Project Thirty-Three is an album art archive put together by Seattle-based vinyl record store Jive Time Records. Their passion for retro design, simple shapes and typography has led them to create this seemingly endless collection of album covers cleverly designed with circles, squares, lines and other shapes. Feel free to check out their other galleries such as Groove is in the Art , Technical Spectacle for the audio nerd in you, and New! Vinylcise to satisfy your secret 80s aerobics fetish. And of course you don’t want to miss out on the wonderful vintage LP stereo banners at Stereo Stack.

What prompted you to move into illustration? How did you go about pursuing it?
I learned technical illustration in design school, fairly traditional, markers and pastel renderings of snowmobiles and blow dryers, that sort of thing. When I got out on my own I started figuring out ways to do all my work in Photoshop so I wouldn’t have to buy supplies, and basically I’ve been stuck on it ever since. I’ve been doing a good deal of product illustration for about ten years, but the cartoon-ey, freeform stuff only about a year and a half.

Where can we see some of your work?
Most of my work is dumped onto Flickr and I cartoon blog regularly for Core77 along with FueledbyCoffee, a friend and very talented designer. I currently have a pile of projects, some posters for Core, some informational toons for a swedish youth employment action group, a kids book that’s been brewing for awhile. The whole point of the cartoons for me is to have an ongoing project I can do in small doses while I figure out my own style, and I’m only beginning to get to the point of liking my own angle enough to do larger projects.

Your works cover a wide range of subjects from political issues to everyday situations, where do you draw inspiration from?
My basic rule is that if i don’t care about it i don’t draw it. So basically I draw whatever’s bugging me that particular day. Sometimes it’s very specific to my life, my annoyances with grammar and domestic pet peeves, other times just a reaction to what I’m reading or seeing in the news. It’s cathartic.

Do you aspire to send out a message or make a statement in your works?
Not as a whole, but I do like to try to convey a conflicted stance on many things. So even if I’m being really aggressive on a topic, I like to include a footnote or a wee little character who makes fun of that opinion.

Most of your pieces have quite a bit of textual content, do you start with an idea and create something around that theme or vice versa, do your doodles drive your imagination?
Half and half. Sometimes I just want to draw a thing, other times it’s a verbal piece. I’d like to start building an audience for more written work, with supporting illustrations, but the images so easily go viral that it’s hard to know where to push a more text heavy piece that just looks like everyone else’s blogs.

What is your typical workflow when working on a design?
I scribble on notecards until i’m laughing at it, then i surf the web to see if it’s been done, or if there’s some better information i can pull to improve the idea. I’ll photograph my sketch and dump it in a blank photoshop file with any images i pulled off the web for inspiration—forms, color schemes, typography, whatever, and basically chop away at it until I like it. It’s a mess but it works.

Which art mediums and software packages do you use in the creation process?
Photoshop is the only software I touch for creation, sometimes I do print setup in Illustrator. I use an iMac with a Wacom Cintiq, best investment I’ve ever made.

Who are some of your favorite artists?
Big list but my favorites aren’t super obscure. In no particular order, I’d say Jay Ryan, Chris Ware, Shel Silverstein (for his travelogues as much as his kids books) Art Spiegelman, Bill Watterson and Edward Gorey. Additionally I try to channel some authors who are skilled at overtly subjective non-fiction, like Bill Bryson, David Sedaris and David Foster Wallace.

Can you offer any advice to those pursuing a career in illustration or design?
Yeah, just do it. Start now. I should have started this years ago. Put stuff on flickr or tumblr and get feedback, try new things and don’t do things for other people unless you’re dating them or it fits your style. Otherwise you really lose your way.

Thank you for your time.
Thanks!

Roland Tiangco sets a nice example of non-digital interactive design with this poster. Upon opening the package you will find that the back is coated with powdered pigment. Time to get those hands dirty! By handling the front with your dirty hands a message will reveal itself creating a one of a kind poster. Roland Claims it is the first in a series so you can expect to see more of these in the future.

Have a look at this recently released animated short film “The Astronomer’s Dream”. We get a little more insight on the project and the man behind it as pixelpoodle talks to independent creator and animator Malcolm Sutherland.

Tell us a little bit about yourself. Who are you ? What job do you do ? Sure, I grew up in Calgary Alberta, which is like the Texas of Canada. I soon fled east, now I live in Montreal where I make animated films, illustrations, and the odd commercial.

What prompted you to move into animation ? How did you go about pursuing it ?
I discovered animation at the Quickdraw Animation Society, which is an artist run animation co-op in Calgary. I took a class there with independent filmmaker / animator Kevin Kurtynik, which totally changed my life, he cracked my head open and let the light pour in.

How long have you been making animations ? Do you have a background in print or web ?
I have been animating since 2002, so thats about 8 years now. My background is kind of all over the place. I first studied astronomy in university, then quit and spent the following year in India meditating, came back to Canada and went to art college and studied print making, then got a job offer to make a film for the National Film Board of Canada here in Montreal so I dropped everything and came here. Eventually I went back to school at Concordia University here in Montreal, mainly as an excuse to be around other film makers, so I finally got a degree in Film at Concordia.

Where can we see some of your work ?
I have a lot of stuff posted on my website, and even more on my vimeo site. I believe there is also some of my work on the National Film Board’s website.

“The astronomers dream” has quite an unusual and intriguing plot. What, if any, was your source of inspiration for the story ?
Basically it is inspired by my experience studying astronomy.  I got into astronomy in the first place out of a deep-seeded feeling that I was connected to the universe, and I wanted to experience how. After a while I abandonded astronomy because I felt like I was chasing my own tail. I couldn’t get into it because of the fact that as astronomers we were looking out into the universe for some kind of truth, and yet there was absolutely no interest in the lens that we look through: our own awareness, or minds. I guess it was just a practical thing, that I felt I should understand the lens in order to understand the vision, and without that it was kind of a fools game.

The story raises some philosophical questions. Can you give us some more insight on the meaning / moral of the story ?
There isnt really a specific meaning that I was trying to get across in the film. Ideally viewers would walk away from the film with their own interpretation, kind of like a real dream.

But if you want more background – (and if I can just dive right into some shameless self-promotion for a moment – if you buy the DVD off my website there is a director commentary, animatics, and a bunch of production info on it as well.

How did you get to the graphic style of the project ? Is it derived from previous illustration / animation work or sketches ?
Yes, the style is basically an extension of my sketchbook work, although at the time I made this film I was looking at a lot of Mayan art, so I think that had a big influence me.

Since there is hardly any conversation in the film, the music becomes an important player in telling the story. Are you closely involved in the composing process ?
On the involve-o-meter I was probably a 4/10 on this film. I gave my sound designer (Leon Lo) some inpirational tracks for the music and laid out some of the key moments for him, but I tried to give him as much freedom as possible. Unfortunately we didnt have much time and the whole soundtrack was done in about 2 weeks. I would have liked to have had more time to refine it, but thats the way it goes. Actually, I am about to finish a “remix” of the film with a new shorter edit and a new musical score.  I think the new version works much better. This version will be premiering at the Ottawa Animation festival in a couple of weeks, and I also plan to post it on Vimeo in a month or so as well.

What is your workflow when creating a shot ?
With this film, because I was doing everything, it was kind of intuitive. The pre-animation stages were a combination of storyboarding, animatic, or skipping it all together and going straight to the animation.

What is the balance between analog and digital art ? Do you prefer paper and pencil for as long as possible, or do you dive right into the deep end ?
Ha ha, no I never draw in pencil, I dont really like it. When I am creating a background, character, or some kind of original element I prefer to draw with ink on paper, but for the animation, once I have established the elements of the shot I prefer to work directly into the computer. So the animation on this film was done directly into the computer using a wacom, sometimes using scanned ink drawings for keyframes.

Which art mediums and software packages do you use in the creation process ?
Mainly ink, paper, scanner, wacom tablet, Toonboom Studio, Sony Vegas, and some Photoshop.

Can you offer any advice to those interested in producing their own independent  animations ?
Be forgiving, listen to yourself, have fun. Also, if you can, win the lottery or marry a millionaire.

Are you working on something new or do you have any future projects planned ?
Yes, in addition to some commercial work I have 2 films on the go right now, one called UMBRA, a halucinatory story about a character who loses himself in his shadow, and the other is a kind of sketchbook documentary film about Quebecers.

Thank you for your time.
Thank you!

Have a look at Jared Nickerson’s website by the name of J3Concepts. Jared is a 26 year old illustrator based in Seattle, WA (usa) with an impressive client list including MTV, nintendo, activision, microsoft, nike and many more well established brands. He specializes in character, editorial and videogame illustrations.

You might remember our previous post about this traveling sketchbook. The book is at it again, and you can follow it’s progress on it’s blog : http://lookatbook.blogspot.com/

Simon Schubert spent 2 years perfecting this unique technique of creating artworks by just folding a single sheet of paper. These detailed architectural works take up to a full week of precision folding and creasing work each to complete.

From the Fontbots we move on to the Tinkerbots ! This is the photo stream of a flickr user who goes by the name of Tinkerbots. This very creative sculpture artist creates amazing designs from anything you could find at the junkyard. Nothing but scrap metal and old clockwork bring life to this unique series of robotic creatures and rayguns.

Though they come from the year 2006, these letter shaped creatures created by Jonathon Yule beautifully portray his love for typography. Jonathon created these illustrations entirely built from his favortie sans-serif fonts. Helbotica t-shirts are available here.

Janine Rewell is a freelancing graphic designer and illustrator from Helsinki, Finland. Her awarded works have appeared in advertisements, product packaging, book covers, magazines and posters. Janine’s computer-based vector style combines basic geometrical forms with small decorative elements. The style is often described as absurd yet naive, with a modern Slavic touch.