Admins needed!

Hello there!

As you have perhaps noticed, Toginis was left unwatched for about a month. Due to my lack of time, mostly, which I very much regret, seeing how many great fans we have acquired last year.

Therefor, I am currently looking for a person to co-write this blog with me. How much is to write is up to you - the choice of your topic is also (mostly) free, as long as it belongs to the categories talked about on this blog.

So, why not? Do you have something to show the world (or at least those few thousand who visit us each month)?

Write now ;)

Mashallah Design

Perhaps believing in good design is like believing in God, it makes you an optimist.

Terence 

Mark Powell

For me the individual is a fascinating thing. Each person is as important or irrelevant as the next.

Get up and create! Or how I fight procrastination.

Chris Gilmour's cardboard objects

Besides sharing a surname with a famous guitarist, Chris Gilmour is recognized for a mastery in cardboard and glue, proving that you can master anything if you really want to. Subtle, yet curious on not only technical level - deconstructing the form and then renewing it in a completely unsuitable material is somehow reverse approach to design - how it forces us to re-think our frames and boxes and embrace the useless ideas, only to find out that uselessness is subjective.

Geometry Daily

If you, like me, happen to be a fanatic of clean, geometric shapes and simple colours, you will love this site. Geometry Daily is a tumblr blog created by a German design professor dedicated to proving the world with a new composition every day. Great inspiration for ascetics and simplicity lovers.

Magda Przybycien - photography

 

I believe that simple is the best. If something's functional, the aesthetics will find themselves in austerity. Art's a bit more complicated than that, because it lacks defined function, therefore fanciness sometimes indeed is a requirement. But not here. Kept as a kind of journal, these photographs surprise with the story behind them, their elements held together guide us through some kind of visual journey. Yes, right, I know, ninety-eight percent of photography does that. But not as cleanly and neatly as those. Something that Henri Cartier-Bresson called the Decisive Moment. Wouldn't you agree? Sometimes, they also resemble the great Urban Patterns series, but that's wholly different thing...

I promised not to share her webpage.

Krzysztof Mezyk - painting

Once, my design teacher told me that a good design occurs when a layman sees it and says: "I could've done that in five minutes." Krzysztow Mężyk's works certainly do not follow the traditional approach to painting - not only the composition, but also the structure seems messy, random. Dirt. It's important here, where the paints are left half-mixed on the canvas and the lines or stains are almost unrecognizable. While this effect cannot be an expression itself, it can surely help the artist to convey it.

Jean-François Rauzier - Hyperphotography

What's the best resolution a modern camera can achieve? Do you know? If you do, forget it - that's the past now, as French photographer Jean-François Rauzier will beat it. This hardened by his countless achievements fanatic spends few hours scanning a place with his camera and few hundreds more blending images seamlessly into one, grand fantastic landscape  Unique, surreal, time-consuming work. And the effects.

Don't watch them here. Go to his website where you can zoom and wander around them!

"The Way Things Go" - by Peter Fischli and David Weiss

I don't usually post videos. But an exception proves the rule. Or, judging by what I want to show you today it will become a rule. Because the Swiss artist duo Fischli&Weiss made something so exceptional that it has left me with my jaw dropped.

They specialize in making art out of trash - and this installation is too, made out of elements found on a junkyard.

from dan balul on Vimeo.

John Grade - Sculpture

These grand, biomorphic structures hanging above your head are the work of John Grade, an American sculptor. After drawing intricate sketches and making medium-sized models, he proceeds to make his art from natural materials. Clean, minimalistic forms are warming and slightly overwhelming - just like the nature itself.

Vania Zouravliov - Illustration

Vania Zouravliov is a Russian illustrator and graphic designer. After showing signs of talent from his early age, he was exposed to a lot of famous artists and art in general, scoring his first exhibition at the age of thirteen. Now, Zouravliov creates graphic novels and illustrates for, for example, National Geographic.

Jean Shin - sculpture

Artists who use a variety of media are always hard to put here. From a rich collection I am forced to choose ten pictures and present them with few sentences. And that was the case with Jean Shin, who draws, prints, photographs, sculpts, records and does other great stuff - so I chose her sculptures. Trophies for ordinary workmen, lottery tickets cities and deconstructed clothing - conceptual, thought-provoking, good art.

Kiwilicious Jewelery #16 - Melanie Muir

It's hard to find someone who had no plasticine as a kid. There are people who continue to play with it as adults, such as Melanie Muir, who is working on a colourful polymer clay. After finishing Glasgow School of Art (with honors) she decided to stay in Scotland and work on minimalistic designs and pastel colours, which she combines as well as a professional painter. A real art in design.

Classic Artist of the Week #16 - Hans Holbein

If you read this rubric at least a few times, you know that we try writing about more modern artists from the late nineteenth or twentieth century. But it is not a rule, so I don't have to make an exception here (if it was, I'd still make an exception). Ladies and gentlemen - Hans Holbein the Younger. One of the most recognized Renaissance painters and the earliest professional designers. Undobtful master and a hipster of his times (unlike others, Holbein never founded a school). Would you agree that he deserves a place here?

Sandra Backlund's crochet creations

Fashion? Yep. Fashion. Why? Because it is a kind of design - wearable art is, after all, usable art. Therefore, design. And Sandra Backland's creations deserve recognition not only as "clothes", but as sculptural forms, made entirely out of wool. I would love to see these outfits made for men, but for now, I'll have to be glad with my own crocheting skills...

Sherif Elhage - Photography

These are all real. That is how I'd like to start before you start viewing the photographs. Left unmodified, those half-abstract shots are made using only a camera and the natural surroundings. The white stripes in the middle of a picture? Flag poles. Black outlines? A cave. Very imaginative use of the world, however weird it sounds. Wonderful imagination of a young French photographer, Sherif Elhage who worked on nearly everything in the wide "world of art" - from advertisements to fashion.

Chris Trueman - Paintings

We all know that there are many approaches to painting - the genres, changing through the history. Art of a Californian painting teacher is somewhere between pop art (with the print-like imagery), abstraction and neo-industrialism. The repetitive motifs of stripes try to conceal the colours, but they enhance them instead. Wonderful compositions, soothing yet sharp. Mr. Trueman is certainly one of my favourite contemporary painters. Do you agree?

Kiwilicious Jewelry #15 - Denise Julia Reytan

Light, energetic, always positive. That's what appears to be Denise Julia Reytan, that's what her creations certainly are. Denise is an artist living in Berlin, working on jewelry, installations, assemblages and styling. Her work has been featured in many prestigious galleries - it is even available in Centre Pompidou!
Saturated colours, variety of materials, original forms, shapes and compositions. The world looks sweeter already! 

Heiko Mueller - Paintings

If you, like me, love walking in forests, there is a chance that you've encountered the natives of those - the wild animals. A small squirrel escaping through branches or a regal deer staring into your eyes. But behind this serene facade, what is really going on? A Hamburg-based artist Heiko Mueller is puzzled by this question and tries to answer with paintings about strange creatures fighting with each other in a fierce manner. And, a few dogs. But a great and unique technique!