The Import

Sheffield has long been a hotbed of cutting edge design talent – just take The Designers Republic for example – and the rather wonderful creative studio DED are just one of the number of agencies that are keeping the city’s reputation going. Blurring the lines between art, product design, graphic design, branding and so forth, [...]

Art Designers Graphic Design Illustration Studios

Laura Encursiva
The fifth and final installment of my Import Takeover is a selection of photographers whose works I’ve really been enjoying of late…

Import Takeover Inspirations MR.FRIVOLOUS Photography

David Bray
This selection is slightly different… I’ve selected a few artists that have inspired me along the years to pursue what I’m doing today. I used to read about some of these guys years ago in magazines like Juxtapoz and online from sites like Fecal Face.

Features Illustration Import Takeover Inspirations MR.FRIVOLOUS

Today’s pick is jeweller and artist Daisuke Sakaguchi. He manages to take his graffiti skills of the walls and use them to create beautiful jewellery as well as design bespoke fashion and furniture pieces. His clientele includes the likes of Elton John, David Furnish, Kelly Osbourne, Kelis and Rhianna…

Graffiti Import Takeover Inspiration MR.FRIVOLOUS Product Design Products Street Art

My second selection of inspirations comes from London’s John Paul Thurlow, who also happens to work with pencils. His goal is to recreate all the magazines he owns in his own unique style, hence the name of his blog… ‘Covers‘ – “This is an attempt to recreate cover art for every great magazine and record [...]

Art Drawing Features Import Takeover Inspiration Magazine Design MR.FRIVOLOUS

Monday’s pick is a selection of pencil drawings from Bree Dentice who is an artist living in New Zealand…

Art Drawing Illustration Import Takeover Inspirations MR.FRIVOLOUS

As part of a regular new feature here at The Import, we’re going to be letting some of our favourite artists, designers and all-round creatives, take over for a week at a time, posting their inspirations, current picks and, well, whatever they want really. This week we’ve got London’s mysterious illustrator and sometime street artist, [...]

Features Import Takeover Inspiration MR.FRIVOLOUS

Looking very much like photo-realistic paintings, these are actually photographs from the brilliantly talented Parisian, Alain Delorme… whether these are elegantly photoshopped or have been rather impressively staged, the one thing that’s a dead-cert is that their alluring beauty is wonderfully mystifying. Evolving from the photographer’s fascination with Chinese workers and their uneasily stacked delivery [...]

Artists china Exhibitions Galleries Paris Photographers

Young artist Alex Roulette, Ohio born – Brooklyn based, is somewhat of a talent… his beautiful and elegant photo-realistic style allows him to “explore the distinctions between photographic and painted space”. Gracefully juxtaposing reality with sophisticated surrealism, Roulette latest exhibition was entitled “Fabricated Realism” – a caption that brilliant summarises his propensity to add a [...]

America Art Inspirations Painting

Being a Brit, jaunts to the States have always led to a certain level of confusion when handling their notes – especially after a few ales in the Lower East Side – thanks to their uniformed size and colour… it’s surely a consideration that UK/US agency Dowling Duncan has considered, as their entry for the [...]

America Brand Identity Business commercial Finance Graphic Design Studios

Australian twins Andrew and Mark Moffitt produce – under the name of Moffitt.Moffitt – a dazzling array of obscenely good work for clients, along with a number of beautiful self initiated projects – such as their brilliant large format music magazine, DEMO, and book series Realisations of Grandeur, in collaboration with photographer Stephen Ward, both [...]

Art Direction Australia Brand Identity Graphic Design Music Newspapers Photography Publications Studios

With an elegant lo-fi illustrative style, that predominantly features ink, pencil and felt-tips, First Class graduate Niki Pilkington splits her time between Paris and her North Wales studio, and that disparity in culture and people can be seen throughout her works. Niki’s endearing brand of biro rendered voyeurism is both charming and so very ‘of [...]

fashion Illustration London North Wales

With an intriguing passion for all that sparkles, a fascination with ‘hookers’ and a fanatical obsession for cute Japanese toys, Southern California raised – of Polish descent – Natalia Fabia, is a massively unique proposition, a ridiculously talented, photo-realistic painter with a devilish punk-rock attitude. Her latest exhibition, ”Fashionable Aftertaste Without End” features twelve oil [...]

Art Artists California Exhibitions Japan Painting Toys

We’re loving these typography illustrations from Illinois designer, Dan Beckemeyer. Whilst we may unequivocally agree that pizza can simply not be consumed without the aid of beer, we’re stumped on the peanut butter and jelly one…. is this an American thing guys?

Food Graphic Design Illustration Restaurants Typography

“Some say he’s the ‘Master of pens’.
Some call him the ‘Shoreditch Beat Busketeer’.
Some say he fucks about for a living.”
The information on Mr Bingo’s website sums himself, and his work, up rather well. He’s an illustrator that certainly doesn’t take himself too seriously – and that makes him the perfect choice for clients after top [...]

Art Illustration Inspirations London Magazine Design

You may recall us writing a little while back about Miami-based art collective FriendsWithYou and their commission to take over Toronto with their unique experiential installations. Unfortunately we didn’t get a chance to catch it for ourselves, but we recently got some great pictures from the various events and exhibitions sent through, and just wanted [...]

Art Canada Cartoons Character Design Exhibitions Galleries Illustration Installations

For most people, cutting shapes out of bits of paper is something we tend to stop doing in primary school – for Los Angeles native Jeff Nishinaka however it’s a way of life, at least that’s how it would seem…. the intricacy and detail on display in his mesmerising paper sculptures certainly suggest such dedication……

Art Artists Exhibitions Inspirations Installations Los Angeles Paper

We’re loving the splendid fusion of retroism and futurism that San Francisco agency Cutwater, with a little help from illustrators Sebastian Onufszak and Sakke Soini, have achieved on these rather brilliant Ray-Ban posters….

Advertising Art Direction Brands Contemporary Futuristic Graphic Design Illustration Marketing Modern Retro