Product Design

Polar Bear Rug
by Form Us With Love

Wallpaper* magazine has brought together and briefed some of the world’s leading designers, craftsmen and manufacturers to produce unique furniture, fittings, foodstuffs, fashion and more. The 2010 August Handmade issue is dedicated to this astonishing collection of one-off designs and delicacies, chronicling their production and presentation at this year’s Salone del Mobile. Form Us With Love collaborated with woven vinyl flooring company Bolon to design and produce this polar bear rug.

A traditional bear rug, with a not-so-traditional method of design and material of production. Using Photosynth, a software that enables a picture to be converted into 3D, and then reversing the process through Pepakura Designer (a software used by paper-modelling craftsmen to create fold-and-tab geometric cuts-outs for paper crafts), Form Us With Love turned a model of a polar bear into a design for a rug. The rug was then machine cut out of white Bolon vinyl flooring. More complex, perhaps, than shooting and skinning, but better for the bears.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  Form Us with Love is a design house based in Stockholm. It was formed in 2005 and it aims to challenge conventional through its design initiatives in developing everyday objects, furniture and lightings.
 
http://www.formuswithlove.se/

Fine Art

Jonathan Yeo - The Portrait Artist

Jonathan Yeo is a British artist who rose to prominence in the 1990s as a contemporary portraitist.
He is best known internationally for his portrayal of George W Bush. After a commission to paint the US president was reportedly awarded and then withdrawn, Yeo took it upon himself to create an image of the President anyway, making a collaged portrait from pornographic magazines. The work has led to Yeo exhibiting more collages – mainly portraits and nudes – made the same way. Some of the famous personalities done include Paris Hilton, Hugh Hefner and Lucian Freud.

Charles Saumarez-Smith, former Director of the National Gallery and Royal Academy, said of the porn-collage of Lucian Freud, "Yeo is the young rising star of portraiture and Freud is the acknowledged master. It’s a homage that has its tradition in the past. Painters would quite often do portraits of other artists they admired. Admittedly this one of Freud is rather different as Yeo has used this other dimension – people’s private parts."
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
   
http://www.jonathanyeo.com/

Persona (Fashion)

Milan Vukmirovic

He is a man with many hats!
The French designer has about a dozen other entries to add to his job description.

First and foremost, Vukmirovic is the creative force behind the Italian luxury house Trussardi. He is also a renowned fashion photographer, who has shot campaigns for top brands like Armani, Hugo Boss, Lacoste, and Trussardi itself.

He’s made use of his photo skills for his other career, as the editor of the quarterly magazine he launched in 2005, L’Officiel Hommes.

And, in case anyone missed the man who once helped establish the Parisian store Colette as the premiere place to be caught shopping, Vukmirovic opened his own store, The Webster, (along with co-owners Laure Heriard Dubreuil and Frederic Dechnik) in Miami earlier this year.

Fine Art

The Invisible Artist: Liu Bolin

Liu Bolin is an artist from Shandong, China, who camouflaged himself into the surroundings. He claims his works as making a statement about his place in society. He sees himself as an outsider whose artistic efforts are not always valued, especially in his native country.

Standing silently in front of his chosen scene, in locations all around the world, the 36-year-old uses himself as a blank canvas. Then, with a little help from an assistant, he paints his body to merge as seamlessly as possible with what is behind him.
 He added that the inspiration behind his work was a sense of not fitting in to modern society and was a silent protest against the persecution of artists. He said: 'Some people call me the invisible man, but for me it's what is not seen in a picture which is really what tells the story.

'After graduating from school I couldn't find suitable work and I felt there was no place for me in society.

I experienced the dark side of society, without social relations, and had a feeling that no one cared about me, I felt myself unnecessary in this world.'
 'From that time, my attitude turned from dependence into revolting against the system.'

Liu said he was further pushed on with his work when the Chinese authorities shut down his art studio in Beijing in 2005.

Visual Art

Collage Work

This is a great site housing a wide collection of Collage artists and their work.
http://www.kohlage.com/

Fashion

Viktor & Rolf
(Men's SS 2010/2011)

Their men's collections are always dandy and preppy, modelled entirely out of  their personal style and what they always like to wear. The SS 2010 and 2011 collections are elegant, understated and mostly in wearable pale pastel tones.

 Check out their official site: http://www.viktor-rolf.com/index.htm, very enchanting and magical. Their women's collections are also more dramatic and of fine couture.