Anthony Zinonos

Artist Anthony Zinonos' collages are an exercise in restraint. Physically, his oft-published collages consist of little more than a few snips of construction paper, found images, and a scribble or two. Visually, Zinonos limits himself to bold, primary colors, chunky polygons, and thin slivers of paper. These minimalist works are direct without being simplistic.

Matt Keers

Graphic designer and art director, Matt Keers's work is comprised of striking imagery, created through simple shapes. Keers demonstrates his acute sense of form and color, though strong work in the fields of print, packaging and branding.

Gina Triplett and Matt Curtius

I first came across Gina Triplett's swirling, flowering work in high school, when I purchased Ramsey Lewis' album "Time Flies." The cover featured Triplett's signature, intricate, ink patterns, over paint-dripping, textural backgrounds. I immediately went to the internet to find more of her work, where I found that not only did she work alone, but also collaborated with her husband, Matt Curtius. When working together, two combine seemingly disparate styles- Matt's realistically rendered imagery, and Gina's bold detailed patterns- into cohesive, often floral images. I have made the two's site one of my regularly visited destinations, and am always excited by what I find there. Every image is a miniature world unto itself, bursting with lovingly-created detail. In addition to the floral motifs, both Triplett and Curtius are skilled hand-drawn typographers, often incorporating text into their images. You can see more of their work on Gina's blog.

A Friend of Mine/ Suzy Tuxen

Although led by designer Suzy Tuxen, the Melbourne-based firm, A Friend of Mine operates under the ideal of artistic collaboration. According to her site, Tuxen sees collaboration with specialized artists as essential to achieving a high standard of quality throughout her design work. She obviously is on to something. Her international clients are as diverse as bespoke wedding invitations, to restaurant branding and design. A Friend of Mine regularly creates print, branding, and art direction work that is consistently thoughtfully considered, and beautifully executed.

Damien Correll

Damien Correll is a regular fixture in the art and design blogosphere, and with good reason. His work is bold and colorful, reinterpreting many forms and styles from 1960s and 70s illustration. As with many of the designers and illustrators featured on this blog, Mr. Correll mixes found imagery and drawing, computer graphics and hand-executed imagery. His excellent work has gained him such clients as Nike, Zoo York, and New York Magazine. Be ready to spend hours perusing his site, blog, and collection of links.

Julia Guther

Using an eclectic mix of cut paper, watercolor, pencil and computer-aided drawing tools Julia Guther has created a diverse and accomplished body of work. She uses simple shapes, clean lines and delicate colors to create distinctive images, regardless of the medium. Her style and creative process raise her imagery above the commercial nature of many of her projects.

Gneborg

Gneborg is an art collective that uses ordinary, household items to create various sculptures and costumes, to ingenious effect. Suddenly, blankets, pillows and cardboard boxes become mountains, elephants, and giant squirrels. It would seem that various companies have noticed the advertising potential of Gneborg's work, as their portfolio includes more commercial applications among their newer works. This, however, does not diminish the brilliance of their work. Whether or not you created blanket forts on your living room, on rainy days, when you were a kid, a visit to Gneborg's site will not go unrewarded.

Aurèle Sack

Aurèle Sack presents some bold, crisp, simple typographic work on his site. Mr. Sack has a keen sense of elegant form and practical function, as he successfully marries the two in his impressive work samples. He also employs an innovative, yet intuitive and functional site navigation. Be sure to give his work a look, and then a second.

Emmanuel Polanco

emmanuelpolanco.net

Emmanuel Polanco has a well-crafted body of work full of intriguing, mysterious images. His work covers a wide range of styles, but the technique of assembling tactile materials digitally remains the same. His pieces are all about layers and textures, all the while balancing elements of the past with modern composition.

Laurie Rosenwald

rosenworld.com

With an astounding teaching resume, fantastic client list, and keen sense of reality of the design world, Laurie Rosenwald is quite the formidable character. She is an accomplished professor, author, designer, painter, mixed-media artist, typographer, animator, humorist and actress (she once had a small speaking role on the Sopranos). She also directs an acclaimed workshop titled How to Make Mistakes on Purpose.

Ms. Rosenwald brings a unique design aesthetic and rational messiness to her work, all tempered by a great dose of humor. I found myself laughing out loud multiple times while vising her site. To say that she is seriously impressive and magnificently inspiring would be an understatement. Take a look at her site, and be ready for some surprises!

Take that, YCN!

Oliver Munday

Oliver Munday

Oliver is a graphic designer and illustrator based in Baltimore. His simple aesthetic brings forward each piece's clever, well thought construction. In addition to providing countless illustrations for the New York Times, his work has been featured in a variety of top design publications.

Susan Kare

You know her from the original Apple icons, the classic Chicago and Cairo fonts, and now Facebook "gifts." Check out her illustrious portfolio, and take a look at the new fonts in development. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the glorious Susan Kare.

Susan Kare

Mark Unger

mark-unger.com

RGB 6

rgb6.se