Four Corners Books - 'Familiars' series

Many of you are interested in books - so I thought I'd draw attention to the publisher 'Four Corners' and their 'Familiars' series - where classic texts are re-interpreted by contemporary artists and illustrators. For example in 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' (Oscar Wilde) - a story about male vanity - the text is published in its original magazine format - alongside ads featuring über-cool looking 70ies men smoking Gitanes. In 'Dracula' the artist James Pyman returns to the original text to find lots of quiet moments in between the clichéed blood and gore.

A refreshing reminder that as illustrators you don't have to illustrate plot or characters - the text is already busy dealing with this - you could reinvent, reimagine - look sideways at what is happening just outside of the scene, think about prequel or sequel, focus on secondary characters, displace or rearrange......

http://www.fourcornersbooks.co.uk/

Tim Hunkin tells us about the car, nice combinations of live footage and animation to explain processes, ways of making and thinking and the technological 'leaps' that make the car what it is today. There is something reassuring about an engineer in a corduroy jacket, no?

part 2:



part 3:

JIGGLING ATOMS

The fantastic Richard Feynman describes energy transfer and jiggling atoms.

Gerrit Van Bakel

The remarkable Gerrit Van Bakel, sculptor, designer, maker of play spaces and furniture. The image above shows a rainbow machine, as the room gets warmer the long rod rises up and the rainbow appears, as the room cools the rainbow gradually disappears. Simple, analogue beauty. See below for more of Van Bakel's substantial output and look here for the complete works. Thank you to an ambitiousprojectcollapsing for introducing Gerrit to me.

Alma Seedhoff Buscher

Some simple play objects originally designed in the 20's by Bauhaus student Alma Seedhoff Buscher and re-released by Kurt Naef [Naef Toys]. Courtesy of here.

Johny Kelly's title sequence for Het Klokhuis, a science programme for children. Its here.

Earthworms have feelings too.

Green Porno from Isabella Rosillini. From here.