You Can't Miss: Comical Cartography and British Illustrations

This week from the interwebs I bring you maps! I don't know about you guys, but the word maps coupled with the exclamation point there makes me think of the Dora the Explorer map song. If it does, I hope it's now stuck in your head too.

I'm sure you've all seen a thousand different graphically designed maps (the one that immediately comes to mind is the ever-popular typographical one where each country is spelled out). But this one cracked me up. It's all about stereotypes and how Americans view the world.

You can click on it and it should get bigger so you can read all the hilarity. If you're offended...sorry? I just think it's hilarious. My favorite might be "Hunger and Stuff" with "Pirate Ocean" as a close second. Here's a link with close-ups so you can check them all out, plus there's a few other "The World According to...." maps too. I think this is great social commentary on a visual scale and I would love to be able to incorporate this kind of humor into my art someday. I'm actually trying to do that with my True/False design, but we'll see how far Vox lets me take it (since T/F is some kind of sacred ritual around here that shouldn't be made fun of even though it has some of the greatest comedic material/potential to be ridiculed this side of the Mississippi).

On Grain Edit this week, the works of UK illustrator Mitch Blunt were showcased. He's done work for several big name magazines like Esquire, Wired and The New York Times Magazine. His work is simple in structure, but complex in texture and color use. This is pretty inspirational for me personally since I have yet to figure out how to get dimension/light/shadow right in my illustration work, but Blunt uses subtle texture and bold color to add visual interest to seemingly standard pen tool work.

The science of love...how adorable

Love this one. #phonetographers