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What interactives can do (that articles can’t) It’s a tough time for interactives. Last year saw debates around whether the format is dead (or not) and it’s difficult not to notice an industry-wide trend away from interactive graphics using live code and towards static images and ai2html. There are many good reasons for this: better understanding of reader behaviour, a move away from confusing unstructured and nonlinear structures to linear ones, design limitations imposed by mobile devices, third-party platforms for redistributing articles — such as Google AMP or Facebook Instant Articles — that don’t support custom scripting and complex content,...

llustrations by Heinrich Strub for Das Feuerzeug (The Tinderbox / Fyrtøiet) by H. C. Andersen (Switzerland, 1956) Michael at Stopping Off Place kindly donated these scans, and then the actual (eye-popping) book. If you are wondering what it could possibly be about, read the plot on wikipedia. Illustrator bio by Atlantis-Verlag ["Heinrich" is a pseudonym]:Heiri Strub was born in 1916 and trained as a typesetter, then becoming a graphic designer and a painter. From 1945, he was working as a freelance artist. He illustrated books for young adults, and modern fiction. His colourful picture books, allowing a fresh view of...

The art of Joseph Christian Leyendecker from the 20's, to the music of Jazz Age: Hot Sounds of the 20's and 30's. This is the 20’s follow on, Part 2, to the Oughts and 10’s previously posted. The 30’s is still to come. Leyendecker was a mentor of Norman Rockwell, who eventually took over the Saturday Evening Post illustration work from Leyendecker.

A lot of my ideas, like this one, are random thoughts that pop into my mind and then I just go with it and see how it ends up...

I haven't posted in a while because I started doing projects that are more time intensive. I decided to stop doing graphics/memes for the most part, in favor of going back to my first love, illustration.I still plan to do the occasional graphic like this one I created recently... But I missed drawing and illustrating, and I essentially gave it up to create all of the graphics I've created over the years because I don't have time to do both. Anyway, here are a couple of pieces I was fairly happy with, and I wanted to share them here. :-)...

Culture Correct is a side project that I'm working on at Tumblr (follow me here) and Facebook (like the page here) that posts "culturally correct" content that wouldn't be a good fit at The Looking Spoon.I'm also using this to focus on original graphics that are based more on iconography and illustration rather than the Photoshop work and memes normally seen at TLS. I also want to try to create pieces here that will be a bit more timeless conceptually, as most memes tend to be more of a snapshot in time. Here are some of the original designs that...

If you spend any time in the cereal aisle, I don't have to tell you that the folks who make Pop-Tarts are always coming up with crazy new combinations of flavors. But you may not realize that for every new variety of toaster pastry that makes it to the greengrocer's shelves, there are dozens of experimental flavors that don't make the cut. Here are some concepts that were rejected, for one reason or another. THERE ARE MORE! Please see More rejected Pop-Tart flavors.

A memorial illustration for Trooper Steven R. Smith of the Oklahoma Highway Patrol.

There's no helping you. This site is now just a diversion -- like a train wreck. This site is inherently for and about raving egomaniacs, and Jim's site policies -- which amount to excluding reality and actual dialogue in favor of political/militaristic pornography -- is conducive to cognitive dissonance, which at the times your worldview is threatened leads you into psychotic breaks (on the political cognitive plane, that is, and just maybe in other realms too). Not to mention that your baseline politics is based in mythology about American demographics, science, economics, ethics etc. You spoonfeed each other in the...

The article follows... Hi everybody. Have been following the Commercial art=Bad art thread for a couple of days and wanted to throw in my two cents. On the topic of 'commercial illustration=bad art' and Rockwell, Parrish, and N. C. Wyeth, et al. be damned: I can't say I agree. If one has to say that the damning detail of the art was the fact that Rockwell had to accept guidelines as to what he was to paint (i.e. paint Santa having milk and cookies for our December issue of The Saturday Evening Post) so then his art isn't art, but...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2002 December 31 A Year of Assessing Astronomical Hazards Drawing Credit: Dan Durda (SWRI) Explanation: Could an asteroid destroy civilization on Earth? Mountain-sized space rocks could potentially impact the Earth causing global effects, and perhaps even be mistaken for a nuclear blast of terrestrial origin. Such large impacts are rare but have happened before. Modern telescopes have therefore begun to scan the skies for signs of approaching celestial...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2002 October 11 Fomalhaut Dust Disk Indicates Planets Drawing Credit: David A. Hardy, ROE, ATC, NSF, NASA Explanation: One of the brightest stars on the sky likely has planets. Fomalhaut, actually the 17th brightest star in the night sky, is a mere 22 light-years away but only a fraction of the age of our Sun. Recent observations in far infrared light with a detector cooled to near zero...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2002 June 24 The Sun's Heliosphere & Heliopause Credit & Copyright: P. C. Frisch (U. Chicago) et al., U. Indiana Explanation: Where does the Sun's influence end? Nobody is sure. Out past the orbits of Neptune and Pluto extends a region named the heliosphere where the Sun's magnetic field and particles from the Solar Wind continue to dominate. The surface where the Solar Wind drops below sound speed...