The Dynamic City

I love information design, so I was pretty excited when I came across this cool application (alas, it requires an Intel processor, but there's a video preview that shows you around) that takes live keyword updates from blog posts and makes a cool virtual map that you can explore.

The creator, designer Christian Marc Schmidt, writes on his website:
"Pastiche is a dynamic data visualization that maps keywords from blog articles to the New York neighborhoods they are written in reference to, geographically positioned in a navigable, spatial view. Keywords are assigned based on relevance and recency, surrounding their corresponding neighborhoods. The result is a dynamically changing description of the city, formed around individual experiences and perspectives."

Pretty cool!
-Shelby

Popping up on TV

One of my students at Pratt Institute alerted me to the cool opening sequence of the new series called “the United States of Tara” on Showtime. Now we all know that it was digitally created, but the designers where pretty faithful to the physics of paper engineering. It has a nice flow to it and the art works very well with the media. The whole segment is a class act and has me intrigued about this show. Plus it was created by Diablo Cody (of “Juno” fame) and stars the very capable Toni Colette as a woman coping with her dissociative identity disorder and dysfunctional family. Throw in the ever-lovable John Corbett and this one could be a winner.



- Kyle

Tasty Treats from the Future

Greetings!

I have made it back to the present from the future! Last week I traveled to Shanghai, China to go on press for this year's MoMA line of cards. It was my first time in this very metropolitan city and I was quite overwhelmed with all the construction. Supposedly Shanghai is home to 1/5 of the world's construction cranes!

And can you guess the delicious goodies in this photo?












Till next time, fellow time travelers!
Jess

Stars and Ripe

So I've been exploring Chinatown, which is adjacent to our new office. On my stroll today I came across the fruit stand that was selling star fruit...so I bought some. I didn't know how to pick out a ripe one so I just chose a few, ranging from green to yellow. After the fact, I found someone’s blog post about star fruit that tells you how to tell when this winter fruit is ripe. The photos are nice, too, what a cool looking fruit!

http://thaifood.about.com/od/introtothaicooking/ss/starfruithowto.htm

Simon

Engineering + Furniture = Awesome

Have you ever heard of the Fletcher Capstan Table design? I have yet to see another table (or any other type of furniture design, for that matter) with engineering that's as complex and cool as this one! Check out the video below:



- Shelby

Paper ‘Cutting Edge’

The ‘Wonder Cabinet’ event last weekend was very cool and showcased some of freshest ventures in the arts and sciences. I came away from it with a new favorite artist in Tara Donovan and a deeper appreciation of the origins and effects of kindergarten as presented by Norman Brosterman. But the main attraction for me was the tag-team talk about the intersections of paper folding and conductive materials.

Matt Shlian and Max Shtein (there’s a vaudeville shtick potential in this pairing) did not disappoint as they discussed new paper engineering concepts in the renewable energy field with their collaboration on flexible solar cell designs. Matt also showed us the work of a few other paper folders who covered the spectrum- from a microscopic stent for closed arteries, to huge emergency shelters and everything in between.

I was lucky enough to have Matt visit my pop-up class this week to present his work in person. (He even came prepared with the actual paper models for everyone to handle after the slideshow!) Since he is the only other known teacher of paper engineering at the university level I was eager to have him at our critique of my student’s second pop-up assignment. It is always great to get a fresh pair of eyes on the work and Matt was able to get the kids very engaged in discussing their pop-ups. It was a real pleasure hosting him.


It was great to finally meet him in person, and I know we can expect some very interesting things from this guy in the future. So keep an eye on Matt Shlian.

- Kyle

Block Rockin' Beats

This boom-box could shake the entire city just stomping into town!


I so need one of these. - MR

Cool toys and a familiar book...

I've really been enjoying articles and videos on the website Grand-Illusions.com lately, especially the videos of Tim showing off his discoveries in the toy realm. There are some really cool toys and gadgets out there - have you ever seen the Mirage illusion?

The video on this page also caught me by surprise, because it features a familiar pop-up book from this studio!


- Shelby

Hungry?

Hello,

This week I found some really cool photographs by Peter Menzel, picturing families around the world with a week's worth of their groceries.

It's pretty interesting to see what people are eating, how much packaging is used, and how much it costs. The family from Italy had a lot of bread compared to the family from Ecuador having a lot of bananas.

It's also nice to know these people were willing to let someone into their house for art's sake.

http://www.rustylime.com/show_article.php?id=1497

- Simon

Time Traveling

Yes. That is correct. I will be time traveling into the future this coming Monday. 13 hours into the future. But where will remain a secret until... next week when I blog from the near future. Stupendous!

xo!
Jess

Wonder Cabinet

There is a great event happening in Manhattan this Saturday, February 21, at the Cantor Film Center on the NYU campus.

The theme of the day will be ‘Wonder Cabinet’ which harkens back to a time before staid museums enticed the masses and eccentric people displayed their personal collections of rarities and oddities. Inside those display cases of old; one could find scientific specimens mixed with theatrical props, objects with fascinating descriptions that defied proper explanation and various items that blurred the line between fact and fiction. It is this commingling of science and art that is the central thread of the eight talks to be given on Saturday. I am most excited for a presentation wedged between literary heavyweight, Jonathan Lethem and innovative director, Bob Sabiston by an interesting paper engineer named Matt Shlian.

Matt is taking a break from his work in Michigan with Max Shtein where they are finding how complex designs in paper can be reduced to the nanoscale or incorporated into tomorrow’s energy saving materials. When he is not exploring the intersection of paper folding and protein folding, Matt can be found teaching a class on paper engineering in one of the only other university courses in the country.

‘Wonder Cabinet’ is curated by Lawrence Weschler and hosted by The New York Institute for the Humanities and the Humanities Initiative. This all day affair is free and open to the public, so stop by if you are in the neighborhood.

More detailed information including directions, a detailed schedule and presenter bios can be found here.

- Kyle

Foxy

Hello,
This is a music video for the band the Fleet Foxes - the song is called White Winter Hymnal. It uses stop motion Claymation and a neat concept for a time machine interface. If you like this song you should go out and buy the album.
Enjoy.



-Simon

Hello Hollow Face

Check out this cool optical illusion you can print out and put together, called a "hollow face" illusion. When the effect is working, it seems as though the dragon's eyes follow you around the room - so cool (and a little creepy)!

There is a video on the site showing the effect, if you want to see it before you make one.

http://www.grand-illusions.com/opticalillusions/three_dragons/

I made one for the studio once long ago...he's still around!

- Shelby

Popup Workshop 2.0

Shawn Sheehy just tipped me off to a fun free pop-up design program called Popup Workshop. The creator is a woman named Sue Hendrix who developed this software as part of her doctoral work at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Her bio shares that her current work is in the area of children's technology and focuses on tools to help children design their own pop-up books and cards, and on effects on spatial and mathematical reasoning in this activity.
Sue combines a simple interface where you design your pop-up card with a wonderful 3D viewer where you can test your virtual card to see how it will perform. Now don’t think that the Popup Workshop is just for kids as I downloaded the software, dove into the Pop-Up Editor and printed and built my little “frog” face in under ten minutes.

Click here to go to the Popup Workshop webpage and learn how you too can develop your own masterpieces.

- Kyle

Pink Townhouses Rock!

While researching for a top secret project here in the studio I came across one of my favorite toys as a kid, Barbie's Townhouse! I have to tell you, mine had different colors and background art than in the picture. But nonetheless you get the idea. Three glorious stories complete with elevator. I also had some furniture to put in the house! It was such an awesome toy for all my Barbies and one Ken to play in. I think I had it for about 4 years and then had to sell it when we moved to the Caribbean.



So yeah. Nostalgia is pretty great.
-Jess

Fitness with Freddie

One of my favorite books in our pop-up library is "Freddie Works Out" by Ruth Tilden. The pull-tab mechanisms are very simple but they're effective - and Freddie is so cute!









The best one of all is at the end - Freddie slurps down his drink, his feet relax, and his eyelids droop, all with a subtle timing that is sometimes difficult to pull off with pull-tabs.













-Shelby

And the Grammy goes to…

This Sunday the 51st Grammy Awards will air on CBS. I will be keeping close tabs on this year’s celebration and it’s not just in the hopes that Radiohead will be recognized for their tremendous album and innovative video for ‘House of Cards.’


I will be rooting for fellow paper engineer, Renee Jablow, who is in the running for “Best Recording Package” this year for her beautiful CD packaging design for ‘Summer Rains’ by The Ditty Bops.
I met Renee years ago when I tried begging for a job from her at Intervisual Books.

Nowadays she is a freelance designer in California where she can be found creating interesting dimensional products and movable books like last year’s collaboration on “Birdscapes: A Pop-Up Celebration of Bird Songs in Stereo Sound.” Let’s cross our collective fingers and hope that Renee will be bringing home a mini gramophone this weekend!

- Kyle

Baia or Bust

An important film in the history of the world and maybe universe itself has recently come to my attention. That film is 'The Three Caballeros'. Basically, it's Donald Duck's birthday and all of his South American bird cousins send him a package about the different countries they come from.
Now, I am not a big fan of Donald Duck, in fact I think he is kind of annoying, but this movie is so epically awesome/weird/trippy 1945 animation, that it makes up for being so Donald-centric. Plus, it's the first time Disney put live action and cartoons together.
In these clips Donald's parrot cousin from Brazil is talking about the wonders of the city of Baia. So he decides to take him there.

Enjoy.





-Simon

PS: there is a magic pop-up book that takes them there.

Good dog!

I'm a big fan of Rex the Dog - UK electronic musicians/producers/remixers with a late 70's/early 80's flair. The latest video from their album The Rex The Dog Show for the single Bubblicious is quite brilliant. Cut paper models animated to a fabulous electro-tune that samples the renowned 80's band Yazoo. Watch it below!



That's pretty much how things happen here in our studio everyday.

XO MR

SoCal So Cool

Those who know me know that I absolutely L-O-V-E color! And I absolutely L-O-V-E shoes! Now Pantone has collaborated with SeaVees for a collection named 09/63 (the date Pantone debuted!).

http://men.style.com/news/blog/2009/02/pantone-gets-it.html?mbid=mdn

Using vintage colors from the Pantone archives, they created a line of shoes that have a 1960s Southern California feel.And if I had the chance to pick some Pantone colors for a line of kicks, well, I'd chose these below! I'm not sure what feeling I'm going for, but it's definitely bright!

-Jess

Robert Sabuda & Matthew Reinhart on Babble.com

Parenting website/magazine babble.com interviewed Robert and Matthew recently at the studio. Check out the interview, complete with pictures and video!

It’s The Thought That Counts

I was able to catch one of my favorite artists last week during the closing days of a month long exhibit at the Perry Rubenstein Gallery in Chelsea last week. Peter Callesen is no stranger to the folks here at the studio. We have received many email forwards regarding his marvelous work in the years past and even featured him on Robert’s website a while back.

This show, titled ‘Folded Thoughts’, focused on less than a dozen recent works, all of which almost carried a dream like quality. One of my favorites new pieces is ‘Five Forgotten Thoughts’ where the paper that was cut out to create the cloud shapes in negative space were used to form the intricately molded brains. This more intimate work (and an amazing apple representation) really stole the show from the more eye-catching skeleton formed on a life-sized scale. Decide for yourself when you check out the slideshow from the Perry Rubenstein Gallery and keep up to date with the Peter Callesen to see if he is coming to a gallery near you.

- Kyle

Mass Transit Art

In the 1970s Bill Brand, a young artist and filmmaker, set out to create a zoetrope inside the New York City subway (A zoetrope is one of the earliest moving picture device shown below). He approached the Metropolitan Transportation Authority about this motion picture and the MTA approved! Hooray! This zoetrope was named "Masstransiscope". This was also before MTA's Arts for Transit program, so as a part of the NYC art history "Masstransiscope" is one of the first official underground pieces of art!



The piece of art is one long light box next to the subway track (I believe the Q and the B trains going into Manhattan). There are slits and paintings on the light box to create panels or stills. And because of the moving train, the images begin to move!

From the 1970s through the 1980s millions of strap hangers experienced "Masstransiscope". Now after nearly 2 decades of decay and layers of graffiti it has been restored to its original state!

You can see the zoetrope here:


I have yet to see this masterpiece on the Q/B trains, but I'll make a special trip to see it!

- Jess

These aren't your ordinary paper snowflakes

Last year I (accidentally!) stole Kyle's Kirigami Day Calendar and had a lot of fun with it, so this year I got a new one of my own! Every day has a different thing to fold and cut. I have a bunch of the best designs pinned up around my desk here in the studio.


What's more, I'm a big origami fan, so whatever I don't cut, I can fold into whatever I want.

-Shelby

Rumble in the Jungle

This is a wacky book called "La carrera de la selva", (The race of the jungle). I found it in our extensive pop up library. It was made in 1967 by George Pavlin and has beautiful 60's illustrations.


All the animals in the jungle have a big race to decide…something. I haven't really finished it yet. My Spanish is so so.


The pops are really simple but it works very well with the graphic style of the art.


I will let you know who wins the race when I find out.
-Simon

I Go Pogo

I am a big fan of comic strips like Calvin and Hobbes and Krazy Kat, but in my opinion, the best one is Pogo by Walt Kelly.



As a young man, Walt Kelly worked as a cartoonist and reporter in Bridgeport, Connecticut before moving to California to work for Walt Disney from 1936 to 1941. While there, he contributed to Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Fantasia and Dumbo, among others. Later, he began his main career as a political cartoonist and comic strip artist. In Pogo, he combined political satire, social commentary, beautiful artwork (with brushwork influenced by his time at Disney) and slapstick comedy into a masterpiece that spanned 27 years.

You can read some Pogo strips at the official website:
http://www.pogopossum.com/

And more about the strip on wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pogo_(comics)

- Shelby


P.S. Look out Churchy, Friday the 13th lands on a Friday in both of the next two months!

West Coast Gallery Show

Out on the west coast, Gallery Nineteen Eighty Eight is hosting 'Under the Influence: The Official Art Tribute to Beastie Boys'. 100 artists, 100 pieces all paying tribute to the Beastie Boys! Either inspired by snippets of lyrics, music video images, and/or pictures of the band art was created!

Check out the link of the gallery:
http://www.nineteeneightyeight.com/entry/home.html

For you illustrators and lovers of music, this Beastie Boys gallery show is for you! And those on the west coast, definitely go check out this show (it ends this Thursday!)



xo!
Jess

Foreign Fairies

Our publisher Candlewick Press sent two large packages to the studio this week. We get a lot of deliveries to our door, but we get extra excited when they are from overseas addresses. Everyone streamed out of the offices and clawed at the boxes like it was Christmas morning. Robert always hopes they contain pounds and pounds of chocolate, but this time it was our book, ‘Fairies and Magical Creatures’ in almost a dozen foreign languages. That is almost just as good! This studio has been fortunate to have many of the titles translated into many different languages, but we often never learn of the results. Very few folks in America get to see how our books look in translation so I created a mosaic of covers for you to enjoy. Let’s see if you can match the covers to the countries:

Canada (and US)
French Canada
France
Spain
Italy
Portugal
Greece
Germany
Slovenia
Denmark
Korea



It’s funny how the color of the cover changes with different countries. My favorite is the Korean version with the additional fairy in the upper left.

- Kyle

Truly Visionary

This week the studio received a copy of “Visionaire 55”. “Visionaire” is a multi-form album of fashion and art produced in limited edition of 4000. Only published three times a year, this holiday issue as the theme of ‘Surprise’ and houses 12 pop-up portfolios in a large dark purple cloth-covered case that has a very inventive magnetic opening device.

One of my favorite artists, Cai Guo-Qiang, is represented here in a pop-up devised by Bruce Foster. The single spread references a large scale installation called ‘Head On’ that I had the great pleasure to see last year at the Guggenheim Museum. I got a great kick out of seeing the arching wave of wolves twist and curl across the page.


There are many other excellent pop-up compositions to be found inside the collection. So be sure to visit the website below to learn more about this creative publication.

http://www.visionaireworld.com/index.php

- Kyle

Sabuda Sweets

As the mail was delivered today, we at the studio were blessed with a gift. A Martha Stewart Living magazine! And not just any issue, one filled to the brim with CUPCAKES! And we love cupcakes here in the studio! Check out the awesome cover of simple cupcakes with shades of icing! Just for color alone the cover is a standout (and I'm pretty sure they taste yummy too!). Take a look at these two choice ones: a hedgehog and a bee on a flower cupcakes! They're so fantastic! Little pieces of art. A few of us then decided that if we weren't pop-up makers we'd probably be bakers... I mean Robert has the plan all drawn out in a previous blog post!

Let us eat cake!
- Jess

A Gorey Mystery

Another favorite illustrator of mine is Edward Gorey (sometimes they laugh at me in the studio because it seems that all illustrators are my “favorites”). My first exposure to his beautiful drawings was actually not through a book, but through the opening titles for “Mystery!” on PBS. This animation is a classic exemplification of his illustrative style and subject:





Needless to say, I was very excited when I discovered a 1982 Edward Gorey pop-up book on our studio’s shelves! Take a look!




-Shelby

Hyena Hullabaloo

Hello again,
I haven't written in a while because of the holidays and whatnot. I just wanted to show a series of photos I think are really powerful and beautiful. They're from the photographer Pieter Hugo of men in Nigeria and their pet Hyenas. Pieter followed the group for a two weeks and learned about their relationship to the animals and the community.

http://www.pieterhugo.com/nigeria/index.html


-Simon

Drawing Crickets

When I was growing up, we had a pretty big stack of 1970s-1990s Cricket magazines that I would periodically work my way through - sometimes just looking at the pictures, other times reading them cover to cover. Many years later, I was very surprised to discover that my favorite childhood illustrator, Trina Schart Hyman, was the art director of Cricket from it's beginning in 1973 until 1979 (she illustrated the first cover!). She continued contributing to the magazine until she passed away in 2004.

Trina Schart Hyman illustrated more than 150 books in her career. She received Caldecott Honors in 1984 for Little Red Riding Hood, in 1990 for Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins and in 2000 for A Child's Calendar. In 1985, she received a Caldecott Award (the most prestigious children's book award) for Saint George and the Dragon.

Check out Trina Schart Hyman here...

And Cricket magazine here!

-Shelby

Visit to Cedar Rapids

Alright, this is old news, but this past summer I went to Cedar Rapids, Iowa to visit my family and celebrate my Gramma's 90th birthday. Here's my Gram, Helen Wehby, on her big day with my sister Erin (always posed, tanned and up front), my three cousins (Lori, Lisa & Lynne) and me.


Most of my mom's side of the family is from Cedar Rapids - and my family lived there when I was young. Mom, Erin and I were lucky enough to spend some time in Cedar Rapids and explore some of my old haunts, like Bever Park.


I even visited my old school - I was a student of Mrs. Semeroth's second grade class at Erskine Elementary school in 1979. The school seemed a lot shorter than I remembered it.

- MR

Welcome to the Library

Our studio space is really coming together. Our new library actually holds all of our books. It's a great resource for pop-up and picture books, both past and present.



Matthew and Robert have amassed an impressive collection of reference books, with subjects ranging from Amphibians to Ziggurats. When we need to look at the anatomy of a lion to make a pop-up of Aslan from The Chronicles of Narnia or learn about the origins of Hamadryads for EM: Fairies and Magical Creatures, that's where we look!


The most important feature of the library, however, is to house our massive Simpsons figure collection. The citizens of Springfield have lived on top of our shelves for as long as I have worked at the studio - they like it there!


The only thing missing is a nice beanbag chair to tie the room together and provide a good place to take a brake with a book. There's a lot of options, but we have yet to find something that fits with the studio's particular aesthetic. Matthew may like at least one of these for sure!


- Simon

I Wanna Ghana Book!

I had the good fortune to see a great book arts show in New York recently.  In the summer of 2005 a wonderful pop-up book artist from Chicago named Shawn Sheehy traveled to Ghana to help create a paper mill at the Abba House Cultural Center in Accra.  Since that time the good people at Abba House have been teaching local children how to create handmade paper from plants and materials found in the area.  Once the paper is finished, it is made into cards, Coptic bound journals, personal storybooks, ornaments and other paper creations.

I was able to see many of these works in the Project Room at the Phoenix Gallery in Manhattan where handmade books and the cards stood on pedestals before large photos of the young kids engaged in making the paper.  In one corner of the galler y stood a large tree adorned with colorful paper ornaments folded in an accordion-like fashion.  After speaking with Linda Handler, the lovely director of the non-profit center for the arts, I learned that all the proceeds from the show went to the school expenses for the budding Ghanaian artists.  Well I was sold!  In short order, I had all my holiday shopping complete, plus Linda gave me literature on the Abba House and Cross Cultural Collaborative so that their inspiring story can accompany the wonderful works of art.

To see slideshows of the paper mill at the Abba House check out:

http://www.culturalcollaborative.org/

To keep tabs on Shawn, see the newly launched website at:

http://shawnsheehy.com

To learn more about the Phoenix Gallery go to:

http://www.phoenix-gallery.com/Nov08show.html

--Kyle