Ghost of Gone Birds

This is Ben Newman's beautiful new illustration of the now extinct Bishop's O' O' bird for the Ghost of Gone Birds exhibition in Liverpool.  The aim of the exhibition is to help raise awareness and money for bird preservation societies so that hopefully we can prevent more species of birds from becoming extinct.  Over 80 artists and designers have been taking part in the project, including Jamie Hewlett, Ralph Steadman and many more. 

You can see more of Ben's gorgeous illustrations here. 

The Stickerbomb is back!

The SRK are at it again - the fabulous 'stickers only' book is back!  Since its initial release in 2008 the Stickerbomb has gone on to showcase a range of artists from all over the globe.  Stickers from the Stickerbomb have decorated everything from TV sets in the UK to crazy custom cars, to ice cream vans and just about everywhere else in between.

The theme of the new Stickerbomb is 'Letters (as in alphabet) and Monsters'. For more details on how to submit illustrations, and of course for more info on Stickerbomb and The SRK, click here.

Grainedit

Ben Newman's recent 'Masks' project has received some incredible feedback and great critical acclaim so far, with yet more to come we are sure.  One of his beautiful masks features on the front page of the grainedit blog, where his style was described as 'fresh and unique with its fun characters, bright colours, fuzzy textures, and complex layering of shape, and this piece from the developing 'masks' series is no exception'.  Keep up the good work Ben!  We hope you love it as much as we do.  

Check out Ben's portfolio here

IC4 Design and the Communication Arts Illustration Annual

We love good news and great illustration at Pocko, so we were delighted when we found out IC4Design feature in the Communication Arts Illustration Annual 2011!  This is yet another award for these hard-working guys and we hope there are many more to come...

IC4 Design are an illustration collective based in Hiroshima, Japan.  Have a look at their amazing portfolio here!

News from Mexico...

Our very own Jorge Alderete has been busy recently:

Gallo Negro at Museum of Modern Art, Mexico City

May 19 th / 20:00 hs.

Admission free

Adrress: Paseo de la Reforma y Gandhi s/n,

Bosque de Chapultepec, México City.

 

Gallo Negro is a project that incorporates the psychedelic sound of 70's Peruvian cumbia, mixing it with garage attitude. Farfisa Organ, Fuzz guitars, and the unforgettable guiro are the main ingredients of the lysergic cumbia of this band. Genres such as Chicha, Amazon Cumbia and Boogaloo are present when the band formed by members of the Twin Tones, Telekrimen and designer Dr. Alderete (Jorge Alderete), takes  the stage ... Hypnotic drawings are developed by Dr. Alderete with his selfmade Tagtool.

 

The Tagtool is a tool for real-time visual performance in both indoor and outdoor spaces. Generally the system is operated in collaboration between an artist who draws pictures and an animator adding movement to them using a Jostick. The Tagtool offers unlimited artistic complexity with a simple set of controls.

Like a musical instrument, works intuitively making tight integration between image and music.

 

www.jorgealderete.com/online/gallonegro

Kinpro and the Frozen Yogurt Shop...

We're very excited about this one, particularly with summer approaching!  Two of our favourite things, Kinpro and delicious frozen yogurt join forces to form this dream of a project.  Kinpro has been busy desiging some beautiful illustrations for the interior of Titto, a newly-opened frozen yogurt boutique in Bologna, Italy.  Kinpro works in Saoppro, Japan.  She creates forms derived from nature and her beautifully unique style translates across interiors, publications and fashions. You can see more of the project here.  

Ben Newman for Schuh 30th Birthday

Ben Newman was recently commissioned by Schuh to create a mural for their Bristol store to mark their 30th Birthday; the theme being '30 years of self expression'.  The brief was to celebrate 'everything from the shoes, the looks, the haircuts, the characters and all of the sub cultures over the past three decades and to create a campaign which portrays Schuh's personality by the way it presents and modernises archive imagery to appeal to the young of both now and then'.  Ben took on the task with great enthusiasm; creating a menagerie of weird and wonderful characters (something he does exceptionally well) wearing shoes and styles covering the past 30 years on the window of Schuh using red Posterman pens.  It took Ben a little under a day to complete the live drawing, after sketching out  a few ideas and characters initially.  The results were a huge success and Schuh absolutely loved the window art.  We think they're pretty neat too!   You can see more images like the one below on Ben's Blog