Laughing Lion Design

Charming Video Story Of 40 Years Of Pentagram

Jennifer Farley — Tue, 22 May 2012 22:20:08 +0000

To celebrate forty years of design brilliance, Pentagram have released a short video. It tells the story of a boy born forty years ago and his life growing up. Of course that “boy” was Pentagram and we see his life in short snippets in the form of the brands the have created identities for over the years.

The video is clever, witty and an inspiring way to show a portfolio of forty years of design. It’s quite amazing how many brands you’ll see in this video and you may have thought about the work that went into making them the familiar logos and identities we see on a daily basis.

Red Dots & Yayoi Kusama On June’s Wallpaper* Magazine

Jennifer Farley — Mon, 14 May 2012 08:09:01 +0000

The June issue of Wallpaper* features a limited-edition cover by Japan’s most celebrated contemporary artist Yayoi Kusama. The artist appears on the cover in her own specially designed red-dot dress beside one of her works, which also features many red dots – With All My Love For The Tulips, I Pray Forever. The artwork itself is currently on display at the National Museum of Art, Osaka, where the Wallpaper* cover photo was taken. The artist describes the cover as a message of love.

Yayoi Kusama’s Wallpaper* commission coincides with her retrospective at London’s Tate Modern, which will move to New York’s Whitney Museum of American Art. She is 83 years old and voluntarily lives in a psychiatric institution in Japan, where she produces artworks in a variety of media. She has also published several novels, a poetry collection and an autobiography.

The limited-edition cover by Kusama is available to Wallpaper* subscribers and on newsstands in Japan. Wallpaper’s June issue hits newsstands across the world from 10 May.

Here’s a small flavour of her work:

Image and more info via The Daily Norm

Image and more info via Phaidon

Alice In Wonderland illustrated by Yayoi Kusama. Image and more info via Brain Pickings

Happy Jubilee Ma’am

Jennifer Farley — Sat, 12 May 2012 06:46:07 +0000

The Queen of England, who became one of Ireland’s favourite grannys last year following her visit here, is celebrating 60 years of Queenliness this year. In honour of the Diamond Jubilee here’s my little illustrated homage. This illustration is available on a t-shirt from Zoo-Tees.com.

Free Font: Matilde

Jennifer Farley — Wed, 09 May 2012 11:37:45 +0000

Matilde is free font available from Typedepot, a “small” type design studio based in Sofia, Bulgaria.

From the type designer “Matilde is friendly thin typeface with extra tall capitals, elegant look combined with decorative elements. This typeface will work well for headings, short paragraphs, magazines, children’s books, posters, logos and any type of graphic design.”

Matilde is available in two styles – normal and sketch.

Nigel Smith Elvis Impersonator – Professions Illustration

Jennifer Farley — Thu, 03 May 2012 12:19:11 +0000

This is my latest illustration in the “Professions” project. If you’ve visited this blog before you may have met Niall Legstrong, Astronaut or Bruno the chef. This is Nigel Smith, mild mannered Elvis Impersonator. As with pretty much all of my illustration work, this followed the process of loose sketch (and I mean very loose sketch), scanned into Illustrator and finished in Photoshop with lots of textured layers and my own scribbles.

This project is starting to build quite nicely now and I would love to see it published as a book for kids on “jobs people do” at some stage.

Beautifully Cute Animation For U.S. Olympic Team Members

Jennifer Farley — Wed, 02 May 2012 08:18:06 +0000

I love the gorgeous drawing and animation in these clips for the U.S. Olympic Committee. It’s so simple yet tells a lovely story. The first animation is about American wrestler Henry Cujedo and how his Mam raised seven children and always made time for his wrestling career. I particularly love the cute vision of London with the taxi cab crossing London Bridge. Filled with bright colours and charming characters, it’s a great way to appeal for support for the team.

The second animation is about boxer Queen Underwood and how her sister supported her, driving to competitions and always being by her side. This clip has a different look and feel with darker colours but adorable characters and hand drawn typography. This is a very loving story.

Each piece was created by Duck Studios and commissioned by Y & R. There will be a total of 12 animations in the campaign and I’m looking forward to seeing them all.