a little christmas treat

*ho ho ho* and merry christmas to you all, hope you're having a good one! if you're interested in creative writing and looking for a fun and diverse read for the holidays, check out pandora #7, the literary magazine of the english creative writing courses at vhs frankfurt: layout and illustrations by me - and 4 texts as well, because i can do that, too! hope you enjoy my little burst of magenta magic ... feedback is always welcome! :) you can find some of my favourite spreads and my four texts below.
p.s. it's available for download at the vhs frankfurt homepage!



 

in production

hello there ... autumn says hi, it sends lots of rain and heating hugs and sun spelly kisses!
it is also a good time to stay in and catch up on some work. for example, i started on my things-to-draw-and-turn-into-patterns list last week - here are a few ideas i'm playing around with:

likey likey

is on (german) facebook now.

ladies and gentlemen ...

... i present you the sexiest actor of 2013. who? why, it's benedict cumberbatch, of course, silly! looking forward to "the fifth estate" and "august: osage county" - <3

hello again

whilst in berlin, i stayed at my cousin marion's and finally got to see how her print of my portrait of her turned out - it has a great place on her study wall, "looking out the window". and i love the colour combination with that sofa!

illustrative recap

a few weeks ago i went to a wedding in berlin, which was very grand and lovely. but the first thing i did - after stepping out of the s-bahn at alexanderplatz and checking into my hotel - was find my way to the illustrative exhibition at the beautiful old direktorenhaus. it was basically around the corner, but i somehow managed to ignore the way the stickers on the ground tried to show me. following the sunny path along the canal was just too lovely, i suppose. so i got a bit lost, which isn't such a bad thing, especially in berlin ...

as i said, the building is quite old and really beautiful, it curiously sits surrounded by new blocks of houses and offices, like a last bastion of the old berlin. the art inside was all new, of course, here are some snaps of the things i enjoyed ...

agata nowicka created this image of what my bedroom looks like in her pretty, slightly pixelated style

this is a detail of one of tal granot's lovely inky sexy happy paintings of sport clubs

eiko ojala makes pictures that look like papercut silhouettes but aren't (all digital)

out of context #13

our lucky number thirteen on out of context this week is all about doggy style ... or, to quote aldous huxley, "to his dog, every man is napoleon; hence the constant popularity of dogs" - yes, sir!

first batch

you can now buy some of my postcards at the lovely café ortells in frankfurt, rödelheim! have a coffee or a refreshing currant spritzer and let the charming owner özlem show you all the little handmade goodies and beautiful design knickknacks in store ... then pick a card (or two, or three) to write to that old friend you haven't seen in a while, or to cheer up your own wall, or both!

photo via ortells

out of context #12

"there seems to be no reason why the unicorn shouldn't exist." (from "fabulous beasts" by peter lum)
- with camels, rhinos and anteaters already present, definitely! i came across this gem of a sentence for outofcontext
at my new part-time job: digitising books. everything from freud to bambi ...

i couldn't quite decide on the colours, so here you go ...

but the camel is definitely my favourite, on green and pink - go on, have two (almost) kissing camels! :)

out of context #11

"and because we have nothing but this floating slab of dirt and ice that we cling to, we wish for this, our one life - this fleeting minute in the face of the rainbow spanning the spray and vapor of the abyss - to be a happy one, that we'll be given the abundance of earth, the short time it manages to carry us, the only, if pathetic, mercy we have been awarded." - my translation of this week's sentence on out of context by the great friedrich dürrenmatt.

out of context #10

this week's sentence is about how there's three kinds of people, those who seek comfort in books, those who seek it in their appearance, and those who seek it in food. it's from the lovely "the little white horse" by elizabeth goudge, which i got for my birthday and read in one go. the sketch is a teensy nod to world book day, which somehow passed me by ... but then, birthdays are always book days - and in this house, EVERY day is a book day!

business, baby!

my - first ever - business cards from moo.com have arrived ... :)

out of context #9

this one took a while, let's blame the holidays ... just a quick sketch of the first idea that popped into my head. suburbia equals white picket fences - very american and a bit of a cliché, i must admit. i actually like those fences ... ah well, nevermind. :) there's a new sentence waiting on out of context ...

cute and tasty

here are my entries for tigerprint's design competition, the assignment was to create a male pattern. i didn't make it onto the winner's shortlist, but this is something i want to keep up ... the pig is a cutout i made approximately 20 years ago for a birthday card and unearthed last weekend at my parents'! i scanned it and then tried my hand at the pattern repeat thingy, which takes some practising. to make it more fun i added the "bacon stripes" (gotta have some pink in there, especially for the males!). next up on tigerprint is the female pattern, by the way ...

out of context #8

"if you call me one more time, i'll kill you!" - a slightly aggressive easter assignment from out of context with a superb solution by julia and my humble effort, as seen below. getting into pattern and repeats lately, funny how this one already reflects that ...

out of context #7

"the images i had found in milan and paris weren't enough." - find more images to illustrate this sentence on out of context and feel free to submit some of your own! the more the merrier ... :)

sleepy gif

illustration friday "eye glasses"

"... good friends we lost along the way ..." - like this pair, the last one that i broke. a little bit sad, no?

out of context #6

seems everybody's doing their paperwork right now, and man, did it have an impact on last week's sentence on out of context ... which was taken straight off the pages of a network provider contract, apparently.

illustration friday "yesterday"

not an easy one, so ... this is literally what sandy and me did yesterday. lemon muffins, green tea and girl talk. good times! :)

from my window

it started around two hours ago, now it's all gone.

out of context #5

monkey boy with his favourite toy ... last week's sentence on out of context was taken from mikael niemi's "popular music from vittula": "fluffy little boys with dimples transformed into big-nosed baboons with protruding canines."

out of context #4

wow. it's actually warm outside (at least during the day), it's spring! yay! - and on a more irritating note, a sweaty summer and swarming midges aren't far off, probably. i am too lazy right now to translate last week's sentence properly, but it was something about things flying around and buzzing, so here goes ...

(note the lovely lit background, that's a romantic little square in st. pauli, hamburg)

out of context #3

last week's sentence, "wir müssen den verlorenen faden wiederfinden, sagst du", roughly translates to "we have to find the lost thread, you say". from italo calvino's "if on a winter's night a traveler". find more loose threads on out of context and feel free to submit something for next week!

illustration friday "wool"

cumberbatched #1: sherlock

out of context #2

... ain't she cute? phrase of the week was "your nose is punk".
you can find more punked facial extremities including a truly wicked piece of needlework by marion and this week's sentence on out of context.

illustration friday "storm"

i finally got around to submitting another something to illustration friday, yay! bring on the weekly challenges, i say ... this week's topic is "storm", and mine is (unconsciously but undoubtedly) inspired by the carnival season.

out of context #1

our weekly illustration challenge returns with "out of context", a new blog set up by marcibel. the rules have changed a bit from "das, was kommt" - to a square format, and the sentence in question can come from anywhere, not just a book. last week's text, "die sushi strahlt mich an", which roughly translates to "the sushi is beaming at me", inspired me to this:

p.s. somehow, my favourite thing about this is the logo-ed soy sauce fishy.

p.p.s. i came across this week's sentence at the annual show of the städel art school here in frankfurt. sadly, i don't remember the artist's name who used it, but it sure did stick with me: "your nose is punk". if you'd like to participate, just send your name and your illustration (drawing, digital, photo, whatever you like, as long as it's square!) to outofcontext, preferably a .jpg no bigger than 600x600 px and 72 dpi.

i heart issuu

while looking for a way to publish a web-zine earlier today, i rediscovered issuu. create an account, upload your pdf or other docs, and *badabing* your publication appears on your virtual shelf, ready to be thumbed through by the world! you can of course limit access as well. AND you can read hundreds of great zines online! to me this seems a really great way to make my editorial work accessible to future clients - and a fantastic incentive to whip up some new layouts. first up is my diploma book on information overload from 2007 (in german, i'm afraid), you can also find the link in the right toolbar. will be adding more soon ...

file under "zinekat"! :)







it snakes up on you ...

... this new year 2013. year of the water snake in china, so that's where the inspiration for my new year's card stems from. that and memories of collecting dark pebbles veined with white letters on a walk along the river iller with marcibel. as always sorry for the delay, but then again, if it wasn't late, it wouldn't be my style ... happy new one, everybody!

get cookin'

... you know when you're drawing a character, and just when you think you're finished, you mess up the face or the legs or a hand -? that's what happened here, and then i had the glorious idea to make a cutout and just use the good bits, yay! so this is my colleague kathrin in three pieces, wearing her rocking red boots. she's in an apron-thingy wielding a spoon because the present accompanying the card was a lovely cookbook (with photos by my other colleague, julia).