print, publication1 Comment

Loose Leaf Edition 1

Loose Leaf is a new publication by Manual that features large-format printed art works. What’s unique about it is that each edition comes packaged ready to be installed on your wall. The publication is unbound and each piece if hole-punched allowing you to easily display it on a wall with small pushpins. Pretty neat.

You can find out more or grab a copy on the site.

Cosas Mínimas

Posted on July 30, 2010July 30, 2010 Posted in Art, DesignTagged color, illustration, minimalism, texture3 Comments

Cosas Mínimas (Minimal Things) is the personal portfolio of Madrid based illustrator and designer, Blanca Gómez. I’m in love with her illustrations. Every aspect of her style exhibits a sense of minimalism, from the simple geometric shapes, to the solid colors.

Also check out an interview with Bianca over at Grain Edit.

The Sameness Booklet

Posted on May 21, 2010May 21, 2010 Posted in Art, Books, DesignTagged Art, booklet, De Stijl, grid system, print4 Comments

The art and cultural movement, De Stijl, promoted abstraction by simplify design to its most basic elements and utilizing vertical and horizontal orientations and primary colors.

The Sameness Booklet by Alex Fuller and Gabe Usadel pays homage to this Dutch movement with some beautiful, but simple spreads using only red, black and white. This stunning piece is offset printed and is typeset in Akzidenz Grotesk. Alex and Gabe are also responsible for a equally wonderful booklet titled: The Incredible Journey that is Consciousness.

You can order a copy of the book for $12.

Matthew Lyons

Posted on January 19, 2010January 19, 2010 Posted in ArtTagged Art, illustration, minimalism, modernism4 Comments

I want to switch it up a little today with the excellent illustration work by Matthew Lyons. I almost never feature illustration work, that’s because it’s rare for me to find good examples that fall within the “minimalism” and “modernism” categories. Matthew’s work does, on so many levels. His style is very minimal, he uses a lot of simple geometric shapes to form the elements and his subjects have a retro-modern-minimal 60’s feel to them that I absolutely love. The colors and shading are also very simplistic, not too much detail, just enough to get the idea across, but at the same time the illustrations have so much depth.

Brilliant work by an artist who’s still in school. Amazing.

Via ISO50