Fingerpainting on the iPad

Amazing to see what artist David Kassan can do on the iPad.

Chef Designers

Ran across a fun Q&A article on Print magazine's website about designers and their favorite dishes to make in the kitchen. Awesome to see that these designers' talents stretch beyond the design world into the kitchen. My favorite of all six designer chef's was Lousie Fili. Her plum pine-nut tart is just as detailed and lovely as her logos.

We love Graphicology

Graphicology covers a wide range of design topics from ads to logos and branding. They are smart and insightful and I like to think of them as the more masculine version of P+P (they're probably smarter than we are too but we're cuter!)

Blog: Fast Company's Co. Design

Fun design blog from Fast Company. Love their post about how to choose a typeface. Awesome.

Friends With You Skywalkers Project

Skywalkers - Scion Art Basel 2006 from FriendsWithYou on Vimeo.

(Video is a little over six minutes)

With sponsorship from Scion, Friends With You created a parade/procession of large-scale helium balloons along the beach in Miami. Total, whimsical fun!

(via skywalkers : fwystudios.com)

Everything Has a Brand – Even Heroin

Interesting article in the NY Times about branding of heroin packets. This quote from the article sums it up nicely:‘ “Even something so forbidden, so demonized, can be branded.” ’

The packets will be part of the "Heroin Stamp Project" at the White Box Gallery in NYC.

Who will paint all the slums?

Was Dulux Paint's Let's Colour Project inspired by the Haas&Hahn Favela Painting project? You decide.

 (Images from the Favela Painting site from their recent work in Santa Marta, Praça Cantão, Communidade da Santa Marta, Rio de Janeiro)

Indulging in Fashion with Naag

Fashion isn't a topic we discuss much here on Pica + Pixel but I do indulge in the the occasional romp through a fashion magazine now and then. So, if you're feeling the urge to indulge in a little glamour, fashion or beauty extravagance, may I recommend Naag?

Naag was created by model Agyness Deyn and journalist Fiona Byrne and features all the topics usually covered in a fashion magazine -- beauty, travel, fashion and culture. The design is clean, the writing is humorous and fresh and looks are downtown chic.

One Million Giraffes Art Project

Web designer Ola Helland wants you to send him your best giraffe. He bet his friend Jorge that he could collect 1 million hand-made giraffe images by 2011. As of today, Helland has 855,315 giraffes and just needs 144,685 more to reach his goal. To get inspired, check out all the giraffes that Helland has collected at his site onemilliongiraffes.com and then send him one of your own.

Ooooo-- Polaroid SX70s! Get 'em while they're hot!

Our friends over at Photojojo, the DIY photo newsletter/store/blog and creators of the awesome Photojojo! book, have partnered with The Impossible Project (the guys who saved Polaroid) to sell some limited edition Rainbow SX-70 OneStep Polaroid Cameras. They're pretty rare (made between 1977-1982)-- Photojojo only have 50 of them, and each one comes with two packs of PX 100.

So, forget about standing in line for a new iPhone 4, get your clicker-finger warmed up because Photojojo is releasing these rare birds on Thursday the 24th.

Erik van Blokland draws letterforms

On Sketching from Erik van Blokland on Vimeo.

Erik van Blokland’s (of Letterror fame)  letterform sketching method, passed down from Gerrit Noordzij and taught at the The Hague.

(via Stüf Stuff and tipped off by Frank Chimero's Twitter feed -- thank you very much!)

Illustrator: Gemma Correll

The other day we got a lovely email from illustrator Gemma Correll and all of her work made us smile. We loved her quirky, cute illustrations of cats, pugs and humans along with her whimsical patterns and typography.

I'm Comic Sans, Asshole.

McSweeneys featured Comic Sans in their Short Imagined Monologues series. Let me whet your appetite with a quote and then feel free to amuse yourself with the full piece.

You think I'm pedestrian and tacky? Guess the fuck what, Picasso. We don't all have seventy-three weights of stick-up-my-ass Helvetica sitting on our seventeen-inch MacBook Pros. Sorry the entire world can't all be done in stark Eurotrash Swiss type.

I think Comic Sans sounds bitter. You?

Eye Candy: Comic Target Commerial

Got to love when Target, comic books and Christina Aguilera all come together for a commercial. Check out the details in the comic backgrounds. Pretty awesome that they used the Target logo as a moiré pattern.

IAMPETH Healey Collection Exhibit: The recap

A couple weeks ago, I posted about the Healey Exhibit that was brought to Kansas City by IAMPETH (The International Association of Penmen Engrossers Teachers of Penmanship). The show was amazing! The sheer volume of work featured was overwhelming, from decorative lettering samples and ornate certificates to teaching examples of business penmanship. Each piece was the original art so all the retouching was evident as well as stunningly delicate pen strokes. Many pieces were created at double size and then reduced for publication make the work even cleaner and more precise.

I took so many photos of the exhibition, that I am storing all the images on a separate site. I hope you enjoy the images. If anyone is interested in higher rez versions of any of the files, drop me an email and I will post them.

Feeling Letterheady

[Letterhead from the Director of the Bauhaus]

Letterheady is an archive of vintage letterhead designs from businesses and notable people, from Chalres Schulz to Electrolux. Makes me miss the days of paper, typewriters and concrete correspondence.


[Buzz Aldrin letterhead]


[Charles Dickens letterhead]

Another Reason to Love Chris Ware

Chris Ware is one of our favorite artist here at Pica + Pixel. Our love for him has only grown after seeing his rejected cover for Fortune's 500 issue. Ware captured all the messiness and dishonesty of capitalism going on in our country today. The closeups show Guantanamo Bay, the government bailing out the wealthy, the horrible housing market and much more. To check out more of the closeups, check out this slideshow.





[via Huffington Post]

NYC subway maps through the years

This month the MTA will release a new and improved NYC subway map. To commemorate, the New York Times has a great interactive widget letting readers check out the big and small differences between all the iterations of the NYC subway map. Also read the accompanying article by Steven Heller to learn more about all the older variations of the maps.

ESPN immortalizes the 32 World Cup Teams

The World Cup starts this Friday and both of us here at Pica + Pixel are super excited. To get all of us in the mood, we wanted to share some of the 32 pieces of artwork that ESPN commissioned to capture the spirit of each of the countries in the game. Ggoooaaalll!!!



[via A World Cup Report. Also thanks to my awesome husband for telling me about this.]

Every Person In New York drawing blog

Jason Polan is an illustrator living in NYC who has an ambitious goal: he wants to draw every single person in New York. To reach this goal, he draws a handful of people everyday and posts them to his blog, Every Person In New York. If you feel like helping him along, you can email him letting him know a time, place and date of where you will be and he will try and get there to draw you. Pretty awesome.

Mary & Matt's Chocolate Editions

Loving these sweet and quirky homemade chocolate bars by Chocolate Editions from the winsome design duo, Mary & Matt. Each bar is lovingly made in the couple's Brooklyn kitchen and produced from the finest ingredients. Also stop by their awesome blog to get a peek at what influences them.

[via Sight Unseen]