Top 10 April 8

Here we go, another Friday and another top 10 list, force-fed with a smorgasbord full of internet gems on steroids. Get ready to enjoy the freaks from the boulevard, beautiful creators from the White Sea, a comedy battle by the next generation Beastie Boys + much more.

Hope you like.

Mr. J   

1. Katy Grannan - Boulevard

For the past three years Katy Grannan has roamed the streets of Los Angeles and San Francisco,photographing strangers. Her subjects are most often people whom others pass by without notice, people for whom life has apparently not been easy.

Grannan photographs her subjects in front of the type of white stucco walls that can be foundanywhere. She works midday when the strong noon light, in tandem with the white walls, transformsher city streets into outdoor studios. The light is precise and indiscriminate, delineating in high-pitched detail Grannan’s hustlers, strutters, addicts and beauty queens. The timeless characters whopopulate Grannan’s Boulevards are a compendium of street types rendered with mesmerizing intensity,separated from their counterparts of past centuries by little more than costume or hairstyle.

Katy Grannan lives and works in Berkeley. Her work is in the collections of the Museum of ModernArt, the Guggenheim Museum, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the WhitneyMuseum of American Art, among others.
 
See more of the Boulevard exhibition HERE

2. Tim Fishlock

 

 

London based Illustrator / designer Tim Fishlock
Don't forget to check out his fantastic lamp design!!!!

3. Alexander Semenov - Beautiful Monsters From The White Sea

 

This is only small part of Alexander Semenov's underwater work at the White Sea Biological Station. When Alexander went underwater for the first time He was absolutely shocked. White Sea showed him another world with it's own aliens, and some of them were really amazing creatures.

4. Gavin Potenza

  

Gavin Potenza is a twenty-five year old designer and illustrator working from the Pencil Factory in Brooklyn, NY. He spends most of his time working on infographics and illustrations, and in 2010 was named a Young Gun by the Art Director's Club.
In addition to his independent work, Gavin also co-runs the emerging design studio, Script & Seal.

5. Animals By Morten Kolby

Morten on Morten:
I am an advertising photographer based in Aarhus, denmark. I do mostly branding, corporate identity, lifestyle and a little fashion & food photography for work.
I have studied at the Danish school of Photography, and assisted two established photographers in denmark for 4 years, prior to starting my own company.
In my own time I like to cook, climb, ride motorcycles, generally spend time outdoors, work on the house that I recently bought with my girlfriend Trine, and embark on new photography projects.
To see more of my work, go to my website koldby.com or shoot me an email
Otherwise you can follow me here on the blog, on my facebook page, or for more frequent updates & tidbits, go to twitter.

6. Touch Wood smartphone ad

It’s rare to see an advertisement so artfully and skillfully done, but Sharp’s Touch Wood SH-08C cellphone commercial is truly stunning.
In a Rube Goldberg-esque creation, Morihiro Harano, the award-winning creative director of Drill Inc., came up with the idea of having a wooden ball roll down through a homemade marimba/xylophone in the middle of a peaceful woodland scene in Kyushu, Japan. Kenjiro Matsuo actually created the instrument.

The commercial starts by showing the surroundings, the crew setting up the contraption, and the director saying “Take one,” which is the only talking in the commercial. It pans to someone rolling the ball and then the song takes off. It’s a little over 2-minutes of lovely music, and throughout the song you can hear a stream flowing in the background.
Until the ball rolls to a stop at the end of the commercial, you have no idea that it’s an ad for a cell phone. Japanese mobile phone operator NTT docomo said it will only be producing 15,000 SH-08Cs, but we think the company may see higher demand after people see this ad.
From what I was able to deduce from NTT docomo’s product page, which is available only in Japanese, the colors of each phone varies by the wood’s grain. The number of phones is limited because it’s difficult to mass produce the wood that comes from the cypress tree in Shimanto, Japan.

7. Jamie Cullen

Jamie Cullen is a Brighton based illustrator who cites Pop Art and M C Escher's impossible constructions as a couple of his many influences. His work often involves layers of visual discovery with hidden elements emerging from his bright, intricate drawings.
Jamie has produced work for a selection of high profile clients including campaigns for Nike, Coke, Virgin Mobile, VW and Reebok.
His highly distinctive illustrations have also appeared in editions of Rolling Stone, Wallpaper*, Billboard, IDN, Esquire, GQ and The Guardian.

See more work by Jamie HERE

8. Matthias Heiderich - Snow Blind

Matthias is back on the list with some really nice winter landscape photography. good job.
See more work by Matthias Heiderich HERE

9. Fight For Your Right - Revisited

Official Trailer of "Fight For Your Right-Revisited", from the Beastie Boys' long anticipated eighth album, HOT SAUCE COMMITTEE PART TWO. For more information visit http://beastieboys.com

10. Brandt Brauer Frick - Caffeine

Official video for Brandt Brauer Frick's Caffeine

CREDITS

Written and directed by Danae Diaz and Patricia Luna
Music by Brandt Brauer Frick
“Caffeine” taken from the album “You Make Me Real”

Art concept and Illustrations: Danae Diaz
Hand drawn animation: Danae Diaz, Benjamin Karré
Computer animation, compositing and editing: Patricia Luna
3D design assistant: Maria Diaz
Sound design intro and outro: Lenard Gimpel