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We love Nat Russell over here at It’s Nice That. If you haven’t seen it before, Nat’s body of work is made up of fantastical paintings, prints and illustrations that are pretty hilarious on the surface, but are actually infused with a really strong sense of loyalty and love that is so rare in so many people’s work. It’s fascinating to have a peek into his shelves, and to see the corrrelation between his literary habits and the work that he creates. Welcome to Nat Russell’s incredibly dedicated fan-base, you’re going to like it here.
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Photographer Mohammadreza Mirzaei has a keen eye for spontaneous imagery. The Iranian MFA student is currently studying at the University of Pennsylvania and creating the kind of dreamy nightscapes and geometrically-focused street photography that only a natural talent could conjure with their lens. When he’s not creating fine art photographs he busies himself with the promotion of other Iranian photographers (an undoubtedly under-represented demographic) through his monthly magazine, Dide, a publication that’s definitely going to have an influence over some of the photography we feature over the coming months.
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In the ongoing battle to redefine and reimagine the act and art of publishing for the 21st Century comes this project from the fine fellows over at Artomatic. CONTAINER is a thematic collection of objects produced specially by the contributors to that particular “issue.” For the first one, based around the idea of “hot and cold,” the likes of Nic Roope, James Bridle, Daniel Eatock and Accept & Proceed have created a weird and wonderful selection of treats from takeaway forks to pine wood burners. Not only are the objects themselves really special, the project challenges our notion of publications and our increasing expectations of what is becoming a luxury rather than a staple of our everyday lives.
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Amid the pantheon of brilliant characters from The Simpsons, Troy McLure has a special place in my heart. From his love of Selma to his slightly disturbing obsession with fish, his presence enlivens any episode but of course he’s best known for his ridiculous CV. Now one Christopher Coleman has collected a bunch of them together to make this supercut which is guaranteed to perk up your day. Just imagine the writers sitting around trying to come up with these!
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You know when you make a telescope out of a rolled-up phone bill and look through it to find a whole different, smaller world? Well Luke Casey’s gone and made a really terrific project out of that very idea, but instead of using a boring A4 sheet of paper, he’s utilised ships’ portholes as his frame.
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Bernardita Arís is somewhat enigmatic when it comes to tracking her down on the internet, but if anything that just makes her beautifully composed collages all the more alluring. Simple and understated and yet curiously covetable, her often deco-based pieces are oddly reminiscent of my nan’s textured wallpaper, but I still want to be friends with her and to watch her diligently cutting around all the lines for one of her cutting-and-sticking masterpieces. We can’t wait to see more of her work.
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In an enormous new digital catalogue by the Memory of the Netherlands, 150 years worth of graphic design for the Dutch Post Office Board is now on display. Designs for stamps, the stamps themselves and posters created by a huge number of designers to suit the high-profile design policy of the postal service are all included, and they make for a fascinating timeline of graphic design. From the commonplace to the obscure, you’ll find some stunning typography and illustration at your very fingertips. Design geeks, go wild!
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It’s easy when illustrating children’s books to slip into the squidgy, saccharine realm of twee. But to remain intelligent and humourous while still maintaining an aesthetic that appeals to children and adults combined is tricky. Astrid’s got this down though and her zoological illustrations are the perfect mix of fun and truly giggle-worthy. The fact there isn’t a single whiff of patronising in any of her children’s publications is also a breath of fresh air, so we’re big fans. Astrid’s also a bit of a dab hand at logo design, some of which you can see over on her site.
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This has been blowing up on social media over the weekend and it’s not hard to see why. French photographer Léo Caillard has found a super-cheeky way of playing with our perceptions of past and present with his Hipster In Stone project. By depicting classical sculptures cloaked in the immediately recognisable garb of the flat-white-swilling, rolled-up-trouser-wearing archetypes, Leo has produced a series which is not only very funny, but leads us to question just how easily swayed we might be by someone’s outward appearance. Either that or ancient Rome was quite a lot like modern Dalston. You decide!
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We’ve featured Thomas Cristiani & Antoine Roux on the site numerous times, partly because they seem to be the only artists on this planet that genuinely do have access to Bernard’s Watch. Amid making spectacularly contemporary visuals that fall like a feather between the world of art and graphic design, the powerful duo can be found getting down and dirty with some good, old fashioned graphic design. They’ve cottoned on to the fact that bright colours and nudity are what we want to see, and by throwing in their truly impressive, classical design and typographical knowledge into the mix, they’re almost indestructible. Have catalogues for art shows ever looked so mouth-wateringly good?
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With more fantastically designed invitations flying through our door than we knew what to do with recently, we decided to compile a list of our favourite degree show identities for you all to feast your eyes on. From websites chockablock with GIFs and video clips to beautifully-made catalogues, an invitation which literally jumped out of its envelope and several vacuum-packed collections of oddities (a rubber nipple, anyone?) if the invitations are anything to go by, this year’s degree shows promise a feast of fresh new creative talent for you all to get your chops around.
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You may remember a couple of years ago that brilliant illustrator (brillustrator? Anyone?) Marion Deuchars tickled us every shade of pink with her Let’s Make Great Art book which revelled in the sheer ruddy fun of the creative process. That’s what sprung to mind on receiving a copy of the Conditional Design Workbook from the team at Studio Moniker. Designers Luna Maurer, Jonathan Puckey and Roel Wouters worked with artist Edo Paulus to produce this super-fun hands on guide to some of the ideas that underpin the Conditional Design manifesto.
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How’s your head this morning? Angela Palmer could tell you – and she’d do it in the form of a painstakingly etched glass image of your brain. Inspired by the process of visualising and mapping natural forms, Angela takes details from MRI and CT scans and engraves them onto sheets of glass, which she then layers one on top of the other to recreate the human form and images of the brain. The result of such a process is an eerily elusive sculpture; from the front the viewer sees a full depiction of the interior architecture of the head in all of its three-dimensional glory, but from the side and the top it becomes completely invisible. Talk about mind-blowing (sorry).
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Almost two years ago exactly I saw Eve Lloyd Knight’s work at the Kingston illustration graduate show at Red Gallery in Shoreditch and was seriously impressed by her screen printed book, Pedestal. It featured joyful characters parading across strange giant landscapes and was printed with no small amount of skill. Then….nothing. Eve sort of disappeared into the ether and that was all I ever saw of her aside from a single spread in Nobrow 6 a few months later. So where did she go?
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We’ve had to put in a bit of a cap on the amount of projects we feature that are essentially objects on coloured backgrounds, but we let this one slide because the objects are real bird’s nests sourced from the actual wild. Bianca Tuckwell just scooped a first class honours degree from UCA Farnham, perhaps due to the absolute winner of The Growth That Is Our Own Cradle alone. These uncomplicated photographs of things which we know exist but never really get to properly observe is a perfect example of a project that looks simple to create, but actually involves a hell of a lot of work. Favourite nest? Song Thrush, definitely. Cosy.
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I’d imagine director Ivan Grbovic believes in doing things well, or just not at all. His latest video for Young Galaxy is a painstakingly created slow-mo CGI romp through the end of the world, set to the band’s dulcet tones. Now I’m as much of a fan of the tongue-in-cheek, lo-fi, low-budget music video as the next man, but when belters like this come along it reminds me how apt a full-on cinematic journey can be for the right piece of music. Hats tipped Ivan.
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We’ve talked before about the importance of graphic designers carefully documenting their work, but French graphic design studio Maquette Et Mis En Page have got it down to a fine art. The studio produce a large quantity of expertly designed printed volumes for predominantly fine art-based clients as well as exhibition way-finding systems and identities. Their work is excellent but their documentation is second-to-none, a talent that’s culminated in a luxurious website full of professionally-styled still-life shots that dare you to reach out and touch the books on your screen. Of course you can’t – which is distressing – but it’s enough of a cue to hunt down those tactile volumes for yourself and install them in your personal library to thumb at your leisure.
