nice to see there are still designers and artists out there making lo-tech, black & white fanzines like this funky little series entitled ‘houtskool’ (the dutch word for charcoal), many thanks to contributor bas koopmans a.k.a. baster for sending me a set… it is published quarterly in an edition 0f 750 copies…
sites where illustration and hand lettering is used extensively or even exclusively are few and far between, ones where it is done well are even scarcer, this one does just that…
the tone of voice, the content, the illustration style and the way the information has been placed just all seems right in my opinion, it’s a breath of fresh air in terms of the browsing experience for me, no… it wouldn’t work for lots of things and it does get tiring after say five minutes or so, but for a brief visit it simply works…
oh yeah… and the most surprising thing is who owns the website and has made all of the illustrations & hand lettering, it’s the ‘dude’ himself a.k.a. the actor jeff bridges…
often when celebrities decide to do ‘something else’ creative it can be embarrassingly awful, in this case much like the actor ‘yul brynner’ (see yesterdays post) it does feel very authentic
an illustrated childrens book entitled ‘wild animals’ from graphic designer ‘rop van mierlo’, most of them look a bit more cuddly than ‘wild’ though…
he has made clever use of the ‘smearing’ technique of paint or ink & water on paper, which works really well to describe the structure of fur or feathers it seems…
many thanks to ‘thijs’ for the tip…
