I’ve always been impressed by Fabien Barral‘s work (I covered his Manouchian posters here). The organic feel he incorporates into all his creations makes me want to go into my garden and hug plants or something. Although everything is digital, you do get the impression he got his hands dirty picking leaves, branches and other tree stuff from his garden and pasting it onto the paper. His hands must be ink-stained because of all the swashes and paint stripes he uses. In other words, he makes paper come alive by creating this jungle of shapes and colors in which I can smell the the forest after the rain.

Well, I guess that’s enough lyrical praise for today. Make sure you also check his blog at Graphic Exchange.

I came across these great prints at Graphic-Exchange and love the fact this is black & white. Often clients underestimate the cost of large format color printing. In that case A1 colorless prints are a good alternative. Martino & Jaña Design really got it right with this poster set. The painted typography makes it all come alive without the need for any color. Great balance between the first impression which gives enough info without getting up close and the detailed wording flowing throughout the poster which provides all extra info. Upon viewing this poster you just got to believe this festival will be nothing less than magnificent.

Seeing the Climate Conference in Copenhagen on my screen every day has made me like their logo more and more. The creators of this fine piece are NR2154 which is a duo from Denmark who got their proposal selected out of 269 entries.

The design is based on graphs of scientific climate data, showing predicted temperature changes, and there are 192 lines, one for each UN member state.

The rest of their work is worth looking at, too. Their clean and simple style is very fit for the image Denmark wants use in their green campaigns. The stamps made in honor of the climate conference follow the same blue lines used for the COP15 logo.

At work we have the pleasure of being surrounded with contemporary artworks which are placed in the hallways. Most of it is contemporary in the sense of ‘I could do that’ but a few are truly amazing. Axel Hütte‘s large format photo prints called ‘Explorer Glacier Alaska’ are worth a look every time I pass by them. I couldn’t find any digital versions but they fit in perfectly with the rest of his work of which a few examples above.

I love the way he uses the fog as a natural backdrop in almost every piece. Nature’s negative space really brings out the essence of what he wants to show through the lens by filtering the unnecessary surroundings. It reminds a little of Kim Höltermand‘s work although in this case the orientation is kept more horizontally instead of Kim’s focus on the sky.

The Expo brought a wave of amazing design both in architecture as in the marketing campaign surrounding it. You can easily find tons of pictures of all the pavilions that were built around the atomium especially for this fair. One of the reasons I started looking into this topic is because I’ll be getting married in the church which was built for the exposition. It was later moved just outside of Brussels but still in use and beautiful.

Harder to find are the amazing prints that were produced. Here’s a selection of prints which I think capture great the vibe of innovation and ‘a new era’ people must have experienced in Europe those days.

PS: also, have a look at this great website which digitalized the Viewmaster sets which were made of the Expo.

PS: Also have a look at his iDesk – a cool idea for Maconites.