DESIGN BOOKSHELF

I consider myself far more talented at collecting neat art books than I am at actually producing art... Thus I give you these photos of my new Ikea bookshelves stocked with all of my favorite sources of inspiration I've collected through the years. I recommend them all, and will be posting more selected images from some of these books soon.

HANS HILLMANN

Not long ago I was introduced to the poster art of German designer Hans Hillmann thanks to Adrian Curry's great Movie Poster of the Week series, and now I can say that he's one of my biggest design heroes and, hopefully one day, one of my biggest influences. I don't need to go into Hillmann's accomplishments as a designer, illustrator and teacher as they are many, and a great overview of Hillmann's life and work can be found in Lars Muller's brilliant new A5-series title Hans Hillmann: the Visual Work. Hillmann's work is simple, bold, elegant, funny, clever, and striking. I particularly love his juxtapositions of different scales in a single image, and the way in which his prolific output lent itself to a marriage with only one or two simple typefaces. Here are some posters of his that I could find on the web, but if you like what you see, click the link above and pick up that book-- an essential title for any artist or film lover's library. I LOVE THIS MAN.

COMING SOON

Photography by Michael Vallera, Design by Sam Smith

KHUAN+KTRON

I quit! That's how these pieces by Belgian design film KHUAN+KTRON make me feel, with a little bit of profound inspiration thrown in there too. Seriously though -- how beautiful are these Weekend Knack magazine covers that Grain Edit posted yesterday? I'm just in awe. Scanning through their Flickr and their official portfolio, here are some more of my favorites. I would love to know which artists, between Ningtiendo Sehgah, Acidpluto, and Mikail Mitmalka, are responsible for these different images.

TATSURO KIUCHI

I love the work of Japanese artist Tatsuro Kiuchi. He has illustrated childrens books, magazines, comic strips, and even an image-a-day series lasting almost an entire year (for Hikaru Okuizumi's The New Journey to the Center of the Earth). Of course I am drawn to his child's eye, but also his beautiful use of color, landscape, negative space, and his love for animals (when you visit his Flickr page, make sure you watch some video clips of his puppy, Chai). Here are some more favorites of mine -- the first post where I literally cannot decide which images to share, there are so many. I think I'll just post a bunch and hope you're in the mood to scroll. Enjoy exploring more of Kiuchi's great work via his Flickr, Twitter, and official site.

HOUSE COMING TO CRITERION

I'm very happy to (finally) announce that on October 26th, Nobuhiko Obayashi's HOUSE will join the pantheon of beloved films released on DVD and Blu-ray by The Criterion Collection! It's been killing me to not be able to talk publicly about this exciting news. This film has come to mean so much to me over the past year, beginning with the Belcourt Theatre's legendary midnight screenings of HOUSE last fall. Now, one year later, I'm working on the package and menus for the Criterion release and seeing my original Belcourt poster design as a Criterion cover. Truly unbelievable. I'm so honored to be involved with this release, which will be welcomed with good company; also coming to Criterion in this October batch are Stanley Kubrick's Paths of Glory, Wes Anderson's The Darjeeling Limited, Ingmar Bergman's The Magician, and a new Blu-ray of Kurosawa's The Seven Samurai. What a month! Stay tuned for more and get ready if you have yet to enter.... HOUSE.

CRAZY 4 CULT 4

Last Friday night, Gallery 1988 in Los Angeles held their fourth "Crazy 4 Cult" art show featuring all movie-inspired pieces. Unfortunately I had not caught Gallery 1988's eye by the time this show was booked, as I would have loved to have participated, but I'm happy to say that I'll be taking part in a couple of their shows next year so stay tuned for more about that. Here are a few of my favorite pieces from the show that are viewable online. The great piece above, "Loompaland," was made by APAK, a design team that I'll be posting more about very soon. Please check out some more work by these artists by following these links, and check out Gallery 1988 in Los Angeles and San Francisco for lots of great shows.

Mike Mitchell




Eric Tan

Casey Weldon

Kevin Tong



Brandon Schaefer



Jake Brodahl



Rich Pellegrino