July 2012 Blog Posts (199)

Where do you go to escape the heat? In a recent series, photojournalist Michael Yamashita shared how the Japanese are keeping cool amidst a scorching heat wave. Tokyo Summerland is a popular water park that's home to the world's most crowded wave pool. During the summer, it's been said that there's so many people jammed in there that it's hard to find water inside the pool!…

Last year, over the course of a month and a half, Pixar story artist Emma Coats grabbed the Internet's attention when she shared some of Pixar's golden rules of storytelling, via Twitter. They were guidelines that she had learned, that she wanted to pass along to others. There were 22 in all; you can read them…

What do you do with a bunch of extra hangers hanging in your closet? Well Portuguese designers Diogo Agular and Teresa Otta of LIKEarchitects had a brilliant idea. They took 2,000 colorful IKEA children's hangers and designed this Chromatic Screen for the 2012 Oporto Show, an event known as the most prestigious event for interior design and architecture on the Iberian…

Where does creativity come from? Some people are just born with it, right? It turns out that there are many who say otherwise and have plenty of advice on how to cultivate and hone one's creativity. Whether you're a natural innovator or not, it can be difficult to maintain a constant flow of new ideas, so, we can always use a few tips on how to jump-start the artistic side of our brain to…

UK-based Thai sculptor Rook Floro uses his skillful hands to reproduce the human form as shadows of himself. Previously, in his sculptural performance piece titled Shadow, Floro represented his self-professed weakness defined by his desire to be the culturally created and accepted…

Jaws

Movies have captivated the attention of audiences since the medium was first discovered, developed, and shared with the masses in the late 19th century. From the early rise of silent black and white pictures to digitally enhanced and technically perfected films we're accustomed to today, there's an attraction to being whisked away into…

Fine art photographer Cara Barer has created two new beautiful book sculptures. Dream Tree started off as a novel titled "Enigma" while Blue Butterfly was, in its previous life, an ordinary yellow pages. They, along with Barer's other works, are currently being shown in an exhibition titled Bound & Unbound at…

Where do you go to see the greatest bird spectacle on earth? The Kenya Lake System in the Great Rift Valley. Come at the right time and you'll see the shoreline of Kenya's lakes turn bright pink as they're filled with millions of flamingos. The lesser flamingos (the smallest species of them) gather at these lakes to feed on the abundant blue-green algae which thrive…

New York-based Cuban artist Liset Castillo challenges the typical notions of beauty with very temporary sand sculptures. Mouth of Sand is just one of the many pieces from this body of work entitled Human Studies. In her labor-intensive process, Castillo creates life-size sand forms that resemble models found in high-gloss magazines. She photographs each one to document the…

Have you ever wondered what a library for birds would actually look like? Would it be incredibly well-organized or unbelievably messy? To Mark Dion it must look something like this. He created "Library for the Birds of Massachusetts" a thought-provoking installation for MASS MoCA back in 2005. He surrounded one maple tree with a smattering of books on subjects like…

Russian photographer Elena Kalis brings to life all kinds of magical stories, from her creative fantasy worlds to her darker, more serious work. It's no mystery…

It's that time again—the Olympics are just around the corner and, in preparation, we regular folks sit close by, watching with excitement as the athletes prepare, feeling extremely motivated, and concocting plans of becoming just a smidge more active in our own lives. The power and beauty of these dedicated competitors is completely awe-inspiring and New York-based photographer Martin…

French photographer Julie de Waroquier began taking pictures in 2008, when she discovered her true passion for the art form. There's an ethereal quality to the 22-year-old digital photographer's work. It's light and airy with a hint of surrealism that doesn't hit you all at once. Like in a dream, it feels like everything is exactly as it's supposed to be, despite the clearly…

One of the most memorable scenes in Inception was when Ariadne (Ellen Page) used her imagination to make a busy city street fold upon itself. I'm not sure if digital artist Federico Leon Lescano meant to replicate that scene, but it sure looks similar. The bumper-to-bumper cars look like they should fall…

Denmark-based design agency Scandinavian DesignLab took on the task of creating a branding scheme for Copenhagen-based fashion store PARISTEXAS with a most unusual series of designs that merge bugs with musical instruments. The clothing retailer esteems itself on its distinct and distinguished outlook on fashion, deeming itself a trendsetter rather than a follower. Thus, the creatives at…

Located at 11,995 feet above sea level, Salar de Uyuni is a mystifying salt flat in Altiplano, Bolivia that has a reflective nature when covered with water. The briny layer of land, created through the rainy season, transforms the otherwise plated pockets of dry salt into a giant mirror, giving the illusion of walking on water. Though the salty desert is quite beautiful when left alone,…

The mind can create all kinds of strange scenarios when we are asleep. In this series entitled Surreal-ity, photographer Kylie Woon brings those mind-bending stories and dreamy scenes to life. Conveying all kinds of dramatic emotions, including loss, fear, anger, and restlessness, Woon creates self-portraits where she floats, flips, and flies across each frame in seemingly impossible…

UK-based photographer Ian Hobson is an expert at all kinds of impressive light art photography. When you first see his images, a collection called Waving Torches at Things, you won't believe that he creates them directly from his camera without the use of any digital manipulation. But, according to his website, he says, "All images are photographs, straight from the camera.…

Chicago-based graphic designer Thomas Quinn created this optical illusion on the blank walls of the room above his parents' garage. Typography enthusiasts will just love the complexity of this visual delight! Using a simple sans serif font, Quinn figured out exact shapes and distortions for each letter, making a completed phrase appear perfectly aligned from only one certain point in…

Oregon-based artist Dean Crouser produces some of the most fantastic watercolor paintings of animals. His lively renditions feature a multitude of vibrant colors that fit so perfectly, they make you rethink about the real colors typically found in these wild creatures. Crouser exhibits a truly artistic eye, mixing shades of green with reds, blues, and browns in the mane of a bear…