Laura's New Book

One of my all time favorite illustrators Laura Ljungkvist was so kind to send me a little preview of her new book "Pepi Sings A New Song". It is about Pepi the friendly cockatoo exploring his neighborhood in search of new things to sing about with his owner, Peter. I can just imagine little kids having so much fun looking at the cute objects on each spread, like the musical instruments here (below), while learning new vocabulary at the same time. This is definitely the cool book for all my friends' little kids! The book comes out on April 20.

images: Laura Ljungkvist, thanks!

Lyrics by Jean Julien

This book by Jean Julian is entirely handmade and silkscreened by Eugene and Pauline. All the artworks are really funny and smart but I have to admit that the cover is my favorite thing about the book. Only 100 copies are made, for 45 Euros it is really a bargain!
images: JeanJulien.com

Designers- You Need It!

This beautiful V&A Pattern Box Set is a must for designers who create or use patterns in their designs. It contains 4 titles- The Fifties, William Morris, Digital Pioneers, and Indian Florals. Each book comes with a CD that is intended for you to redraw or rework the patterns. And think about how great this box set will look in your bookshelf! Get it here or here, I think it's a real bargain!photos: V&A Shop

The Best Gift

This book is THE best gift for people of all ages, not just for art lovers. Marion Bataille's ABC3D is an innovative pop-up book that interprets the alphabets as beautiful 3 dimensional paper sculptures. Some of the letters share a page and it changes from one to another as you turn the page at a different angle, see how the C turns into D below?! Some are so beautiful that they're worthy to be shown in museums! My favorite is the V and the opposite page is a mirror, and the 2 V's become a W, see that?! Check out this You Tube video that shows how all the alphabets unfolds, it's a lot of fun.

Area 2

Got the book and love it!!! Here are some of my faves.

Botanicals

The new Assouline book Botanicals is based on prints from the rare books library of the Cooper-Hewitt Museum. It's a great reference book for designers and artists. I will write more when I have a copy of it.
image: Assouline

I want this!

Fashion Wonderland by Victionary. This book features over 100 fashion illustrators whose works appear not only in print but also as art installations, interior decoration, product design, etc. The printed fabric cover is so gorgeous that you would want to display it on your coffee table.images: youworkforthem.com

Illustration Hero

I needed to write about Laura Ljungkvist after I saw the post on Print and Pattern. Laura was one of the great illustrators that emerged in the late 90's, and she was one of them that inspired me to get into the business (Anja Kroencke, Hiroshi Tanabe, Bo Lundburg, Liselotte Watkins and Mr. Z were the other ones). I first saw her work in Wallpaper magazine, and since then she's done a few children's books as well as countless ad campaigns and editorial work. Her new children's book is called Follow the Line, the artworks are so beautiful that adults would enjoy reading it with their little ones! I love the fluid but rough line art and her use of colors, they are vintage-inspired but her style is totally original and modern.