James Jean

James Jean
This is an artist you should be familiar with if you have ever read a Fables comic book. He has been renowned for his exquisite use of color in his airy, surreal compositions which is evident in his most recent solo exhibition. Check out his site and be sure to peruse his sketchbook section which is arguably the most interesting aspect of his online gallery. He systematically scanned in select pieces from his sketchbooks of the last few years. This is where you get to see an artist expand and learn through a visual temporal catalog.

Subprime

Beeple
This is a pretty awesome and smooth animation of houses becoming miraculously constructed and then torn down over the course of 5 minutes. It is quite smooth and I suggest you check out his site for more examples of the same.

Stop Motion with Wolf and Pig

Young Architect

Young Architect

This is a very helpful, and at times controversial, blog from the perspective of a young architect about 5 years out of school. The site began as just another design blog but completely transformed into something else not too long ago. He began writing posts from his perspective for those just starting in the field or still in school. Reading his opinions I at times become scared about some realities that we all must face, especially his belief that the C students eventually become the bosses of the A students. So I would like to begin a discussion about this perspective and how you all perceive the world of architecture at your current position in the field.

The C student is about efficiency and productivity. While their designs may not be as innovative as the A student, their talents will lend more towards successful completions of real life projects. As the C student continues to meet expectations within a company environment, they will advance into management or even start their own companies.

Spoon Graphics

Chris Spooner
I have been following this UK designer for a bit now. Though his work may not be the most cutting edge his documentation definitely is. Other then PSDtuts, I have not seen any other resource on the net so eloquent and informative on basic design processes in the Adobe programs we know and love. Check out the wallpapers I made below from tutorials I found on his site. Even though you may not be enthused by these examples of graphic design, the skills I have learned in photoshop from tutorials like these have helped my architectural renderings ten-fold.

small stakes

Check this guy out - minimalist poster art...thanks Jett for the link. Simple, sweet, conceptual - music! Done. Get working again...

FODA STUDIO

If you haven't seen FODASTUDIO's website in a little while, now would be a good time to view their new work. Jett started the firm while most of us were still infants of architecture in good old Lubbock. It's not surprising that us kids from TTU have some type of idea what direction we'd like to go. ie: Jett paved the way graduating from our alma mater. The studio has expanded their talents of branding, type, rendering, marketing, packaging & creating - its lighter, softer, fluid, juicy, and gritty (due to the mix of designers) - relaxing the sleeker and refined earlier tectonics Foda forcefully threw down. Props to the studio for bustling all around the Austin scene as well as NY and bringing some crafty work to the table - we expect more...

Suburban Subjects

I found this post over at BLDGBLOG and though it was applicable to this continuing theme of suburbia and perception of place. If you haven't visited this blog yet do yourself a favor and read Geoff Manaugh's, ex-senior editor of DWELL, insightful posts on architecture and urbanism.
post link

Game Over/Continue? Exhibit

This is an event that almost fell under my radar but luckily I recovered it. Two big names in the art and indie game design communities have teamed up to put together one of the sweetest art shows I have read about. The boys at Giantrobot and Attract Mode threw the Game Over/Continue exhibit to celebrate their new union and new project artxgame. Though this is not the first art exhibit by Giantrobot, it is the first one featuring games developed specifically for exhibition.

Four super-talented illustrators were teamed with some of the biggest names in indie game development. The results were four interesting and beautiful titles developed by the experimental and collaborative duos. Check out the Offworld post for more information on the games and exhibition. As a long time gamer I have never been more excited in the scene. I have been disillusioned in the past with all the money being focused on new and profitable projects like Resident Guitar 12: Ultimate Fighter; Episode 7. Events like this allow for more opportunities for interested designers to make a stupid concept a realization.

Link List: tuts+

Hopefully you all have noticed these links over in the link bar to the left. I stumbled upon these resources when they were in their infancy and this network has quickly grown into the greatest boon for visual designers. The tuts network contains hundreds of tutorials, freebies, articles and other goodies, divided between photoshop, illustrator, web design, audio design, after effects, and flash. Take a couple of minutes to stroll through these sites and check out the tutorials. In just a couple of months I learned good web design and killer photoshop skills just from a few of these guides.