noma bar visual awesomeness

i was recently bought two books for my birthday, one that i had seen and expressed an interest in and one that i hadn't even heard of, these books where by a graphic designer by the name of noma bar, now i had only seen very brief section of one of the books and didn't really know what to expect, what i got was like someone turning on a light and punching me in the face, the two books where "negative space" and "guess who", both of these books are just incredible.

 

i haven't been able to find out that much information about noma, except that he was born in israel in 1973 and has worked for some incredible and very notable clients, such as time out london, bbc, the observer and wallpaper to name a few, he has published over 550 illustrations, illustrated over 60 magazine covers and released the two aforementioned books (thank you wikipedia).  now that we have covered some background, i can try a show you some of the visual delights that completely blew my mind when i first opened these books.

 

nomas use of negative space and related items is incredible, its just a completely different way of looking at things, i wonder if this is how he sees real life, as incredibly clever but beautifully simple illustrations. the above images are from the "guess who" book, where he create portraits of famous people, each one instantly recognisable and created using images that epitomise their fame.

these images have all been taking from the book "negative space" which is the book i origiinally saw and wanted, but i could never have imagined how brilliant these two books are. negative space shows you an entirely different way of looking at things, you notice more elements each time you look at it, and it still blows my mind. even down to the cover, you see the dog, then you see the cat and then you see the mouse, brilliant.

i cannot recommend these two books enough

heres a link to buy negative space, you should be able to get them both in a bundle displayed on this page but i dont know how to link to that.

heres a link to the artica.com profile for noma

if you have any other information on noma, please let me know

as an extra bonus, heres one of my favourite illustrations

 

that madden

chris madden is from salford, a self proclaimed lover of tea, hater of mushrooms and all round muppet enthusiast. and as you will soon see a brilliant illustrator. happily drawing pictures for a living, he's churning out some awesome work and has been featured in some big publications, such as the times educational supplement, wired, aat magazine, the guardian and the mail on sunday, to name but a few.

murder // the times eureka // 2010

the times educational supplement

its nice to see in this time of disappointment and redundancy that someone is starting to get the recognition they deserve. his website is full of brilliant pieces of work, and definitely worth a visit.

 

to stop me from just copying his entire site onto here, you should head over there now and check it out, also make sure you click on the sketchbook section for a refreshing look at the work behind the scenes

and on that note i'll leave you with a couple of my favourites from the site

 

make sure to check out his site here
follow him on twitter here

follow him on tumblr here

and finally on facebook here

creative rolls

ever wondered what to do with the empty cardboard tube of a toilet roll? chances are if you older then 10 you usually throw them away or put the in a hamster cage, either way not making full use of what could be. french artist anastassia elias pondered over that very same predicament and come up with a brilliant solution. take a look at these little beauties

the title of this particular project is paper cuts, which leads me to believe that she slices the tube open, as you can see above and then cuts the fine detail out of either the same tube and folds them up or a different tube and sticks them in, which ever way its done it impressive as hell, i cant see a cut mark or a glue mark anywhere, good work anastassia.

i don't want to include them all here as that would give you an excuse not to go the anastassia's site which can be found here, so make sure you toddle over there and take a look, she has plenty of other good stuff over there too. her site is in french but google translate should be able to help you out with that, enjoy. oh here's one more to wet your appetite further. brilliant