French Blast

Another Architectural Splendor by Ryue Nishizawa in Tokyo

2012-01-02T11:56:00.000+08:00

The narrow Nishizawa building has become a great attraction in Tokyo. An enigmatic concrete house, the narrow building was designed by Ryue Nishizawa on a tiny urban lot as a private residence. The architectural splendor is decked with a range of plant species and flower vases to protect it from the gaze of passers-by so that it is mistaken as being a mysterious vertical garden.

Wedged between two tall buildings, the exquisite building is invisible from the main road and thus very much maintains its confidentiality. All that is visible on the front includes the ground floor, housing the living room and kitchen, followed by first floor that houses a bathroom flanked between the first bedroom and the second bedroom. Moving to the roof terrace, you will find a tiny room, primarily designed as a guest room, but can be used as an extra storage space.

Another distinctive feature of the unique residential building is the full-height windows and curtains dividing the whole surface area into rooms. There are no interior walls to separate even the bathroom and laundry room, with planters and benches appearing as stylish parapets.

The oval-shaped meeting room is another remarkable feature on the curious terraces, giving an altogether different feel to the setting, with a curtain enclosing a table. The upper room gives the look of a hanging garden, reminiscent of a Moriyama House, with a thin soil layer spreading out on the floor of the room. The unbroken transition between inside and out adds to the remarkable beauty of this magnificent architectural creation.

The white-colored steel stairs add another distinctive feature to the superb residential structure, where you must use stairs, running the height of the building, to traverse one "moment" to another. Truly, the residential building is another architectural splendor by Ryue Nishizawa.

Address is approximate - Stop motion animation

2011-11-27T18:23:00.001+08:00

A very creative and poetic stop motion animation created by Tom Jenkins. The story being
: a lonely desk toy longs for escape from the dark confines of the office, so he takes a cross country road trip to the Pacific Coast in the only way he can – using a toy car and Google Maps Street View.

Know the Versatile Chinese Fashion Designer Qiu Hao

2011-11-16T21:49:00.001+08:00

One of the most profiled Chinese designers, Qiu Hao was born in Taicang. The China-based Qiu Hao is one of the most acclaimed fashion designers these days. His great work of fashion and knitwear collection won Qiu Hao won the prestigious Woolmark Prize Award in 2008 at Paris and he joined
the ranks of top designers, including Donna Karan, Karl Lagerfeld, and Giorge Armani.

Qiu Hao completed his study in interior and spatial design in the country and then moved to London for his Master’s Degree at Central Saint Martin College of Art and Design. He returned to Shanghai in 2006 to set up his unique fashion brand, known as QIUHAO, which has become the most watched fashion names in China. Qiu Hao launched Neither Nor, his first clothing line, which is now on sale in Chinese cities. He has also been nominated for Global Fashion Awards 2011.

Qiu Hao sticks to his unique design concept to create conceptually-driven design garments. He believes that Chinese designs don’t need to be just about dragons and bright colors. Qiu says that it is not easy to run a small fashion business in China, due to financing, manufacturing, and distribution challenges.

One of the most influential emerging fashion designers, Qiu has opened a manufacturing lab and operates the same with 13 employees. This, he says, is an effort to promote his collections abroad. His first collection met great success, and was applauded by Vogue, L’Officiel, Elle, The Wall Street Journal, and Haper’s Bazaar.

His great work has found a place at the Fashion Weeks in Paris, Singapore, Sydney, and Stockholm. In 2010, Qiu Hao’s work got greater recognition when his name was mentioned among the 25 Chinese Fashion people in Forbes.

His new collection, Serpens, is actually a tribute to the reptile, the mystery, fascination, and fear surrounding it. Qiu Hao’s collections are like fabric sculptures and structured garments, which are like a soft armor for the body, with every fold and seam creating a unique play of volumes and shapes, making these clothes nothing less than real art and fashion works.

He launched his first clothing line - Neither Nor – currently on sale in nine cities across China was also nominated for the Global Fashion Awards 2011 as one of the Breakthrough Designers by WGSN. He wants to motivate and develop his brand first in China. He ensures that his sculptural knitwear garments do all the talking.

Surely a designer to look out for!

What is motion design?

2011-11-07T13:28:00.000+08:00

What is motion design ? This is the excellent question raised by the non-profit project Motion Plus Design which
has the objective to create the first exhibition center dedicated to motion design in Paris. Throught this excellent animated presentation, Motion Plus Design defined motion design "where traditional animated film features a story in which characters express themselves".

Fall in Love With Lim Heng Sweee's Smart, Charming Doodles

2011-11-02T22:36:00.001+08:00

Lim Heng Swee is a visual artist, illustrator and a graphic designer. He is presently living and working in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur. Lim Heng Swee has been working as

an illustrator since 2003. He loves doodling and make others smile. His doodles feature T-shirts, ice cream cones, animals, and thermometers, among others.

Lim Heng Swee, through his smart, charming, and funny graphic designs and illustrations, tries to bring a smile on the faces of his admirers. His work is a great inspiration for his admirers to struggle each day. His doodle a day project is a great inspiration for all of us to struggle and face defeat with élan and smile even in adversity. The adorable characters he uses in his illustrations surely bring smiles on saddened faces.

Lim Heng Swee sells his illustrations and pictures on etsy shop so that an increased number of his admirers have access to them. Some of his great illustrations include Bad Hair Day, Double Cone, Star Track, My Playground, A Book Lover, A Ballet of Moustache, Peenut, Moonstache, The Choir of Antarctica, Polka Dots vs. Strips, Everyone Poops, The Classical Race, Running Back in Time, Recycling, The Pianist, Scream for Ice cream, McDonald Duck, I’m a Swan, Happy Ever After, Beat of Life, Can I Join, Sew, and There is a Whale, There is a Way, among many others.

His illustrations are quite inspiring and draw our attention toward climate change and global warming. His illustration “Say no to plastic bags” inspires us to save our environment by shunning use of plastic. His beautiful illustrations give a powerful message to his admirers, who love keep coming back to his website for more and more great images and graphics.

Thanks to his beautiful and admirable illustrations and graphic designs, Lim Heng Sweee has won the Designer of the Year 2009 award

Source: La cuisine du graphiste (yummy yummy)

Bill Carman: The Painter, Illustrator, Artist

2011-10-25T17:23:00.002+08:00

Bill Carman is an American illustrator, artist, image maker, designer, and painter. Though born in Seoul, Korea, Bill Carman was brought up in Northern California. He currently resides in Boise, Idaho. He has completed his education in

BFA illustration and visual communication. He has also done MFA in painting from Brigham Young University.

Bill Carman is currently working as a professor of drawing and illustration at Boise State University. He has contributed many of his illustrations to many clients, such as Boise Contemporary Theater, Macmillan Publishing, Ford Aerospace, SETI Institute, Arthritis Foundation, Group One, Quality Inn, TSR, BYU, SSI, TSSA, Atari, Boise Weekly, Opera Idaho, Utne Reader, Boise State, Susan Komen Foundation, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Random House and Lucas Arts.

Bill Carman has been busy serving his clients in gallery shows. He loves making images and is known for his paintings, illustrations, and drawing. Bill Carman’s work has featured in several publications, including American Illustration, Society of Illustrators Annuals and Spectrum collections of contemporary fantastic art. He has also participated in a figurative show at The William Scott Gallery in Boston.

Bill Carman has also done illustration in a children’s book, “What’s That Noise?” with Random House, which was published in 2002. He has done a lot of cover work for different publishers. Now he using his drawing skills on the cover for a re-release of "The Canning Season," a book by Polly Horvath. He is passionate about designing pictures on manuscripts.

Outcry: new t-shirl label by Lara Hanlon

2011-10-19T23:54:00.000+08:00

Outcry is a new t-shirt label created by Lara Hanlon in 2011. Lara is passionate of art and design. Designing t-shirts became naturally an excellent support to express her art. She finds her inspiration in

tattoo, skateboarding and contemporary design cultures.

Vintage Gaga: just at your door in Singapore

2011-10-16T17:29:00.002+08:00

I am sure that you will have noted that, we, at French Blast have quite a crunch at vintage stuff (Have you read this, this or this... oh wait and like that one also). Even if all the products of Vintage Gaga are not always
wearable some of them are merely beautiful. Vintage Gaga is a an online shop based in Singapore

Tatsuro Kiuchi: Japanese Illustrator

2011-10-13T20:55:00.001+08:00

Tatsuro Kiuchi is a Japanese artist and illustrator. He is currently living in Tokyo, Japan. He was born in 1966 in Tokyo, he has done his graduation in biology from Tokyo University. However,

due to his immense interest in arts, he soon made the change to art career after completing graduation from the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California.

Tatsuro Kiuchi started designing illustrations for children’s books for American and Japanese publishers. His skills as an illustrator helped him diversify into editorial work. He started designing illustrations for advertising and book covers. Kiuchi’s illustration work has earned him a number of fans and he has earned the distinction of serving big clients, including Toyota, Starbucks, The New Yorker, The Royal Mail, The New York Times, Simon & Schuster, Sony Music Entertainment, United Airlines, Travel & Leisure, The Washington Post, Allied Irish Banks, The Guardian, American Airlines, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Japan Airlines, Random House, The Boston Globe, Continental Airlines, Fortune Magazine, among others.

Tatsuro Kiuchi has also won many awards for his illustration work. Recently, he was awarded the Communication Arts Illustration Annual award. His repertoire is rich in awards, including Art Directors Club Annual, American Illustration, Bologna International Children’s Book Art Annual, Society of Illustrators, Publishing Award for illustration from Kodansha, Tokyo Illustrators Society, 3x3 Professional Show and from the Society of Illustrators of Los Angeles. All these rewards speak volumes of his work as an illustrator and artist.

Tatsuro Kiuchi’s first picture work,” The Lotus Seed,” has become widely popular and sold out immediately.

Jonny Wan: The Perfect Illustrator

2011-10-10T22:20:00.000+08:00

Jonny Wan is an illustrator and a graphic designer, living in Brighton, United Kingdom. He is currently working as a freelance illustrator in the steel city of Sheffield, United Kingdom. He completed his study from Manchester School of Art in 2008. Jonny Wan has done

a number of projects on creative spectrum, including fashion, editorial, advertising, and publishing.

Jonny Wan is fascinated by ancient cultures, symmetry, expressions, shapes, and wrinkles on faces, which influence his work widely. He also likes to take new challenges in his illustration work. Jonny Wan loves to create his illustrations and designs from his coffee stained, cozy, and cluttered room.

Recently, he collaborated with the Microsoft hardware team to produce an illustration that is likely to be incorporated into a fully functioning mouse later. He has been commissioned by DDB London to create an engaging image celebrating the association of the two best production houses, Gutenberg and Paperhat.

Should I Qhuit or should I stay?

2011-10-07T21:05:00.000+08:00

That's a long time we have not presented some tees online shop. We've just discovered this label: Qhuit, which is apparently french. Pure coincidence. They propose

some tees on sale but their new collection is not necessarily restricted to tees, they also sell jackets or sweaters. Anyway, an autumn/winter collection does not make any sense in Singapore.

There are really 3 t-shirts that really triggers the writing of this article and the envy for sharing this with you. Those shirt feature three french renowned person: Coluche, Cousteau and Sagan

Chris Turnham's Amazing Illustrations

2011-10-03T19:34:00.001+08:00

Chris Turnham is a freelance illustrator, who has vast experience of working for several animation studios and video games. He has contributed illustrations to
LAIKA Entertainment for the film Coraline. He has worked for renowned clients, including Scholastic and Monocle. He dreams to create high quality printed material and art that would look great on the wall.

Chris Turnham resides in Los Angeles, California, United States. Landscapes in Los Angeles attract him the most, and he spends his leisure time exploring new environment.

Chris Turnham likes to focus on environment and ecology in his work. His work truly illustrates his love for the landscape and buildings.

Mid century design and spy flicks greatly interest him, which clearly reflects in the illustration he painted for “Looks That Kill,” which is Kevin Dart’s upcoming Yuki 7 Adventure spy story. As a professional artist, he has always focused on painting environment, including set design, background painting. In fact, while working in video games, Chris did texturing and 3D modeling of environments and props.

Bloodrop

2011-10-01T15:01:00.000+08:00

Bloodrop is an excellent movie whose story is made around the concept of 2D and 3D. The scenario is extremely smart and the realization of
the this short movie is really well done.

Manish Mansinh: Typography Artist

2011-09-24T18:05:00.000+08:00

An Indian artist Manish Mansinh is a graphic designer by profession. An artist who often produces touching photographs and thoughtful illustrations, Manish Mansinh lives

in Mumbai, Maharashta. His great work of typography speaks volumes of his talent as a graphic designer. Thanks to his exceptional talent at using the magic of type design, he has created some unique graphics, loved world over by design lovers. Manish Mansinh uses imagination and emotion in his work of art to give meaningful messages. His works distinctly explore the ecological themes and attract, inspire, and educate his audiences.

Skyline by Florian Schmidt

2011-08-28T20:40:00.000+08:00

Skyline is not a motion or photo project of various Skyline over the main cities in the world, it is the representation of the skyline that everybody has at home: the skyline of your shoes. Florian Schmidt has just created a shoe rack that represents this Skyline. The idea is particularly smart and
the result is much more better than Ikea's squared shoe rack that invaded almost every home on earth.

Walls Notebook

2011-08-25T21:41:00.003+08:00

That's really funny, the anti-theft lunch bag was the first articles of French Blast back in 2008. And here is presented another product for sale on think of the: the walls Notebook. This is simply a notebook where
instead of drawing on white pages you'll be allowed to draw and write on clean and neat walls of New York city.

via artskills

American Apparel Aesthetics

2011-08-17T21:28:00.001+08:00

I can't really tell how I missed this video. Simply beautiful. Judge by yourself

Directed by Tony Kelly for American Apparel from Tony Kelly Photography on Vimeo.

Aryz: street art

2011-06-14T20:12:00.000+08:00

First of all, sorry sorry and sorry for the lack of continuity in writing articles the last months. Here, we're back again and today Aryz made us come back with those amazingly big wall paintings. Aryz is from
Barcelona in Spain and is not only a street artist, he does also great indoor artwork which worth a look as well.

Inception - done in 60 seconds

2011-03-21T22:06:00.000+08:00

If you did not see Inception with the handsome Leonardo Dicaprio, watching the following video will be more than enough to have an idea of the movie.This video has been
made during the contest "done in 60 seconds" by Wolfgang Matzi.

Trailers Park in Palm Springs by Jeffrey Milstein

2011-03-08T15:23:00.000+08:00

Jeffrey Milstein is the author of this amazing series of photography of trailers taken in Palm Springs. Early models of trailers have been made with

the scrap metal and technologies developed for the aircrafts during World War 2. Over the years, people have re engineered, modeled, added on their trailers in a spectacular manner.

Who is afraid of white mice?

2011-02-28T15:41:00.000+08:00

Look at this really smart advertisement campaign for ISHR, International Society fot Human Rights. ISHR is a non-profit organisation which seeks to promote
international understanding and tolerance in all areas of culture and society meaning it promote human right in a way or another. The organisation is totally right and its ads campaign represents perfectly well how social media helped the revolution the last past weeks in Northern Africa.

The oneiric work of Julien Pacaud

2011-02-26T16:51:00.001+08:00

Julien Pacaud is a french graphic designer, living in Le Mans, France. It's approximately the only thing that sounds true in his introduction on his "about" page. The other true reality, it's
he has definitely a very good sense of humour

Le travailleur by Chateau Vacant

2011-02-25T19:03:00.003+08:00

Le travailleur or worker in english is a superb stop motion made by chateau vacant, a french collective. The group includes
three guys, Yannick Calvez, Lémuel Malicoutis & Baptiste Alchourroun who lives now in Montreal, Canada. The motion is perfectly realised and makes lots of sense. It makes us think about the value of work.

Animation movie realized in Strasbourg in a first time, and then during a seven months residence taking place in a disused building of the Morvan hospital in Brest and at last in a farm shed of Kéraliou.

Decors are installations at human size, no miniaturised, of which each element was handmade.Characters are articulated wooden dummies also at human size and handmade.

The theme music is an original composition by Hamza Touré.

This movie received the first prize of animation movie at the Strasboug festival "Filmer en Alsace" in 2008, and nominated at the Berlin festival Illustrative in 2009

Kraak and Smaak - Squeeze me

2011-02-19T22:56:00.000+08:00

We rarely mention music here and we won't comment on the music of the dutch Kraak and Smaak. It's their clip that draws
our attention. The idea to take motion pricture mixing filmed in the "real" is really superb. Clap clap clap!

This is the video for Kraak & Smaak's infectious song 'Squeeze Me'. A Fingerflipping video for K&S. Duo-directed Andre Maat & Superelectric. Nominated: D&AD 2009. In-book honours for Kraak & Smaak "Squeeze me". 1st price at music video festival in St.Petersburg and the Dutch Music video Competition. www.museekfestival.ru/en/, www.shoot-me.nl/16/news. Dop: Eric Lor - Edit/post: Andre Maat & Superelectric

Ka'a solo exhibition in Singapore

2011-02-15T17:30:00.009+08:00

Ka'a is a duo of two artists comprised of Kirsty Furniss and Mathieu Augereau. Kirsty uses spencil, while Mathieu is an aerosol painter. Both of them collaborate to produce original painting that are going to
be exposed in Singapore from 21 February to 11 March at Chan Hampe Galleries near tanjoug Pagar. I found they pretty well manage the various features of Singapore in the following paintings.