Strange Attractors (design is environment 3)

Based in The Hague, the Netherlands, the international design firm Strange Attractors was founded five years ago by Ryan Pescatore Frisk and Catelijne van Middelkoop. Their work reflects a keen interest in the intertwining of culture, media, context, experience and history. While they take a highly experimental approach to each of their wide-ranging design projects, their custom designed type and typography are hallmarks of their work. Through lectures and workshops they encourage designers and design students to see, value, and reinvent the vernacular around them—rather than capitulating to a generic globalist design approach.

Winners of numerous awards, Ryan Pescatore Frisk's and Catelijne van Middelkoop's work was recognized by I.D. Magazine's ID Forty 2006. Their clients have included FSI Fontshop International, Wieden+Kennedy Tokyo Lab, Studio Dumbar, and Museum Boijmans.

eBOY (GODFATHERS OF PIXEL)

eBOY is a pixel art group founded in 1998 by Steffen Sauerteig, Svend Smital, Kai Vermehr. Based in Berlin. eBoy's founders collaborate with Peter Stemmler in New York to produce graphic design work for companies. Their work makes intense use of popular culture and commercial icons, and their style is presented in three-dimensional isometric illustrations filled with robots, cars, guns and girls. 

Their unique style (influencfed by LEGO, pop, computer games, etc) has gained them a cult following among graphic designers worldwide, as well as a long list of commercial clients. eBoy has worked with named brands and companies such as Coca Cola, MTV, V1, Adidas and Honda. They have also worked in creating the album cover for Groove Armada's 2007 studio album Soundboy Rock (WKPD).

eBOY's programme:

1- pixelated pop,
2- isometrics is the new utopia,
3- culture IS TECHNOLOGY,

4- play with irony,

5- keep it simple,

website as design platforms

Soviet Anti-drunkenness poster

Boing Boing

Buzzfeed from the section, 23 Female Celebrities w Beards

Buzzfeed

Bleeding Cool

Killscreen

A Zombie Map @ Laughing Squid

Laughing Squid

Street Style 1906 @ Neatorama

Neatorama

The Consumerist

Mathieu Lehanneur (design the environment)

 Aquarium/Pot Plants by Mathieu Lehanneur (2011)

Lehanneur is a creator of iconic objects which immediately summarize a time, a place or a brand. Mathieu Lehanneur therefore returns to simply good and useful design by referring to natural history more than to design history; for him the user is above all a body, a place of chemical exchange whose physiology is to be attended to in order respond to its needs, desires, or emotions.

Liquid Marble, 2013, for Milan Design week

It is an exploration of natural and technical possibilities which permit him to produce objects which are equally functional and magical, as well as both strange and friendly. An intuitive or very real recognition, he sometimes even collaborates with scientists and doctors to invent new ergonomics when confronted with our tangible challenges: to breathe better; to sleep better; to love better; to live better. - Anthony van den Bossche.

More recently, Lehanneur is into this:

check lehanneur's work featured for IGNANT.

Die Gestalten Verlag!

Martin Eder @ DGV

Gestalten continues to actively reimagine the way in which we approach publishing. With our extensive range of titles, we not only seek to enhance and to enrich our reader's lives, but to continually engage with the surrounding creative landscape.

Die Gestalten Verlag

Mario Lombardo

Mario Lombardo, one of Germany's most internationally known and prolific graphic designers.

Lombardo's portfolio includes JOOP!, Rosenthal, Mercedes-Benz, Absolut Vodka, Chanel,  Louis Vuitton, Meissen, Atl Oblique and many others. 

He was editor in chief and creative director of Sleek and KaDeWe Magazine as well as art director of Numéro Homme Berlin to name a few.

Adbusters (design as anti-advertising)

Adbusters Media Foundation (called Adbusters or the Media Foundation) is a not-for-profit, anti-consumerist organization founded in 1989 by Kalle Lasn and Bill Schmalz in Canada. 

They describe themselves as "a global network of artists, activists, writers, pranksters, students, educators and entrepreneurs who want to advance the new social activist movement of the information age." 

The foundation publishes Adbusters, a 120,000-circulation, reader-supported activist magazine, devoted to numerous political and social causes, many of which are anti-consumerist in nature. 

the message?
1- be subversive,
2- use the message against the message,
3- fight the system within the system.

Gabriel Martínez Meave (go back to typeface) (go back to your roots)

Gabriel Martínez Meave is a self-taught graphic and typographic designer, illustrator, calligrapher, educator and author. 

He is the founder of Kimera, a studio in Mexico City. 

 

Martínez Meave is considered a master calligrapher, 

here, Meave explores ancient mayan iconography, 

he does logo design, 

logo for Matiz design magazine

if you're interested in design workshop with Meave, 

The art of Andrey Logvin (go to your roots)

Russian artist Andrey Logvin became known in the late 1990's for his witty, bright, energetic posters. In 1996 he received the gold medal at the International poster Biennal in Warsaw, Poland.  

International Design from New York, featured him as a master pushing the boundaries of the profession (the first Russian designer to be so honored).

Logvin tries to break through to the general public. Despite of the bad rap for political posters as a form of propaganda,

Logvin formula?
1- speak to the masses, no the elite,
3- be honest with your message.

Christoph Niemann (TROMPE L'OEIL DESIGN)

Christoph Niemann is an über illustrator, animator, graphic designer, whose wori has appeared on covers for  The New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, The New York Times, Business Week, etc. 

niemann lives in Brooklyn with his family.

 

niemann's philosophy:

1- come up with fresh solutions to old problems,

2- be witty,

3- trick the eye & get your message across!

niemann's TED TALK, check it out.

here's a parallel universe of trompe d'oeil. 

franciscus gisbrechts, still life, 17th century

niemann, 21st century

niemann featured for 52 insights.

Die Designpolitie (turning complex stories into iconic visuals)

De Designpolitie is a graphic design agency, based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
 

Its members were brought up in the Dutch design culture and rich tradition of Dutch art, design and tolerance. In keeping with these traditions, De Designpolitie follows simple but ruthless methods. 

Their working process often ends in a stripped image which is a critical but always communicative solution.


De Designpolitie consists of a small group of ambitious and talented creatives and was founded by Richard van der Laken and Pepijn Zurburg. 

Don't miss their page!

Tom Gauld's "brilliant literary cartoons"

Tom Gauld (b. 1976) is a Scottish cartoonist and illustrator. He studied illustration at Edinburgh College of Art and the Royal College of Art. He lives in London with his partner, artist Jo Taylor.

he has published Guardians of the Kingdom, 3 Very Small Comics (Volumes One to Three), Robots, Monsters etc and Hunter and Painter. 

  

his strip Move to the City ran weekly in London Time Out 2001-2002. 

here's tom gauld featured for brainpickings, it calls gauld designs: "brilliant literary cartoons"

here's gauld's interview for the comic journal

here 's gauld's video, for horschule, talking of drawing as language.

yet, i prefer this, 

to this,