Блоги: заметки с тегом art

The Journey into Color

Robert — Mon, 07 Apr 2025 01:36:17 +0500

The Giracolore is a spin-art machine pertaining to the new popular tradition of Italian toys:

Raffaele Cesano, the Giracolore’s creator, asked me to make a book with its history and practical uses.

“The Journey into Color” (Il viaggio nel colore) is now the first book I have fully designed, and perhaps even my biggest design work yet. Its copies now come with every device put on sale.

The client

Raffaele is a schoolteacher-turned-toymaker. He’s especially good at crafting traditional toys and games, like spinning tops, smol carousels, and wooden acrobats. He is fascinated with color in motion.

Process

Raffaele first gave me a bunch of material: pictures, informational texts, and stories. Some things would be repeated across four different texts, but each one would have something useful of its own. I read them all and then wove them into a fluent narrative. Every now and then, I would meet Raffaele to refine the text together. I also took some disc pics myself.

I learned a lot about book design while working on this. For example:

The placement of punctuation and line breaks affects legibility. A line break at the wrong syllable can make a word appear to be a different one.
Consistency in punctuation colors and weights is a science of its own!

Outcome

I chose a 13×18 cm format for the book so it would fit perfectly into the Giracolore’s 13.5×19 cm box. Nothing is arbitrary here: the disc on the cover is the size of a real one. I made sure each spread had at least some color.

The imprint page and its adjacent table of contents are stunning: the gradient title, the rare NB ligature, the Italian cockade (which looks like a Giracolore disc!), the frame…

The book begins with a short introduction to the Giracolore and proceeds with spin-art’s history. Notice the alignment of the words “bellezza” on the left page:

The book then delves into color psychology:

And culminates with stories metaphorically illustrated with the Giracolore. Here’s one of them, The Little Blonde Girl, with the parallelism principle at work:

Some pages encourage to make one’s own disc and glue it in:

The book ends with an invitation to take a look at Raffaele’s other projects and to contact him:

The book is set in three styles of Apfel Grotesk: Regular, Fett, and Brukt (for the “stick your disc here” label).

Conclusion

The book is the best introduction to the Giracolore, vividly showing the device’s value for children, teachers, artists, storytellers, and therapists.

Good design is never boring.

The client’s review

Robert has visually arranged The Journey into Color with great success and has helped me introduce it to the public.

Robert has various qualities: his youthful energy gave me confidence to express what I felt. I had fun letting him do his thing, letting him express and interpret my ideas. Everyone has the right to play the game they enjoy the most.

The result is what I wanted.

I initially hesitated to pay in advance, but during the course of the work, I saw Robert’s reliability firsthand.

Enjoy the colors!

Genoa in 2024

Robert — Fri, 27 Sep 2024 12:31:38 +0500

Robert:

A number plaque:

Spooky typography:

Poster against war:

Vandals against war:

“Warning — gentrification in progress”:

Textiles from Central Asia:

Venice outtakes (September 2023)

Robert — Sun, 10 Mar 2024 23:33:06 +0500

Robert:

Less than a month after changing trains at Mestre, I unexpectedly got to see the real deal: Venice proper.

It is a designer’s wonderland. It would also be the best city to live in (much beauty, no cars) if it wasn’t for the frequent flooding.

See the video I made for Ribis for the landmarks. This post contains the parts that didn’t make the cut.

A canal:

A singing gondolier:

Splendid Venice:

Intercoms combined with mailboxes:

Free Assange:

Colorful cube in Mestre:

Tende in February 2024

Robert — Thu, 22 Feb 2024 00:29:55 +0500

Robert:

A colorful onion:

Wayfinding:

“Shoes”:

Doors:

Mountains:

Poggio and Bussana Vecchia in December 2023

Robert — Sun, 31 Dec 2023 00:22:39 +0500

Robert:

Poggio and Bussana Vecchia are Sanremo’s outlying hamlets.

Poggio

Nice typeface:

Forsaken car:

Bussana Vecchia

Rocky:

Cool art installation:

“Gone with the wind”:

“Fabric fables”:

Pottery:

Other art pieces:

Ribis in Venice

Robert — Thu, 21 Dec 2023 22:57:21 +0500

Robert:

Less than a month after walking around Mestre, I was invited to make a video for the artist Ribis in Venice proper:

You can buy his paintings, lamps, and tables from Authentics Art Gallery.

Sci-fi drill droid inkpen drawing

nd — Tue, 12 Dec 2023 11:43:03 +0500

nd:

Снова взял перо в руки после полуторамесячного перерыва (отходняка) после инктобера.

Sci-fi drill droid

Рисовал по видео от Ramshackle — How To Draw A Droid — Drawing From Imagination — Sci-fi Pen & Ink Tutorial

Inktober → ZXgfxtober

nd — Mon, 11 Dec 2023 16:01:05 +0500

nd:

В октябре 2023 кроме инктобера еще и пиксельный челлендж осилил. Неожиданно, в чатике пиксельных художников на zx spectrum образовалась идея: параллельно с инктобером провести свой челлендж и быстренько придумали 31 тему для пиксельных картинок на весь октябрь.

Это было бесконечно сложно — тянуть оба челленджа и выдавать стабильно работы в оба, но я справился.

Все работы в нативном формате как всегда в моей галерее на zxart.

Inktober 2023

nd — Sat, 11 Nov 2023 23:30:05 +0500

nd:

С октябрём у меня в последние пару-тройку лет есть 2 ассоциации: челленндж Inktober (который я в прошлом году в телеграме показывал и одна музыкальная композиция группы «Насморк» под названием «Синий октябрь».

В прошлом году я выдержал Inktober, а вернее даже Pixeltober т. к. рисовал в пиксельарте — 31 картинку за 31 день. Было круто, но сложно. После окончания выдохнул и сказал себе, что больше ни за что и никогда. А в этом году случайно вписался снова 😏

Решил, что в этом году попробую традиционные инструменты — чернила и перо, заодно и потренируюсь. Возможно сойду с дистанции, но как минимум что-то попробую сделать.

Самое интересное, что в канальчике пиксель-художников на zx spectrum вдруг вспомнили про мой прошлогодний пиксель-челлендж и замутили zxgfxtober... Оооооооооххххх...

Получается 2 челленджа в октябре 2023! И я их успешно закончил. 31 картинка традиционными чернилами и линерами и 31 картинка в пиксельарте для zx spectrum.

Вот что получилось у меня в блокнотике на Inktober 2023:

А про пиксельарт в следующий раз.

Reana del Roiale in August and September 2023

Robert — Wed, 25 Oct 2023 13:42:37 +0500

Robert:

Outdoors:

A number plaque:

Accidental modern street-art:

A sanctuary:

A home:

Inside an artist’s home:

Udana

Robert — Tue, 01 Aug 2023 00:11:34 +0500

Robert:

Villa Cusona in June and July 2022

Robert — Mon, 05 Jun 2023 11:08:02 +0500

Robert:

Nearby river:

Road sign:

Address plaque:

The key:

The villa, built in year 998:

The views:

The terrace:

The family tree:

A repurposed bottle:

The museum:

The wine cellar:

The wineyards:

Sputnik the dog:

A salamander:

Me:

And is that another Sirian craft in the top-left corner?

Badalucco in May 2023

Robert — Fri, 12 May 2023 15:06:12 +0500

Robert:

The bus ticket:

A lone poppy:

Woven typography:

Doors:

Holes:

Cool logo for a butcher:

Gas:

House number plaque:

~~Street~~ Outdoor art:

Puni Albin’s creations:

Some other installation:

Beauty

Robert — Wed, 03 May 2023 12:35:51 +0500

Robert:

Beauty is the symbol of good, and nature is the greatest source of it. Beauty and truth are inescapably linked.

We’re being surrounded with ugliness so we become nihilistic. Modern art is literally a CIA psyöp; drag queens are demons’ contractors. Beware the nation that embosoms postmodernism.

Let’s surround ourselves with beauty.