Secret Still

Austin, Austin, Austin, I hear and see so many good things about you. Someday I will actually visit you, and tour your many breweries, design studios, art galleries, and music venues. Not during SXSW, because that’s a big crowd, and nobody wants to see me have one of my crowd freakouts. But I bet you’re a pretty nice place the other 51 weeks of the year. And dammit if you don’t seem to have one of the best design communities in the US. I picture it as some kind of club where everyone sits around in comfy leather chairs by a fire, drinking Lonestar and talking about color theory. Some of you might even be smoking pipes. Renee Fernandez is there. That image above — Trading Post — I just can’t stop staring at it. That is a graphical win if ever I’ve seen one. Fernandez’s work is full of graphical wins. Yet another reason to visit Austin. Maybe next Spring.

Renee Fernandez

I was sitting here trying to remember if there’s ever been a Rachel(l) that I’ve met that I didn’t like, or that did something terrible to me. Those two facts don’t necessarily go together in my life. But I don’t think there has ever been a bad Rachel(l) in my life. Good. That’s settled. Now I can move on to telling you that I have no reason not to like Rachell Sumpter’s work.

Hey guys, I have no reason not to like Rachell Sumpter’s work. I’m actually pretty fucking stoked on her use of, what I like to call “My Little Pony” colors, to create these vivid little scenes from what is surely a much larger story in her mind. There are two focuses of most artworks these days, either narrative or symbolic, and those are not mutually exclusive categories by any means. I would say that Sumpter’s falls more heavily on the narrative side, which makes it easier to connect with for me. I can always jump easily into a painting that’s trying to tell me a story, because I immediately start trying to write that story, to see where it’s going. I like where Rachell Sumpter’s stories are going. Chalk up another win for the Rachel(l)s of the world.

Rachell Sumpter

Kinda slow, kinda foggy.

Chris Garneau - Dirty Night Clowns

MTV Hearing

Le Royaume

Love Letter to Syracuse

A Portrait of Don Kilpatrick

I got the hot tip on Ryan Heshka’s new solo show opening at Seattle’s Roq La Rue gallery, and it is sure as shit a barn-burner. If you’re not familiar with Heshka’s pulp mag inspired images, then do yourself a favor and fill your eye holes to the brim with his amazing work. Then lend me a couple grand that I’ll never surely pay back, so I can stare for days at one of these awesome paintings on my wall, marveling at how much more awesome my life is for having it. And if you’re in the Seattle area, make sure to get over to the gallery on Friday night (November 12) to get the first person view. There’s also a Femke Hiemstra show opening that same night, so you really win big.

Preview of Ryan Heshka: Super Things

I’ve got a big dinner to cook this weekend, so I’ve been looking at thousands of pictures of food recently. This is not a complaint. If someone would pay me to do this, I would say yes and never look back. Hint. What I like to do is this: 1) Brew beer with my friends; 2) Create an elaborate, multi-course meal based around that one type of beer; 3) Design a menu for the meal; 4) Cook and serve. One of the steps that is missing from that list is taking photographs of the cooking, presentation, and enjoyment of the meal. I’m too busy cooking it, and everyone else is too busy drinking beer and having a good time. Aside from having the best name on the internet, Squire Fox is a photographer whose food shots are inspiring enough to make me put down the knife for a minute and get a couple of good shots of the plating. But on top of that his lifestyle shots make me miss the South. Not that that’s a hard thing to do really; I hear a Randy Travis song and I start get misty over the land I left. It’s very emasculating. So thank you, Squire Fox, for making me feel inadequate on two fronts.

Squire Fox

It smells like soup.

Todor and Petru

Minka

Bad Things That Could Happen

Media Surfaces

Back Into the Wild

So weird. So awesome.

Kimiaki Yaegashi

Design studio The Luxury of Protest caught me right good wallop upside the jaw this morning with their data visualizations. If you know me, and about 4 of my 6 readers do, then you’ll know that I do love me some good data visualization. It’s like porn, but the type of porn you only watch occasionally when you’re by yourself and you’re sure there’s no one around to judge you. Infographics are my secret design porn shame. And The Luxury of Protest is producing some sexy work. I just want to hold up those data visualizations and think all day about the actual impact of their data, as well as the visual hierarchy derived for the design to convey that data. Woo, it’s gettin’ hot in here.

The Luxury of Protest

Hotdogs and champagne.

I am a Forest

The Gentlman’s Guide to Villainy

TX in HD

Re:Words

IKEA: Homemade is Best

The name Raymond Lemstra has been blowing up the art blog circuits today, so I figured why not jump on the bandwagon and repeat everything that’s already been said. There’s good reason for everyone to jump on him like they have been; his work is great and even has a sense of humor. It’s like a combination of Garbage Pail Kids with Brazilian traditional and Pacific Northwest Native American art. Basically it’s weird drawings. And basically that’s all you need to get by in this life.

Raymond Lemstra