Is Fan Art Illegal? If you’ve ever been to an Artist’s Alley at a comic convention, the thought, Can this be legal? has surely jumped into your head. Easily half the artists exhibiting at any mainstream Comic Con or Anime Show make and sell fan art. And by “fan art” I mean merchandise featuring characters the artist does not own: prints, buttons, tee shirts, key chains, hats, tote bags—I even saw Captain American mittens at the last show I attended. And if you count the amount of artists who offer one-of-a-kind, original commission sketches of copyrighted characters, the percentage shoots way higher.
Profile: Michael Bierut: Statement I grew up in Ohio in the 60s in a suburban milieu where design was seldom seen and never discussed. My parents encouraged my interest in art, which was in my pimply junior high school days a first a hobby, then an obsession, and finally a refuge. My earliest clients were my classmates who needed decorative lettering for the fall sports banquet, posters for the senior play, and convincing simulations of R. Crumb for their notebook covers. I still remember the thrill of discovering that this method of servicing the varied worlds of jocks, drama nerds and stoners wasn’t just fun but actually had a name: graphic design.
No. 582 - 2013.0821 Brooklyn is a hub of innovative architecture and design, with dozens of young professionals commissioning or undertaking their own eco-sensitive renovations to existing brownstones and low-rise attached buildings throughout the borough. Tighthouse, a Passive House brownstone retrofit, sits at the end of a string of two-story buildings constructed in 1899 that share a tree-lined block with larger brownstones built around the same time, centrally located off Fifth Avenue in the neighborhood of Park Slope. It is the first certified Passive House in New York City and meets the standards for new construction, surpassing the EnerPHit certification. Shelves at Home Decoration Inspired by natural and presented in modern design, this unique bookshelf was created by Spanish designer Jordi Mila. It’s called Wisdom Tree Bookshelf which its fluid and organic shape was inspired by the growth of a tree and comes with an artistic design making the shelf looks like tree branches, the books being the fruit of wisdom. The Wisdom Tree is for people who see books as a source of knowledge and emotions ...Read more
The Best Architectural Websites The Top Architectural Websites in the World That sounds pretty important doesn’t it? At the very least it sounds comprehensive … it suggests an extensive and exhaustive collection of the best architecturally themed websites in the world. I’m not sure if that is this list but it is my go-to list of websites. Meet the 20-Year-Old Who Built a YouTube Product Review Empire Robyn Twomey Marques Brownlee is a YouTube sensation. The tech-review prodigy has 1.8 million subscribers—more followers than Kanye West, Marvel, or Disney Animation. Under the username MKBHD, he tests everything from cameras and headphones to Google Glass and the latest Tesla. This summer he got his hands on a sapphire crystal display rumored to be for the iPhone 6.
The Gravity Defying Paintings of Jacek Yerka I’m a big fan of the surreal art of Hieronymus Bosch (for me, Bosch was the first surrealist before surrealism was even a thing), and Polish surrealist Jacek Yerka says Bosch was one of the reasons he decided to throw himself full pelt into art, after seriously considering a career in astronomy. You can actually see his love of both astronomy and Bosch in his wonderfully odd paintings that defy gravity; bedrooms are turned upside down, 15th century Flemish towns are uprooted from the ground by giant stony heads, whilst libraries suspend reservoirs. It’s all delightfully playful, hints at mystery and myths, whilst pooling dreams for subject matter and Dutch renaissance art for technical inspiration.
Beautiful And Original Product Designs - Smashing Magazine Advertisement Successful product design manages to reveal useful functionality beyond its appealing form. No matter how excellent a design looks like, most customers aren’t likely to spend money on something they won’t be able to use. On the other hand, most people are likely to buy something useful despite the design it has. Yet the key to a truly successful product design lies in designer’s ability to combine both beautiful design and functionality making it obvious to the customers how the product can be used and which benefits it delivers.
No. 570 - 2012.1024 Trees are fundamental to urban landscapes and natural ecosystems. Wood from trees is a fundamental material for architecture. The tension between wood in living trees, and wood in buildings and other products, is arguably at an all-time-high on planet Earth. mechanisms-steampunk-armored.html?fb_action_ids=10151937692971805&fb_action_types=og Vladimir Gvozdeff's illustration series Mechanisms depicts a wonderful bestiary of armored, mechanical creatures in steampunk style, surrounded by the detritus of contrafactual Victorian inventorship. Some of my favorites after the jump: владимир гвоздев & gvozdariki (via Pipe Dream Dragon)
The Eccentric Artwork of Rebecca Horn If Rebecca Horn is not a cult artist, it’s hard to define what we mean by ‘cult artist’. But the truth is that Horn isn’t really viewed as a cult artist at all. From her distinctive looks, to her body of work that spans five decades and includes whispering Chinese voices in the dark, rattling hanging typewriters, Donald Sutherland dancing with snakes, and a woman wandering around with a horn protruding from her headpiece, Horn’s career is brimming with the kind of eccentric material that would normally see an artist labelled ‘cult.’ Horn, born in Germany during the latter stages of the Second World War, sits alongside Joseph Beuys and Anselm Kiefer as one of her nations greatest contemporary artists. Like Kiefer, it is easy to point to her homelands tumultuous recent history as providing a backdrop for her art, particular in light of her attempt to recreate Germany’s past for Skulptor Projekte Munster.