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Championing creativity

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9yokoyama — Yuichi Yokoyama, Color Engineering 17, 2005, ink, marker, and screentone on paper, 8 in. × 10 in.

2yokoyama — Yuichi Yokoyama, Color Engineering, 2010, acrylic on canvas, 20 in. × 28 in.

3yokoyama — Yuichi Yokoyama, Color Engineering, 2010, acrylic on canvas, 20 in. × 28 in.

8yokoyama — Yuichi Yokoyama, Color Engineering 23, 2005, ink, marker, and screentone on paper, 8 in. × 10 in.

4yokoyama — Yuichi Yokoyama, Color Engineering, 2010, acrylic, paper and ink on canvas, 20 in. × 28 in.

5yokoyama — Yokoyama, Color Engineering, 2010, acrylic on canvas, 20 in. × 28 in.

6yokoyama — Yuichi Yokoyama, Color Engineering, 2010, acrylic on canvas, 20 in. × 28 in.

7yokoyama — Yuichi Yokoyama, Color Engineering, 2010, acrylic on canvas, 20 in. × 28 in.

900 — Color Engineering, Yuichi Yokoyama.

700 — Color Engineering, Yuichi Yokoyama. Cover.

Work / Publication

Yuichi Yokoyama: Color Engineering

Words by Bryony Quinn, Tuesday 13 December 2011

Color Engineering is the remarkable self-designed book by cartoonist Yuichi Yokoyama. Stocked full of sequential paintings and mixed-media spreads that act like breathing spaces and fantastical landscapes between byzantine comic narratives – which could be showing us fantasy, or maybe the future in their mechanical architecture and “post-human fashion” – either way, it’s a trip to read. Found via The Paris Review

www.pictureboxinc.com/color-engineering

Most Recent

From a devastated Cristiano Ronaldo to embroidered animation: what we learnt at June's Nicer Tuesdays 27 June 2018
Special Edition Co. create digital collages which explode on the screen like fireworks 27 June 2018
Meet the shortlist for the MullenLowe NOVA Awards 27 June 2018
Snezhana von Büdingen uses photography to be a "director, journalist, and painter" 27 June 2018
Tim Vyner’s realtime illustrations of the Street Child World Cup made us fall in love with footie all over again 27 June 2018
Radical Luxury: David Lane and Richard Gray collaborate on new poster-zine for Selfridges 27 June 2018

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Work / Publication Radical Luxury: David Lane and Richard Gray collaborate on new poster-zine for Selfridges

Since the start of 2018, Selfridges have concentrated their efforts on defining the meaning of modern luxury, be it through exhibitions, pop-ups or capsule collections by the likes of Michele Lamy and Gareth Pugh. The pursuit continues, this time with the launch of a new magazine to coincide with the unveiling of the third phase of the department store’s accessories hall, which features a new art-filled entrance on Duke Street, as well as the first European outpost of Tokyo’s Aoyama Flower Market. And with art direction by David Lane of Lane & Associates and The Gourmand, and edited by Richard Gray, director of November Creative, they’re pulling out all the stops.

Ellie Robertson — 27 June 2018
Work / Publication Emiliano Ponzi's The Great New York Subway Map displays how graphic design can turn chaos to order

Emiliano Ponzi, in collaboration with the MoMA, has created a book introducing young readers to the work of iconic graphic designer Massimo Vignelli. Using illustrations of “trains, subway stations, and the NYC skyline”, Emiliano’s book tells the story of how Vignelli created an “easy-to-navigate subway map in 1972”. The Great New York Subway Map aims to show how graphic design can be used for “problem-solving” and turning “chaos to order”.  

Emma Latham Phillips — 26 June 2018
Work / Publication Nicholas Blechman on applying subtle redesign tweaks to The New Yorker

Earlier this month Nicholas Blechman, the creative director of The New Yorker, introduced a redesign to one of the magazine’s regular features, ‘Goings On About Town’. A redesign, however small, is a rare occurrence within The New Yorker’s pages in comparison to the regular shift other publications apply to its design. Below, Nicholas talks us through the reasoning behind the most recent design tweak, as well as an overview of The New Yorker’s layout design history.

Nicholas Blechman — 25 June 2018
Work / Publication "A cover should mark what a magazine believes in": Riposte launch their tenth issue

For Shaz Madani, art director of Riposte Magazine, “it’s definitely the case of judge a magazine by its cover”. A cover should mark what a magazine believes in and Riposte, with their signature text and iconic portraits of women, adhere to this ideal.

Emma Latham Phillips — 22 June 2018
Work / Publication Landfill Editions show us a bunch of its brilliant new illustration titles

When not publishing its brilliant magazine Mould Map, Landfill Editions are equally brilliant book publishers, working with illustration, graphic design and everything in between. With a stack of new titles for you to peruse, we caught up with the publishing house to see what has recently come back from the printers.

Lucy Bourton — 22 June 2018
Work / Publication Ditto publish 100 Club Stories in celebration of the iconic London venue

The 100 Club, tucked away in a doorway nestled between the high street shops on Oxford Street, London, is a venue in which many have had the best nights of their lives. This is something that applies to both tightly packed crowds and bands who have graced its stage. Getting tickets to a gig is an honour as it’s capacity is small, and if you’re lucky enough to be invited to play the honour is even greater. In celebration of the venue, Ditto has published a book displaying its history, character and anecdotes of its 75-year history.

Lucy Bourton — 21 June 2018

Regulars / Nicer Tuesdays From a devastated Cristiano Ronaldo to embroidered animation: what we learnt at June's Nicer Tuesdays

While the majority of the world watched Argentina play Nigeria in the world cup, we at It’s Nice That made our way to the Oval Space for our monthly event, Nicer Tuesdays. The evening is always host to a range of disciplines and last night was no exception. Atelier Brenda, Robert Rubbish, Season zine and Nikos Livesey took us behind the scenes of graphic design, illustration, publishing and animated embroidery, shining a light on each of their creative niches. Check out what we learnt below:h3. Text can be as effective as images

It's Nice That — 27 June 2018
Work / Digital Special Edition Co. create digital collages which explode on the screen like fireworks

Special Edition Co. is an experimental creative collective comprised of two designers, Sam Small and Trent Roach. Based out of Kansas City, Missouri, it is these makers “primary mission to collaborate on innovative projects with artists internationally,” the designers explain. “Overlapping our aesthetic with other creative mindsets often produces unique and exciting outcomes,” as well as the digital age, “offering endless opportunities to link with other artists.”

Emma Latham Phillips — 27 June 2018
Sponsored / Miscellaneous Meet the shortlist for the MullenLowe NOVA Awards

It’s that time of the year again. Students up and down the country are eagerly curating their work in order to present it at their degree shows for the public to see. This year, for the eighth year running, global marketing communications agency network, MullenLowe Group, returns to sponsor the Central Saint Martins annual show. In addition to being the official sponsors of the degree shows, MullenLowe Group also runs the MullenLowe NOVA Awards to shine a light on the brightest young talent emerging from the world-renowned art, design and performance college.

Its Nice That — 27 June 2018
Work / Photography Snezhana von Büdingen uses photography to be a "director, journalist, and painter"

Based in Cologne, Germany although born in Perm, Russia, Snezhana von Büdingen’s photography fulfils her need to tell the stories of others. “My ideas for projects always come from chance encounters with people,” she tells It’s Nice That, “It’s from a fascination with these people that a project develops – people that are different, think differently, and have different views on life.”

Ruby Boddington — 27 June 2018
Work / Illustration Tim Vyner’s realtime illustrations of the Street Child World Cup made us fall in love with footie all over again

Stick your head outside in parts of the UK right now and I swear you can hear the intro to Three Lions pumping from a distant car stereo or the soft murmur of “Ing-ger-land” on the breeze. World Cup fever has thoroughly taken hold. But no matter how beautiful it is to plummet six sweet goals into the back of your opponent’s net, deep down we all know that the power of the World Cup is to bring together people from all over the globe in celebration of the beautiful game.

Laura Snoad — 27 June 2018
Work / Publication Radical Luxury: David Lane and Richard Gray collaborate on new poster-zine for Selfridges

Since the start of 2018, Selfridges have concentrated their efforts on defining the meaning of modern luxury, be it through exhibitions, pop-ups or capsule collections by the likes of Michele Lamy and Gareth Pugh. The pursuit continues, this time with the launch of a new magazine to coincide with the unveiling of the third phase of the department store’s accessories hall, which features a new art-filled entrance on Duke Street, as well as the first European outpost of Tokyo’s Aoyama Flower Market. And with art direction by David Lane of Lane & Associates and The Gourmand, and edited by Richard Gray, director of November Creative, they’re pulling out all the stops.

Ellie Robertson — 27 June 2018

Work / Photography Photographer Fumi Nagasaka's affectionate take on a family portrait

“About three years ago, I met Sasha at a Starbucks in Brighton Beach while I was working for a location scout,” Fumi tells It’s Nice That. “He was 16 and I wanted to photograph him for my book Untitled Youth, which was published in 2016.” However, after visiting the teen at his Russian family home to get an approval from his parents, the eccentric characters she met inspired her to set up a family shoot.

Daphne Milner — 27 June 2018
Work / Publication Emiliano Ponzi's The Great New York Subway Map displays how graphic design can turn chaos to order

Emiliano Ponzi, in collaboration with the MoMA, has created a book introducing young readers to the work of iconic graphic designer Massimo Vignelli. Using illustrations of “trains, subway stations, and the NYC skyline”, Emiliano’s book tells the story of how Vignelli created an “easy-to-navigate subway map in 1972”. The Great New York Subway Map aims to show how graphic design can be used for “problem-solving” and turning “chaos to order”.  

Emma Latham Phillips — 26 June 2018
Work / Art Artist Ricardo Passaporte on falling in "love at first sight" with Lidl

When Lidl opened close to my house at the beginning of the year everything changed. Suddenly luxury foodstuffs available only to people for whom ‘supper’ is a legitimate meal – think potted crab, fancy crackers and walnut oil – were available on my meagre freelancer’s wage. Now I could rock up to a friend’s house proffering a bounty of Highland black pudding, panna cotta or buffalo mozzarella, rather than the cheapest wine in the shop and some mystery meat-flavoured crisps. I had arrived.

Laura Snoad — 26 June 2018
Work / Art Jasmin Sehra's poster series reimagines hand painted Bollywood signs

“MIA was revolutionary for me – she was unapologetic and amazing, I just wanted to reflect that”. Jasmin Sehra is discussing the impact of MIA on her work, painted homages to her personal pop culture icons.

Kieran Yates — 26 June 2018
Work / Illustration Inspired by meditation, Jonathan Vermersch’s illustrations juxtapose harmony and distortion

Jonathan Vermersch’s illustrations are heavily influenced by his time spent studying animation; they feature elongated limbs in constant movement, as well as miniature scenes easily transferrable into the perfect GIF. Unable to “resist stretching and exaggerating proportions”, Jonathan’s illustrations depict distorted figures in playful interactions. Joking to It’s Nice That that his use of perspective was initially inspired by his height – from “viewing everything from such extreme above angles” – Jonathan reasons that distortion “adds dynamism, movement and drama; it creates rhythm in a way”.

Emma Latham Phillips — 26 June 2018
Features / Photography Hollie Fernando on photographing celebrated set designer Es Devlin for Printed Pages

If you were in London in 2016, you might have ended up lost and disoriented in Peckham’s Chanel-scented Mirror Maze installation. The following summer you probably caught sight of Bregenz Festival’s production of Carmen with its spectacular backdrop of two 82-foot-tall hands, throwing a deck of cards in the air. Fast-forward to this spring, and it’s unlikely you missed The Weeknd’s Coachella stage layout that featured a cracked, 30-foot-high theatrical mask as its centerpiece.

Daphne Milner — 26 June 2018

Features / Photography Private detectives and helium balloons: photographer Max Pinckers steps into five imagined realities

When he was just 12, Polish-born Herman Rosenblat was rounded up by the Nazi government, along with his three elder brothers, into a series of ghettos and camps, eventually finding himself in Buchenwald concentration camp, Weimar. During his time here, Rosenblat was kept alive by the grace of a young girl, a stranger who came to the camp’s perimeter every day to throw him an apple.

Ruby Boddington — 26 June 2018
Partnership / Dropbox: Monthly Poster Dominic Kesterton and Shun Sasaki combine typography and illustration to explore long hot summer days

For London-based illustrator, Dominic Kesterton and Japanese graphic designer Shun Sasaki, the month of June represents the beginning of summer. Spending long days feeling too hot, the creatives wanted to evoke the feeling of keeping cool, visualising the culture of going swimming outdoors, in both Japan and England. Commissioned by Dropbox and It’s Nice That, the pair have combined their personal styles in a typographically illustrated collaborative poster. Created using Dropbox Paper, Shun and Dominic’s poster will be printed and available for free at Nicer Tuesdays June.

It's Nice That — 26 June 2018
Features / Photography An eye for the uncanny: Viviane Sassen on her concurrent exhibition with Lee Miller

Lee Miller and Viviane Sassen’s work, intentions and verve crossover in ways that may be unexpected considering the close to a century’s gap between their births. Both started out as models: for Sassen, her shift to photography was initially driven by a desire to show a kind of sexuality that was different from that created by the male gaze, “one that’s more fractured and disjointed”; for Miller, it was frustration with the passivity of life in front of the lens. In a manuscript from the archive found and maintained by her son, Antony Penrose, she’s reported by The Guardian as having written: “I looked like an angel, but I was a fiend inside”. For both women, the move from simply being seen, to being the authors of their own image, was soon recast as an opportunity to convey their ideas and experiences, and to show the distortions inherent to subjectivity. In concurrent shows at the Hepworth Wakefield – Lee Miller and Surrealism in Britain and Hot Mirror – Miller and Sassen’s affinity with the surreal will take centre stage. Having played model and muse for a number of Surrealists, Lee Miller went on to become an accomplished artist in her own right, and alongside her art practice, she set up a portrait studio in New York and was instrumental in the invention of “solarisation” – a technique that involves the reversal of tone in photographic prints, creating a silvery aura. As a London correspondent for Condé Nast, she worked first as a fashion photographer before moving on to war reportage. Her eye for the uncanny continued to influence her practice – framing photographs of bomb-sites in ways that distorted their form and challenged perceptions of scale and tone – until the playfulness that defined the Surrealist approach no longer seemed appropriate, with the impact of WW2 unravelling as she followed the German retreat through Europe.

Billie Muraben — 25 June 2018
Regulars / Ones To Watch 2018 Lucy Hardcastle’s sculptural forms poetically abstract Uniqlo’s AIRism range

As part of our Ones to Watch 2018 campaign, It’s Nice That is working with Uniqlo to explore a variety of its products through a series of creative commissions. The first in the series, launching today, sees visual artist Lucy Hardcastle interpreting the technology of AIRism in a new perspective.

Ruby Boddington — 25 June 2018
Work / Art Kristin Texeira’s abstract paintings recall the essence of moments through colour

Kristin Texeira’s abstract paintings pay “homage to the past”, by recalling the “essence of moments through colour”. Kristin paints to remember; she wants to “provide proof — for myself and others — of existing in certain moments in time”. “Without art, I don’t know how else you would hold onto memories”, the artist tells It’s Nice That, and it’s through painting that she keeps her past alive.

Emma Latham Phillips — 25 June 2018
Work / Photography Photographer Charlotte de la Fuente transports us to the seductive world of Macau's gambling scene

“Macao exists because of the dream of making it big,” says Danish photographer Charlotte de la Fuente, whose series A Chinese Game of Luck captures the heady rush of Asia’s gambling capital. A Portuguese territory until 1999, Macau is now a Special Administrative Region where, unlike mainland China, gambling is legal. Its recent history has been dominated by a transformation into a Vegas-like hub, leading the hopeful to flock there with visions of leaving considerably richer.

Laura Snoad — 25 June 2018

Work / Digital Carlos Saez's textural digital collages reimagine the human form

Morphological freedom is the engine behind Carlos Saez’s digital collage series, Human Appearance Optional. Inspired by the post-humanist idea that the choice to alter or modify a body through the use of medical technology should be considered a civil right, Carlos has sourced a series of body-related imagery in order to create an anatomical mosaic using the technologies available to him.

Daphne Milner — 25 June 2018
Work / Publication Nicholas Blechman on applying subtle redesign tweaks to The New Yorker

Earlier this month Nicholas Blechman, the creative director of The New Yorker, introduced a redesign to one of the magazine’s regular features, ‘Goings On About Town’. A redesign, however small, is a rare occurrence within The New Yorker’s pages in comparison to the regular shift other publications apply to its design. Below, Nicholas talks us through the reasoning behind the most recent design tweak, as well as an overview of The New Yorker’s layout design history.

Nicholas Blechman — 25 June 2018
Work / Illustration John Molesworth’s vivacious artworks hit you in the eyes like “a wild, visual guitar solo”

John Molesworth describes himself as an artist with “fingers in many pies”. Since It’s Nice That last spoke with him, John has illustrated the cover of Vanguards Magazine, delved into ceramics and started selling his drawings at Liberty London. Describing his work as “perhaps now closer to ‘art’ than ‘illustration’, John’s pieces, with their bold and vivacious colours, hit you in the eyes like a “wild, visual guitar solo”.

Emma Latham Phillips — 25 June 2018
Work / Publication "A cover should mark what a magazine believes in": Riposte launch their tenth issue

For Shaz Madani, art director of Riposte Magazine, “it’s definitely the case of judge a magazine by its cover”. A cover should mark what a magazine believes in and Riposte, with their signature text and iconic portraits of women, adhere to this ideal.

Emma Latham Phillips — 22 June 2018
Work / Illustration Arabella Simpson’s colourful drawings fit together like a distorted Tetris game

Arabella Simpson’s colourful drawings fit together like a distorted Tetris game. Fascinated by “recycling, originality and copyright”, Arabella enjoys drawing immediately recognisable characters. “I want an image to communicate its meaning instantly”, she tells It’s Nice That. By using our eyes first, she feels that we then have time to “choose how we’d like to use our heads and voices”.

Emma Latham Phillips — 22 June 2018
Regulars / Friday Mixtape Friday Mixtape: the songs stuck in Jordy van den Nieuwendijk's head

Jordy van den Nieuwendijk is a name so often mentioned here at It’s Nice That that most people probably think he works here, but we just love him! And his work too, of course. Always full of life, colour and personality, we wanted to know the tracks that he’s bobbing along to while his painting and drawings are being made.

Lucy Bourton — 22 June 2018

Work / Publication Landfill Editions show us a bunch of its brilliant new illustration titles

When not publishing its brilliant magazine Mould Map, Landfill Editions are equally brilliant book publishers, working with illustration, graphic design and everything in between. With a stack of new titles for you to peruse, we caught up with the publishing house to see what has recently come back from the printers.

Lucy Bourton — 22 June 2018
Work / Art Strip clubs and bordellos: Tal R’s hypnotic paintings of sex shops from around the world

“For 10 years I tried to escape art. I thought I was no good at it. I thought it was pretentious,” Tal R admits during a phone call with It’s Nice That; “I tried to give up on art but art didn’t give up on me.” From London’s Victoria Miro gallery to Copenhagen’s Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Tal R’s artworks have toured the globe. Sexshop is Tal’s long-term project, which saw the painter visit strip clubs and bordellos across the world, transforming their facades into an emulsion of mesmerising shapes and rich colours.

Daphne Milner — 22 June 2018
Work / Photography Photographer Timothy Schaumburg takes us behind the scenes of plastic surgery prep

Last year, 17.5 million Americans underwent plastic surgery. The most popular procedures were breast augmentation, liposuction and nose reshaping. With lunchtime facelifts and cosmetic surgery loyalty schemes, it’s no surprise that the number of people going under the knife to “improve” their physical appearance has been steadily on the rise for some time.

Daphne Milner — 21 June 2018
Features / Illustration The Line King: A profile of Al Hirschfeld, on the prolific characterist’s 115th birthday

Sitting in an old barber’s chair, on the fourth floor studio of his townhouse on East 95th Street, New York, caricaturist Al Hirschfeld does with a quill and ink what a barber would do with scissors and a comb. Leaning over a drafting table, he first looks over his sketches; pages cluttered with frantic-looking marks. On a new piece of paper, he begins to draw. Streamlining chaos into clarity, he snips away the inessential, leaving just a few lines. The result? Marilyn Monroe. Charlie Chaplin. Ella Fitzgerald. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Orson Welles. Whoopi Goldberg. Luciano Pavarotti. Nat King Cole. Barbra Streisand. Sometimes all at once. With just a quill and some black ink, Al Hirschfeld brought to life some of entertainment’s most colourful characters. Over a career that lasted eight decades, Hirschfeld is said to have chronicled countless 20th century Broadway and Hollywood personalities for print and press. In 1956, he was the first to draw a caricature of Elvis Presley; to be “Hirschfelded” was a sign that you’d made it. His work has covered Playbill programs, film posters and advertisements, magazines like TIME and Life, newspapers (most notably The New York Times), albums for Aerosmith, and postage stamps for the US Postal Service. Almost every museum in the world has a Hirschfeld – such is the American artist’s ubiquity. He was even made the subject of his own Academy Award-nominated documentary film, ‘The Line King’. In 2003, Hirschfeld passed away, just a few months short of his 100th birthday. He worked for the likes of The New York Times right up until the day of his death. But he left an unparalleled legacy; an ineradicable mark on American theatre history, illustration and cartooning. So today, on what would have been Hirschfeld’s 115th birthday, we look back at the life and work of the affectionately dubbed, ‘Line King.’

Marianne Hanoun — 21 June 2018
Work / Publication Ditto publish 100 Club Stories in celebration of the iconic London venue

The 100 Club, tucked away in a doorway nestled between the high street shops on Oxford Street, London, is a venue in which many have had the best nights of their lives. This is something that applies to both tightly packed crowds and bands who have graced its stage. Getting tickets to a gig is an honour as it’s capacity is small, and if you’re lucky enough to be invited to play the honour is even greater. In celebration of the venue, Ditto has published a book displaying its history, character and anecdotes of its 75-year history.

Lucy Bourton — 21 June 2018
Sponsored / Photography Adobe Stock identifies 'multilocalism' as the next trend to shape visual culture

In today’s society it’s rare that someone is just from a particular city, country or even continent. The world is all the better for it too, merging cultural experiences in square miles rather than across oceans. In its third visual trend analysis this year, the Adobe Stock team believe, as a reflection of this, the concept of ‘multilocalism’ will be the next visual trend for creatives.

Sponsored Content — 21 June 2018

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