Albums of the Year 2023

New Commute asked their graphic artist friends for their favorite music of the year and the results are exceptionally good looking. Oodles of art and music to explore!

newcommute.net

Top 5 albums from a bunch of artists and designers for 2023

The Artists and Cartoonists Who Designed Pee-wee Herman’s World – Part One

This is only part one!? Subscribing to The Comics Journal to get alerted of future parts. A trove that already feels like it could fill a book. / via Yewknee

tcj.com

Sketches from Pee Wee's character design

Portfolio games

Ana Cuna’s website features an option to view illustration projects through a variety of games. Everything about this is delightful, including all the featured work.

anacuna.com

Portfolio of Ana Cuna on cards

Mystique Astrology kit by Mattel

Far out 70's psychedelic cartoon vibes on this binder filled with astrological charts and wheels and man I dig it.

fontsinuse.com

Mystique Astrology Kit cover by Mattel with psychedelic pop illustrations of the zodiac wheel

Backstage Disneyland

Cabel Sasser collected oodles of “Backstage Disneyland” newsletters distributed to Disney park employees (cast members), scanned them in (really well) and uploaded to the Internet Archive. Worth it for the covers but when you dig into each issue it is a gargantuan trove of inspiration, visually and content-wise.

cabel.com

Backstage Disney magazine cover with illustration of a flower in pot

Invisible Things

Andy J Pizza & Sophie Miller have a book coming out that puts visuals and words to some of the invisible things that make up the human experience. At first blush, it’s a kids book, but there’s a kid in most of us. (Unfortunately, some are still bullies, but whatever!)

andyjpizza.com

Invisible Things book cover

She-Hulk: Attorney at Law Titles

These end credits are so delightful, I watched them every time. It's neat to read this discussion with the folks behind them and their process. Bonus portrait of Prince by Kagan McLeod.

artofthetitle.com

Illustration of She Hulk

Jim Stoten’s sketchbook

Jim once thought about his sketchbook as an enjoyable way to waste time. I’m glad the Eames Institute sponsored this video which was an enjoyable way to get inspired. More goodness on Jim’s website.

jim-stoten.com

Photo illustration of Jim Stoten with drawings of horses and fruits and abstract shapes

The work of Dan Zucco

Read this article about delight in product design and enjoyed the illustrations by Dan Zucco. He’s got a class on Domestika that looks quite good.

instagram.com

3D geometric shapes form a colorful pattern

Scenes From Imagined Films

Jordan Bolton wrote a screenplay but couldn't get the resources to produce it. Now he makes comics with grounded emotion. Oodles more on his Instagram.

itsnicethat.com

A four panel comic showing a rose come to bloom with text that reads "The more I look for beauty. The more I find it. The more I share it. The more it grows."

Animated Tour Inside a Fire Engine Truck

It's like a Dorling Kindersley book come to life. Lots more 'Animigraffs' by Jake O'Neal.

laughingsquid.com

3D animation showing the features of a firetruck

Endless Robot Story

By Vaskange using the Endless Paper App. It's not really endless, but it's got dystopian robot melancholy down pat. / via MeFi

twitter.com

An illustration of a robot looking forlorn at a table with an empty bird cage

Ardhira Putra

It’s Nice That profiles this Jakarta-based illustrator and motion designer and I’m super digging the vibes.

itsnicethat.com

A brightly colored illustration of a person or robot helmet surrounded by type in Japanese and other fantastic items

Caitlin Keegan’s Corita Kent Series

Colorful visual interpretations of Some Rules for Students and Teachers / via Doug Wilson

caitlinkeegan.com

Illustrator with beakers that reads "Consider Everything An Experiment"

The art and Design of Nolan Pelletier

Fonts In Use showcased a recent album design by Nolan and his site is filled with delightful illustrations and details abound!

nolannolannolan.com

An illustration of a cat with vibrant yellow and pinks

Inspirational monsters

I went down a rabbit hole looking at the work of Gemma Correll. Here's where I started.

twitter.com

Funny Halloween illustrations

Sunlight

9 panels about growing by Grant Snider / via my friend Shannon

incidentalcomics.com

An illustration of a tree with the words "Shadows Dance" written

Old Book Illustrations

Not verified as open sourced images, but a trove for inspiration nonetheless

oldbookillustrations.com

An illustration of orange flowers

Amazing Spider-Man #61

Love seeing the process and result for this variant cover by Julian Totino Tedesco

twitter.com

An illustration of Spider Man

An Illustrated Catalog of American Fruits & Nuts

Assembled between 1886 and 1942, a collection of watercolor fruits and plants made by 21 artists. (This book looks beautiful.)

atelier-editions.com

An Illustrated Catalog of American Fruits & Nuts

3:45 PM

A lovely animation indeed. "Don't live in the grand scheme of things"

kottke.org

Enzo

VITTI brought on Mike Freedom to bring this character to life for their brand. This is a great story of how that came to be and their process. (Built on exposure.co - which is a great tool for sharing stories)

journal.vitticycling.cc

Japan by Car

Gorgeous illustration by James Gilleard / via Seth Werkheiser

jamesgilleard.net

An illustration of a Japanese road scene in pink and blue tones

Toy Faces 3D Avatar Library

Amrit Pal Singh's wonderful set of avatars, PLUS you can get your own custom one made! / via Jessica Hische

amritpaldesign.com

Good Movies as Old Books / 02: The Hard Way

Matt Stevens second in a series of behind the scenes peeks into his book design/illustration process

hellomattstevens.com

Living in someone else’s Portland narrative

The illustration for this article is very spot on and I very much dig the style.

annehelen.substack.com

Interview with September’s Artist Ben Stafford

I follow Ben on Twitter and love seeing his work every time he shares

rise.design

ALLSHIPS | A Creative Community

"We stand for quality over quantity, substance over numbers, cohesion over conflict, opinion over algorithms, thoughtful content over snackable, sugary, viral hits. We stand together, not apart." / via Luke Beard

allships.co

Matt Stevens – Good Movies as Old Books

I see these show up on the socials and am delighted every single time. Nice to see them all together.

dribbble.com

USA Today Network Branding by DKNG

I was wondering if I could pick Cincinnati out of the lineup. I could indeed.

dkngstudios.com

Wendy Macnaughton

Illustrator for Salt Fat Acid Heat and venn diagrams and more. (Listening to inaugural Partners podcast by Hrishikesh Hirway)

wendymacnaughton.com

Mary Kate McDevitt

Lettering and Illustration (and some lovely items in her shop to boot)

marykatemcdevitt.com

Enjoy Mary Kate

Matt Lyon

I really like Matt's work.

c8six.com

Drawing a Ghost with Procreate 👻 – YouTube

Here's a 5 minute version of that Instagram video I posted a few days ago. This shows Gal Shir's entire process. Oooooo

youtube.com

How Matisse’s Cut-outs Took Over the Illustration World

Related to the Chobani filter

eyeondesign.aiga.org

SUNday SUNS

Always enjoy Tad Carpenters Sunday illustration

sunday-suns.com

Poster, Nihon Buyo, 1981

Geometry

collection.cooperhewitt.org

Discover the Mekong through colorful illustrations

A journey from Cambodia to Vietnam illustrated by Christoph Niemann. Lovely

nationalgeographic.com

Character, process, & heart: Creating Slack’s illustration voice

A behind-the-scenes look at researching, concepting, and creating an illustration voice, system, and custom 40+ asset library, by Alice Lee / via Yewknee

byalicelee.com

Flyover Country — Plaid Mtn.

Super digging this screenprint

plaidmtn.com

The Richard Amsel Appreciation Site

A selection of movie posters from 1980-1985. There is SO MUCH MORE WORK here though. So good. Bonus, some behind the scenes process.

cinemalad5.wixsite.com

Andy J. Miller on Instagram: “People don’t always understand what I mean by drawing invisible things so this is kind of a silly cheat sheet “

"I think photography is mainly about replicating what you can see, where as illustration is about showing what you CAN’T see!" Love this.

instagram.com

Tools and resources for Illustrators

Some new to me things on here. /via DJ

illustration.tools

How To Be a Nonconformist: 22 Irreverent Illustrated Steps to Counterculture Cred from 1968

In love with all of this. All of it. / via Tom

brainpickings.org

Two Very Different Kinds of Illustration

Khoi is spot on with his observations.

subtraction.com

Celebrate #Caturday with 15 Cat Illustrations

These are all so wonderful. / via swiss-miss

brwnpaperbag.com

Drawings with depth

Clever use of paper and perspective here.

laughingsquid.com

James Boorman “What Have We Done”

Mesmerized by this animated illustration

jamesboorman.com

Black Bouquet Print Series by Tad Carpenter

I dig Tad's style.

carpentercollective.com

North: An Illustrated Travelogue by Christoph Niemann

Super lovely. / via Kottke

nationalgeographic.com

Oliver Sin

Lovely illustration and animation / via Yewknee

oliversin.com

Young Jerks

So tight. / via Coudal

youngjerks.com

Cinerama — Invisible Creature

I want to go to Seattle just to see this theatre mural. / via YewKnee

invisiblecreature.com

Oliver and Sam discuss their picturebook collaboration, ‘A Child of Books’

Beautiful book, wonderful insight into the process of making it. / via Swiss-Miss

blog.picturebookmakers.com

Process: The Rookie Handbook

I super dig Matt Stevens' work and always enjoy learning about design (and illustration) process

hellomattstevens.com

Lauren Crow Illustration

Dig her work. Saw it in "The Stress Report" and was immediately smitten

laurencrow.co.uk

Outlets.

Superfun animated gifs by Jay Keeree / via Swiss-Miss

jkeeree.tumblr.com

JULIAN GLANDER

Makes tasty animated things and then some / via We Make Money Not Art

julianglander.com

Jonathan Stroh “Bear house (with fox)”

Mesmerized by this animation.

jonathanstroh.tumblr.com