megadummy
Just a heads up - I have another tumblr called megadummy where I am posting every single image on my computer in chronological order, with no commentary, just an artist/photographer credit if I have one. It’s already almost 30 pages deep, and I’m only a fraction of the way through. There’s some good stuff, hope you enjoy it.
We Are Looking Too Much
Why are all of the designers I truly admire at least a decade older than I am? I wrote a big post on my portfolio blog about it - designers my age are looking too much, let’s see something new.
this one is so creepy :)
I came across the work of Sam Vanallameersch / SOVCHOZ while randomly clicking around in somebody’s link list. I look at a lot of illustration and definitely don’t feel the need to post about all of it here, but Sam’s work really caught my attention. For me it was working on two levels - I really like the way he fills a page, and I think his line is fantastic. But his work was really unsettling too, and I really can’t put a finger on it. There is a weird and disturbed/confused/bruised energy in his work that I really appreciate, and find it so much more rewarding than the kind of illustration that really tries hard to be disturbing (I am thinking of what you see in a Juxtapoz ad where there is like a vintage dollhead with hollow eyes and a creepy smile, yaaaaaawn.) Totally subjective, but he really feels to me like he is going off in his own direction, I can’t even think of anybody he reminds me of at all. And there is obviously a story in each piece, they manage to feel complete without making anything obvious. Something is happening, you can see it in the sum of all the little compositional details without having anything spelled out for you.
I picked these particular images because, again, I love the way they use the page, and because the colors are super strange - olive green, purple, grey, peach, and a few hits of lemon yellow? Nobody does that! Nobody!
I try not to hype music very much, but I just came across this video for The Antlers “Rolled Together,” which was my favorite song from Burst Apart, their latest album. It sounds great on the album but is the kind of song that would be extra-amazing live, mostly because Pete Silberman’s hair-raising falsetto is something I would love to hear in person. This video from pitchfork.tv does a fine job of making the viewer feel like they are in the studio, and does it without feeling like somebody’s cousin wandered in and recorded the whole thing with their iPhone. It captures the band performing with Neon Indian (who in my opinion he doesn’t really affect the song that much, just adding some texture - which is fine, and sounds good, and at least he was being respectful of their material - but don’t be expecting a wild mashup of woozy beats and the signature restrained Antlers sound.) Enough about Neon Indian, the song is fantastic. Great audio for an internet video, and the video production is very high quality and artfully done. No special effects or projections or anything, just nice natural lighting and tasteful editing that make a very intimate song more than it was.
These creepy photos show dummies used to gauge the effect of A-Bombs on humans.
via AquaVelvet.
BB King - I would have loved to have seen him in his prime.
A lot of people noted the distinctive cover art on last year’s The Suburbs by Arcade Fire - it won a Grammy award, so it has clearly been in front of a lot of people at this point. Not everyone liked it but I thought it was very appealing and was an excellent complement to the music (which I enjoyed very much then, and still do.) What a lot of people don’t know is that Burlesque of North America’s Wes Winship has continued to design a series of concert posters for Arcade Fire using the same visual language as the album art, but with a more expansive canvas. I think they are amazing looking - fantastic color palette, carefully arranged images, tricky tricky tricky overprinting, unexpected typography, and they don’t look like anything else out there. The ones I have posted here don’t seem to be for sale anymore, but some other great ones are in the Burlesque Store.
