Abstract Portraits Kai Samuels-Davis
California-based artist Kai Samuels-Davis creates abstract portraits using large brush strokes and washed colour palette
An Uncommon Place by Reuben Wu
We’ve been following Reuben Wu for quite a long time since he started doing his “An Uncommon Place” series including latest Lux Notis, Dreamscapes and Aeroglyph projects.
EDITION Hotels ╳ Sila Sveta ╳ Times Square
Robotic art projects and 3-D billboard installations by Sila Sveta are attracting New Yorkers to Times Square
“Times Square is contemporarily known as the one-stop destination for tourists and the one spot New Yorkers avoid with more vigor than jury duty. Legendary Studio 54 founder and luxury hotelier Ian Schrager (@ianschrager), however, is seducing New Yorkers back to the area with the commissioning of two public-facing art projects located on the Jumbotron billboard on the corner of 47th and Broadway in celebration of the opening of The Times Square EDITION (@timessquareedition) “
“We wanted to bring something unforgettable to Times Square and create an iconic moment to mark the opening of The Times Square EDITION. The activations will be unique visual experiences that the public can take part in to celebrate this momentous occasion.”
“The new billboard project features a glowing display of urban media art that fuses classic depictions of art and nature with modern technology. Schrager is collaborating with Sila Sveta, the New York-based multimedia design studio that has produced installations for the MET Gala, to bring back the sophisticated glitz and high romance that Times Square was once known for in the 1940s and 50s. What is now blocks of fast food chains and naked cowboys was once a destination for New Yorkers themselves, lined with nightclubs where one could spin to the sounds of Doo-Wop at the start of the evening then end it with a nightcap accompanied by Frank Sinatra.”
Text by Document Journal (@documentjournal)
“Billboards are an important medium in contemporary public art. We want to augment the architectural environment with these new site specific works for the neighborhood”
Berger & Föhr
Todd Berger and Lucian Föhr have spent the past 16 years, side by side, practicing contemporary graphic design and brand strategy for cultural and commercial clients. They are co-founders of their namesake studio, Berger & Föhr, based in Boulder, Colorado.
Throughout their careers, they have created a volume of highly regarded brand identities, digital products, and bespoke printed collateral. While broadly international in style, their work spans discipline, sector, and clientele, often defying categorization.
The Art of the Dunk
Director Michael Medoway defies gravity with former Harlem Globetrotter, Chris Staples (@everybody_hatechriss) in this visually arresting film for @Lexus.
Michael Medoway is an American director and photographer. His work fluctuates between slice-of-life, documentary-style realism to polished, cinematic narrative. He has collaborated with major brands including Lexus, Foot Locker, Visa, Asics and Toyota to bring stories to the screen that resonate with the brand’s community.
Fendi Muses by Blake Kathryn
Digital artist Blake Kathryn was commissioned by Fendi to create their recent online campaign
Editorial Illustration by Spiros Halaris
Spiros Halaris is a multi-disciplinary award winning Illustrator. Originally from Greece, he was trained at the University of the Arts London and has studios in London and New York, where he's currently based.
Dolby Asteria by GMUNK
For Dolby's ongoing site-specific installations at its unique gallery space in San Francisco, GMUNK and Tool of North America created an augmented reality audiovisual quest across the stars. Asteria, inspired by Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and cosmic mythology, consists of a 3-act, mobile AR experience for iOS devices synchronized with a 12 minute film that plays on loop on the gallery’s 64-foot LED wrap around wall.
Inspired by the Dolby Gallery itself, Munky and Tool of North America worked to design an AR experience that pairs with the big screen, coupling the two platforms to create this immersive space exploration. Putting the user in the stereoscopic transmissions of the “xO-9 probe” explorer, they’re taken to three different worlds in the year 2027, each world in a different state of worldly evolution; each corresponding to a unique epoch in Earth’s own development.
After giving thought to the space, Munky (GMUNK) decided to pair the screen with an AR experience, using the screen as a backdrop and the source of life and sound for the installation. The smartphone thus becomes an extension of the story that is being told by the film.
In order to create the best experience for the user and to create a smooth transition between worlds and storylines, Munky designed the AR app to pair with the Dolby screen content. By using a remote server to track time-code sync, the AR app on the user’s mobile device is able to detect where the user is within the gallery film, allowing it to stay synced with their location within the film so each act is experienced in a perfect sequence.
In 2027, the xO-9 probe became the first lunar launch module to maintain contact with NASA after successfully jumping an interstellar gate.
Radio contact after the black hole transit located the ship 2 million light years from Earth, near a cluster of exoplanets called Macaca Fascicularis, on the edge of galaxy Andromeda.
Equipped with the most advanced HDR imaging and sound-capturing technologies, xO9’s mission is to navigate, observe, and transmit stereoscopic images from deep space. The Macaca cluster is of particular interest because each planet has it own orbital sun - and in one case, suns.
More astonishing is the discovery that each planet exists in a different state of worldly evolution; each corresponding to a unique epoch in Earth’s own development. And one that may even foreshadow our own uncertain future.
These holographic broadcasts represent the first time humans can experience space as if they are window-seat passengers in an explorer probe. The xO-9 transmissions - miniaturized for viewing as observable micro-universes - create a dimensional experience for the viewer. Like galactic mobiles that float in space wherever the viewer chooses to call them up.
Sila Sveta for Drake's "Scorpion" Tour
Back in to 2018, it was the most challenging year for the world leading visual effect and stage design studio Sila Sveta, based in Moscow. Through a set of life changing events and creative director Willo Perron they landed with a project for Drake’s tour “Scorpion” - a huge challenge led to 15.6Tb of material and a panic half year of work to release 7 consecutive shows in NYC.
Joseph Lee’s Portraits
Los Angeles based actor and artist Joseph Lee has spent years studying faces and the feelings that they emote. So it's absolutely impressive that his series of abstract portraits, composed of just a few thick, segmented brush strokes, can convey so much emotion and expression. And all without hardly a single detail of the face exposed! I could study these portraits for hours, while admiring the beauty of each stroke and his brilliant use of colors.
Between Rivers by Mojo Wang
Between Rivers is an ongoing project of illustrator Mojo Wang
Mojo (Chuanjie Wang) is a self-taught illustrator. He was born and raised in Shanghai. Received his BA in Industrial Engineering from Shanghai University of Engineering. Currently pursuing his MFA in Illustration in SVA, NYC.
Felt Giants by Paolo del Toro
American artist Paolo del Toro painstakingly creates huge felt heads that appear to us as a mix of ritual and tribal masks from Central and South America and friendly characters from Japanese animations of Hayao Miyazaki.
Jocelyn Hobbie Art
Jocelyn Hobbie is a painter known for her hyper-realistic, brightly coloured portraits of women. “Over the years, Hobbie’s style has evolved from early days spent painting in an almost miniature scale to a later body of work that includes multiple subjects and more loaded scenarios.”
IcoNYC Squarespace
Being a Squarespace running blog we can’t miss their recent update of identity made by our friends from DIA Studio together with François Rappo (Typography), and Optimo
“Squarespace is one of very few technology companies that can truly call NYC home. The city has inspired our attitude, our aesthetic, and our mission to democratize good design for every ambitious entrepreneur, artist, or visionary with a dream. As we began to rethink our brand identity, we knew we needed to find a way to make New York a bigger part of the story.”
“New York is a study in movement; like jazz, it constantly heads in unpredictable directions. Since much of our output is interactive and screen based, we knew the brand needed to make sense in motion. So we developed a kinetic identity system that dimensionalizes our name and reinforces the two syllables in Squarespace.“
Art-Historical Pumpkins carved by artists Marc Evan and Chris Soria
Founded by artists Marc Evan and Chris Soria, Maniac is now in its 10th year of creating intricately carved pumpkins for clients ranging from the New York Yankees and CNN to engaged couples.
“And their innovative approach to a centuries-old tradition extends far beyond famous artworks: Maniac’s artists have been known to etch the likenesses of pop cultural icons like David Bowie and Aretha Franklin in fine detail, to sculpt voluminous renderings of the ewoks from Star Wars, and to churn out classic jack-o-lanterns”
Mark Lovejoy
“These are not photographs of paintings – no paintings exist. These images are of something as fleeting as any street scene or sunset – illuminated pigments, diluents, extenders, resins, oils, fillers, waxes, drying agents, etc. which, depending upon the mix, have varying miscibilities, viscosities, tacks, surface textures, reflectance, drying times etc., etc. All images are made using CMYK, white & in some cases silver & gold. Each original image has been reworked & reshot repeatedly – preserving any given iteration would be to doom all subsequent possibilities – the photographic record is all that remains . . .”
LA Philharmonic's Anniversary projection by Refik Anadol
From September 28 through October 6 vibrant three-dimensional projections on the facade of Walt Disney Concert Hall are launched by artist Refik Anadol and his team (baked by Google Arts&Culture) to celebrate the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s 100th anniversary.
This public art installation projects transformed archival materials onto the exterior of Walt Disney Concert Hall in animated, data-driven patterns, seeming to give consciousness to the architectural landmark. The result is a radical visualization of the organization’s first century. The images are abstract representations of more than 45 terabytes of information from the L.A. Phil’s archives, including photos, videos, audio recordings, posters, and more.
The files were parsed into millions of data points that were then categorized by hundreds of attributes, by deep neural networks with the capacity to both remember the totality of the LA Phil’s “memories” and create new connections between them. The show is accompanied by the soundtrack that was created from the LA Phil’s archival recordings. Sound designers augmented these selections by using machine-learning algorithms to find similar performances recorded throughout the LA Phil’s history.
Blake Kathryn
LA based digital artist Blake Kathryn Thomas shares her latest artworks with us. Her work touches upon themes of nostalgia, states of consciousness and vices, iterated into dreamlike compositions.
NU:RO Minimalist Analog Watch
Just in time when “Quantified Self” trend is trying to excuse the brutal data harvest from leading smart accessories - here come the solution to take an ease in sharing all of your personal details (including blood cells rate) to the unknown. Welcome award-winning minimalist analogue watches created by the fellows of our creative industry - Anton Repponen and his Brooklyn based studio ANTON&IRENE
After winning the Red Dot Award in 2010 for best concept, and many years of creating digital products for a variety of clients such as The Met, USAToday, Spotify, Balenciaga, Google and Netflix, Anton & Irene decided to make the leap into product design and produce the analog NU:RO watch themselves.
“We could have easily produced more watches, but we deliberately wanted to release a limited edition of 500 so that owning one would feel more special, almost like we’re all part of the same family”
The watch has two dials, one with hours at the top and the other with minutes at the bottom. When they rotate the current time is shown inside the hourglass. The watch has been manufactured in a limited edition of 500, and can be purchased through the studio’s Kickstarter campaign until October 10th, after which, they will be gone forever.
The studio has also collaborated with the artist Shantell Martin for a limited edition release of 10 original hand drawn artworks.
“I always love working with Anton & Irene, and am proud to collaborate with them on this very special release of a project I know has been a passion of theirs for many years”
Parks Perdue
Sticking to a dark colour palette that utilises the eccentricities of certain typefaces in neon colours, Parks' Perdue work has certainly stepped a gear in terms of a graphic design aesthetic.
