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Always a good day to highlight the creative work of designer/illustrator Christoph Niemann: a collection of map-based work, including a cheeky metaphorical recipe for an omelet. That intersection isn’t actually that outlandish: see A Bonkers Highway Interchange and Crazy Whirlpool Traffic Interchange in Dubai.
Illustrator Christoph Niemann shares 10 Things I Remind Myself Before I Draw. I’m a strong advocate of his 10th rule:
Sitting at my desk is always right. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how to make good work. There are millions of tips and tricks and manifestos out there. But at the end there’s only one single truth for me: sit down and start drawing.
(thx, matt)
In the Before Times, Netflix let teachers stream their programming in the classroom. With schools not in sessions due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Netflix has decided to put some of their educational programming on YouTube for free (full playlist here). For instance, they’ve put all 8 episodes of David Attenborough’s nature series Our Planet online in their entirety. Here’s the first episode:
The Our Planet website also has tons of educational information for schools and kids.
13th is a feature-length documentary by Ava DuVernay about how racial inequality in America drives our high incarceration rates:
13th is currently rated 97% on Rotten Tomatoes and NY Times reviewer Manohla Dargis called it “powerful, infuriating and at times overwhelming”. Here’s a discussion guide.
Eight full episodes of the first season of Abstract: The Art of Design are also available on YouTube (discussion guide). Here’s the episode featuring illustrator Christoph Niemann:
Several episodes of Vox’s series Explained are included, like this one on the racial wealth gap:
Also included are The White Helmets & Period. End of Sentence. (which each won an Oscar for Best Documentary Short Subject) as well as Knock Down The House, the documentary on the 2018 Congressional campaigns of four women (including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez). See the full list of included shows and the full playlist on YouTube.
Christoph Niemann with a clever take on the Beethoven composition for piano, Für Elise. He’s offering it as a letterpress print — but supplies are low so order quick if you want one.
And according to Niemann, the chart has been factchecked and is accurate.
National Geographic sent illustrator Christoph Niemann to Cambodia and Vietnam and he returned with this series of drawings and observations. He talked about the trip in this behind-the-scenes video.
In a region with so much natural beauty, ancient architecture, and vibrant culture, travelers can easily get stuck behind their viewfinders — consumed with capturing the most vivid moments for their photo albums and Instagram feeds. But over the years, Niemann has developed a different method of documenting his trips.
“I always drew when I traveled … I draw just to calm down essentially, so I’m not constantly checking my phone,” he says.
Niemann believes that painting and drawing his experiences creates a dialogue between his mind and a place — this process ultimately allows him to turn the lens on himself. “Essentially the drawing is like a visual filter,” he explains. “You take the world — and you take it through the abstraction of your drawing — and you start seeing differently.”
Some my favorite posts I’ve written over the past few years have been about my travel: my western roadtrip, Berlin, Istanbul, the solar eclipse. Aside from the eclipse post (which gives me goosebumps every time I reread it), I hadn’t intended to start writing about travel. Ostensibly these trips are supposed to be vacations, my time off from constantly sifting through culture for observations. But Niemann is right…there’s something about applying the creative process to unfamiliar places that that makes the experience more worthwhile. For me, photographing and taking notes for a later post gives me a much better sense of a place, forces me to pay more attention & be more open, causes me to learn about myself, and produces a written document of my trip that I can go back to and experience again.
Your periodic reminder that Christoph Niemann is an unimaginably imaginative visual storyteller. This image is one of a series for the Deutsche Oper Berlin opera company; check out more of his work on Instagram.
Abstract is an upcoming documentary series from Netflix that explores the art of design. Each of the eight episodes profiles a designer at the top of their discipline: photographer Platon, graphic designer Paula Scher, stage designer Es Devlin, illustrator Christoph Niemann, architect Bjarke Ingels, shoe designer Tinker Hatfield, interior designer Ilse Crawford, and automotive designer Ralph Gilles.
Step inside the minds of the most innovative designers in a variety of disciplines and learn how design impacts every aspect of life.
Looks like a Chef’s Table for design. All episodes will be available February 10.
Ace illustrator Christoph Niemann has a new book coming out called Words, an illustrated compilation of 300+ sight words
What can you do with a word? Read it, spell it, say it, picture it, understand it, make a sentence with it, tell a story with it, share it with a friend. Everything starts with a love of words! More than 300 words inspired by Dr. Edward Fry’s list of sight words are paired with striking and playful illustrations by internationally renowned designer and artist Christoph Niemann to deepen understanding, to enrich, and to enlighten those learning to read and write English, whether they be children or adults.
This is a recent favorite of mine by Christoph Niemann, part of a series of six animations done for MoMA.
Christoph Niemann’s Sunday Sketches are typically great, but this one from last Sunday really grabbed my attention:
So good. I am also a sucker for this one:
Christoph Niemann uses cookie dough, cookie cutters, and sprinkles to recreate the Bible’s book of Genesis. More or less.
There are a zillion definitions of simplicity. Here is Christoph Niemann’s, which he applied in building his new iOS app, Petting Zoo.
Simplicity is not about making something without ornament, but rather about making something very complex, then slicing elements away, until you reveal the very essence.
(via @djacobs)
Christoph Niemann of Abstract City and I Lego NY fame has released an iPad app for kids called Petting Zoo.
Christoph Niemann’s first interactive picture book. Swipe and tap the 21 animals and be surprised at how they react. This app combines the charm of hand made animations and Niemann’s wry humor with state of the art technology. What would an elephant in your bathroom do? Can a dog breakdance?
Four little thumbs-up in my household for this one.
Blown Covers is a new book that details the illustrations that never made it to the front cover of the New Yorker. At Imprint, Michael Silverberg interviews Françoise Mouly, the book’s author and the New Yorker’s art editor since 1993, and shares some of best rejected covers. I like this one by Christoph Niemann showing the attempted return of the Statue of Liberty to France:
“Think of me as your priest,” she told one of them. Mouly, who cofounded the avant-garde comics anthology RAW with her husband, Art Spiegelman, asks the artists she works with — Barry Blitt, Christoph Niemann, Ana Juan, R. Crumb — not to hold back anything in their cover sketches. If that means the occasional pedophilia gag or Holocaust joke finds its way to her desk, she’s fine with that. Tasteless humor and failed setups are an essential part of the process. “Sometimes something is too provocative or too sexist or too racist,” Mouly says, “but it will inspire a line of thinking that will help develop an image that is publishable.”
Lovely Japan-themed New Yorker cover this week by Christoph Niemann.
(via stellar)
In another of a series of wonderfully fanciful posts for the NY Times, Christoph Niemann has some fun with creation and cookie dough.
Christoph Niemann hits another one out of the park with an illustrated look at the how physics governs everything we do in life.
I loved his idea for calorie-neutral foods:
All you need is to freeze a pint of ice cream to -3706 F. The energy it will take your system to bring the ice cream up to a digestible temperature is roughly 1,000 calories, neatly burning away all those carbohydrates from the fat and sugar. The only snag is the Third Law of Thermodynamics, which says it’s impossible to go below -459 F. Bummer.
For his excellent NY Times blog, Christoph Niemann visually documents his flight from New York to Berlin.
I am ashamed to admit just how many hours of my life I have spent “contemplating the little hole in [the] airplane window”. And that’s not even a euphemism! Seriously, what is that thing for?!
What a great way to start off this morning: a new series of map-based illustrations by Christoph Niemann. Reserve Battery Park is a favorite. So is this omelet recipe:
Remember Christoph Niemann’s excellent I Lego N.Y.? He’s coming out with a book based on that post:
There’s a short trailer for the book on YouTube. (via @h_fj)
In his excellent NY Times blog, Christoph Niemann uses leaves to illustrate a forest of ideas.
Christoph Niemann makes New York things out of Legos. Fresh pepper and Greenpoint are my faves.
Christoph Niemann shares a series of his New York City cheatsheets, including tips for getting on and off the subway at the proper points, muffin poking (you know, for checking freshness), and a door opening maneuver called “The Northside Eagle”.
Whenever I rode the subway with my two older boys, I tried to hold on to their hands at all times. In the process, I developed a special move. I think anyone who saw it must have been impressed.
I would hold the boys’ hands as we briskly made our way out of the station, then, just as we reached the turnstiles, I would let go. We would pass through the turnstiles simultaneously, and so smoothly that the boys’ hands would still be up in the air when we got to the other side, where I would grab their little fingers again in one fluid motion. (Requires practice.)
These are great fun.
Christoph Niemann has used some unusual image sources to tile his bathrooms. For the shower, an appropriation of Warhol’s Brillo box. For the kids bathroom, a NYC subway map.
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