Hi, we're OK Great, a tight-knit crew of designers, writers + artists, hell-bent on delivering the best in art, design and culture. The world is a big pile of awesome. We're the spoon. Dig in.
Ever wanted to get back to childhood and run away to hide in your favorite fort/treehouse/cardboard structure?
Well, today is one of those days for me. This knit fort by Matt Gagnon Studio (“famed design office and craftsmen atelier”) would be the perfect remedy. What an incredibly constructed object—perfect for children but also for anyone who understands the beauty of well-crafted, beautifully engineered and yet simple wood objects.
Quoted from the site:
Depending on the scale, the surface can remain elastic allowing the occupant to manipulate and deform the profile. The shape can be expanded or contracted to alter the apertures of the space. The participatory aspect of the surface prolongs the process of creation and allows fine tuning the boundary of the space.
I’ve been spending a lot of time Dribbble lately – my goodness there’s a lot of really great talent on there, and it really gives you a unique glimpse into not just the regular finished products that we usually see from fellow designers/artists, but also the little experiments / fuckups / direction changes that you would never normally get to see.
One of those people is Allen Peters. Peters is an Art Director in Minneapolis, so of course he’s got a portfolio full of great advertising work, but it’s the little games and experiments and personal projects that I really love. Also, he’s behind these too.
It’s cold and dreary in Durham today, which I think is a great excuse for daydreaming. If you want to take a break from your work day to look at beautiful things, check out the lovely work of Taiwanese photographer Eliot Chen.
An inspiring video from Sebastianbap that has a great message about self improvement. Whatever you do, always try to be the best you can be. Plus it doesn’t hurt the video is well done.
Amy Earles makes things, working mostly in gouache and pencil.
I found her amazing paper dolls a few weeks ago and have since begun obsessing about how rad it would be for her to paint my daughter’s portrait. Her style is innocent but at the same time has a whiff of darkness to it, not unlike the best German fairytales.
There’s so much irreverent awesomeness in Thomas Mailaender’s portfolio of projects. I highly recommend wrapping up your Friday afternoon with a stroll through his site. You can also check out a few more gems after the jump.
OR you could head over to The Fun Archive, a site Thomas set up to be ‘the worst image bank ever.’
The 6-part IFC Original short-based comedy series PORTLANDIA, created, written by and starring Fred Armisen (SNL) and Carrie Brownstein (vocalist/guitarist, WILD FLAG, Sleater-Kinney), premieres on IFC Friday, January 21, 2011 at 10:30 PM ET/PT. Each episode’s character-based shorts draw viewers into “Portlandia,” the creators’ dreamy and absurd rendering of Portland, Oregon.
I mean, this clip above, really? Perfect. Also, the best name dropped compilation of things that make me really angry. Handy!
More clips below, or, you can visit the IFC site directly. Carolin, I would love to get your opinion on this one. Particularly since I have never been to Portland. Not that that’s going to stop me from being judgmental. Nothing ever will!
Have you ever made a painting? If you’re a regular reader to this blog, there’s probably a decent chance that you have. Ok. Have you ever made 29,000 paintings? Probably not. Aleksandr Petrov has. And that was just for one project – The Old Man and the Sea. Petrov finger-paints onto glass panels with slow-drying oil paint, photographs each painting, and stitches them all together to form a beautiful, painterly video. I haven’t made it through the whole film–it’s fairly long–but you can begin to appreciate the work instantly…
If you want to see more of the process (in Russian of course), here’s a video of Petrov talking about his methods–just be sure to turn on closed captioning on Youtube if you want to understand anything.
Stacey Rozich has a really interesting style of folk art illustration that she executes beautifully with watercolor and gouache. You can check below the jump for some more of her work or check out her blog mystery meats.
Teagan White is a freelance designer + illustrator currently honing her already amazing skills at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. Initially it was her typography work that caught my eye, but after digging further into her portfolio, I began to appreciate her illustrations even more. The clear skill + delicate techniques found in Teagan’s work are inspiring. She does a great job of blending a fine arts style with graphic design clarity.
If you are looking for a print of her work, she has you covered.
