:: Studio On Fire’s Positive Apocalypse ::

Studio On Fire’s 2012 calendar is titled the “Positive Apocalypse Edition.”

It has art from six different contributors, including Studio On Fire, each illustrating two months. Although each contributor has a different aesthetic, the common theme and color palette bring all the pieces together into one great calendar.

Each month is letterpress printed on a separate card, which fits into an included stand for display. This isn’t their first calendar, they also have 2010 and 2011 editions.

:: JooHee Yoon ::

JooHee Yoon is a printmaker and illustrator currently living in Massachusetts. Her work has appeared in The New York Times and the Boston Globe, among many other places.

I love the imaginative worlds she creates in her pieces and the beautiful textures of her prints.  While much of her work (including the second and third images below) is created to illustrate magazine articles, each one also works beautifully as an individual piece of art. My favorite is “Monster Cat,” the first image below, which was made as a personal project. I love the expression on the cat monster’s face.

:: Lab Partners ::

“Lab Partners is the design and illustration studio of Sarah Labieniec and Ryan Meis. Inspired by nature, travel and their animal companions, the husband and wife team work together as a means to share and explore what they love.” — From the Lab Partners about page.

Their work is beautiful and inspiring. I love the hawk below, which is part of their “California Gold” poster series celebrating the natural beauty of their state.

My other favorite, the camera, (third image down) is part of a series called “Hunt and Gather,” inspired by the experience of finding interesting things at a flea market.

:: HandpaintedType ::

HandpaintedType is a project helping to preserve the work of Indian street painters by digitizing their alphabets.

Many are being driven out of business by shops printing vinyl signs, putting this beautiful craft at risk. Hanif Kureshi is working to turn some of the painters’ work into fonts. Half of the money from the sale of each font goes back to the painter, the other half goes to fund the project.

One of the fonts, Painter Umesh (the first shown below), is even available for free. There is also a gallery of hand painted signs on the site.

:: Carl Warner’s Foodscapes ::

If you liked playing with your food as a kid, you’ll love Carl Warner’s photographs.

The UK artist creates incredible images of landscapes out of food. It’s amazing how realistic some of his scenes look, until you realize those trees are made of broccoli!

He does commissioned pieces, but many of his works are personal projects. Warner creates them all by hand, with only minor Photoshopping. He has also recently released a book, Carl Warner’s Food Landscapes.

:: Noma Bar ::

Noma Bar does amazing work with negative space. I love how his illustrations, at first, appear as a single bold image. Then as you look a little closer, another image appears. He is able to convey complex messages in his deceptively simple-looking pieces. His book Negative Space is a beautiful collection of his work. He also just did a show at the London Design Festival with a huge dog-shaped cutting machine that allowed people to cut their own pieces of his work, which he then signed as part of a limited edition series.

:: Mary Kate McDevitt ::

Mary Kate McDevitt creates beautiful hand lettering. She is a freelance illustrator and artist living in Portland. Various pieces of her work have been floating around the internet for the last few weeks. And for good reason. She has done commissioned work for several companies in addition to personal projects. She also has an Etsy shop where she sells most of her lettering pieces as cards and prints along with her Mini Goals Chalkboards.

:: Type Fight!!!!! ::

I love this new lettering-related project. The creators describe Type Fight as “a project to distract Drew Roper and Ryan Paule from their day-to-day grind. Each week (hopefully) they will design the same character and pin them against each other in the typographic ring to battle it out for best looking letter.”

How do they decide which letter is the best looking? We get to vote!

It’s a great idea and, although it seems to be just starting out, there is already some beautiful work from the creators and some guest designers. It also reminds me of Typophile’s Type Battles, although I like Type Fight’s quick and simple format of only two people and one letter at a time. I can’t wait to see more!

:: Lumadessa ::

I love the simplicity and boldness of these posters from Lumadessa. Josh Brill, a designer from Portland, Maine, is the artist behind the label. There are a series of birds, extinct animals and one of mammals. I love the owls and some of the other birds. But I think some of the mammals, especially the giraffe, zebra, rhino and polar bear are really well done. They also have some beautiful iPhone wallpapers of birds. Lumadessa donates 5% of their profits to “Animal and Environmental charities.”

:: Ebon Heath’s Stereo.type ::

Ebon Heath creates amazing typographic sculptures and jewelry. He is an artist and designer who bides his time between Brooklyn, Bali and Berlin. He calls the pieces in his Stereo.type series “a synthesis of our typographic language with the physical expression of our body language.” He has also created pieces for performance art, turning his sculptural work into costumes for dance pieces. I would love to see his work in person.