pencil illustrations titled domesticated by martin kalanda, new york.
more pencil illustrations here.

I use the sewing needle to make holes or dig into the graphite. I scratch and create lines and turn the graphite around slowly in my hand.

Using only a razor blade, sewing needle, and sculpting knife (and not a magnifying glass), artist Dalton Ghetti creates some of the most intricate and detailed sculptures ever out of nothing but pencils. Here are nine of his most jaw-dropping pieces; you can go here to see more. And if you were wondering, no, Ghetti never sells his work, but prefers to give it away to friends.

[Via Daily Telegraph]

These machines kill fascists (Thanks, Sara the Teacher!)

In 1998, Eberhard Faber stopped making the Blackwing 602 pencil, and its cult users have been pining for them ever since. An unsharpened Blackwing can sell for $40 on eBay. One person told me his eBay auction for a box of Blackwings went to a "song writer/composer who's worked with Barry Manilow and on feature films, and chooses to only write music using the Blackwing 602."

Today I received in the mail two pre-production Palomino Blackwing pencils, made by California Cedar. Keeping in mind these are pre-production pencils, here are my impressions after using the pencil for a few minutes.

More photos and notes after the jump (click images to embiggen).

APPEARANCE

The color of the new Blackwing (NB) is flat black. The color of the original Blackwing is (OB) is a lustrous charcoal gray.

NB has a gold band painted near the top of the wood, OB does not.

OB has a black band painted on the ferrule, NB does not.

OB has stamped motto HALF THE PRESSURE, TWICE THE SPEED, NB does not.

OB has pink eraser, NB has white eraser.

SMELL OF WOOD

NB has a stronger, spicy smell. Reminded me of Indian food. Not unpleasant. OB's smell is faint, but this could be due to its age (at least 12 years old).

PENCIL LEAD TEST (preliminary)

NB is softer and darker than OB.

NB is quieter on the paper.

OB holds a point longer than NB.

I also compared the OB and NB to a Palomino HB, one of my favorite pencils. The Palomino actually seems closer to the OB than the NB does!

A cheap pencil I found in my daughter's desk was so close in quality to the OB, NB, and Palomino HB that I found myself wondering why I was caring so darn much about pencils.

PRELIMINARY CONCLUSION

I like the OB for sentimental reasons. If the NB ends up looking almost exactly like the OB and costs under $2.00, I will buy it. Otherwise I will use any HB that ends up in my hand.

Here are some photos comparing the different pencil leads I tried:

Shared by A. Kachmar
The pencils collection is my favorite.

You don't have to travel the back roads of the world to see bizarre and amazing collections of unusual objects some of these wacky museums are open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, right at your fingertips. Who can resist a lovingly curated collection of moist towelettes, airline spoons, or the world's largest accumulation of belly button lint?

Belly Button Lint

You say belly button lint, Graham Barker says navel fluff but we can all agree that this is the world's largest collection of those mysterious fibers from a single person. He has been collecting his own belly button lint since 1984. His three chronologically collected bottles are oddly color-coordinated, as if he wore only beige until 1993 and then went through subsequent red and blue periods. Barker's collection started when he pulled some fuzz out of his navel and wondered how much it would take to stuff a cushion.

Condiment Packets

Have you ever seen so many condiment packets in one place at one time? Collector Chris Harne's unusual hobby came about when he decided to stop spending money on ketchup. Gathering free condiment packets at every restaurant possible was a slippery slope that led to the madness that is now The Condiment Packet Gallery.

Soviet Calculators

When hand-held calculators debuted in the West in the 1970s, the Soviets were desperate to catch up. But it took them a while to get the process down, and their many efforts including some that are amazingly intricate and mechanical are cataloged at the Soviet Calculators virtual museum.

Toast Portraits of Famous People

A virtual collection of toast art is unusual enough, but Toastman' Maurice Bennett self-proclaimed New Zealand's most renowned artist makes more than just abstract compositions of burnt bread. He also creates billboard-sized toast portraits of famous people, which can be seen on his website as well.

Airline Spoons

If you've always harbored a secret but intense curiosity about what the spoons on various airlines around the world look like, but can't afford to travel the world to find out, you're in luck. One Flickr photo set contains hundreds of spoons, and you might be surprised just how varied they really are. Some are specially marked, some are vintage or from defunct airlines and some are even designed by celebrities.

Pencils

We would never get a peek into the diverse and fascinating world of brand name pencils if it weren't for Bob Truby's Brand Name Pencils website, which features photographs and descriptions of practically every pencil ever created.

Moist Towelettes

You might wonder, what exactly about moist towelettes could possibly merit collecting them? But that was before you saw the Star Trek ones above, which are indisputably amazing. Others in the collection come from Trump Castle, Quaker Steak & Lube and Iceland Air. And yes, there is in fact a brick-and-mortar Moist Towelette museum conveniently located in Dimondale, Michigan.

Crazy Shoes

The weirdest shoes in the world are even crazier than you might think. Forget insanely towering heels or unusual materials the collection at the Virtual Shoe Museum will blow you away with its weirdness, from buckled boots with 8-inch ponytails made from real hair to extreme point shoes with suggestive heels.

Obscure Patents

While some of the inventions at the Delphion Museum of Obscure Patents appear tongue-in-cheek, like the Santa Claus Detector, others seem oddly serious including a gravity-powered shoe air conditioner and an apparatus for simulating a high-five, providing the user with a convenient outlet for the release of excitement.

Masks, Medical Instruments & More

Looking for bizarre devices and gadgets, long since cast aside? Radio-Guy.net probably has one of the most complete collections around of everything from your run-of-the-mill antique radios to insane helmets used for questionable medical procedures, like the terrifying shock therapy mask.

Squished Pennies

You see the machines at virtually every tourist trap around the country: the ones that take your pennies and turn them into oddly elongated, squished souvenirs imprinted with the name of the attraction. For people who travel a lot like Ronald Dupont, who has a vast collection archived online these pressed coins are a fun and cheap way to remember all the places they've been.

Burnt Food

To Cook the Museum Way always leave the flame on low . . . and then take a long nap. That's the motto of the Burnt Food Museum, started in the late 1980s when Deborah Henson-Conant left a pot of hot apple cider on the stovetop and took a long phone call. Today, the museum features such magnificent exhibits as kruncheroni n' cheese and hash blacks.

Barf Bags

One can tell a lot about an airline's image from their Air Sickness Bags. Some barf bags are no more than a baggie with a twist tie, while other sickbags could win international design competitions. Are they art? I think so. You decide. The Air Sickness Bag Virtual Museum certainly gives us more than enough to study, with 2,177 images to view.

In Japan, contracts are signed using a hanko, an engraved stamp. (I bought one for the name "Mark" just for fun when I was in Japan. We also bought one for my daughter's karate teacher and he loves it, and now uses it on the certificates his gives his sudents. You can order a hanko online.)

Japan Sugoi writes that Mitsubishi Pencil has announced a hanko with built-in fraud protection:

Non Japanese people usually sign legal contracts or other important documents in ink, but Japanese traditionally prefer an engraved stamp called a hanko. One concern though, is that the stamped signature, usually the owner's name, can be easily forged. Mitsubishi Pencil's Security Enhanced Personalized Hanko stamp alleviates the risk of fraud by adding a two-digit dial that creates a series of marks around the printed name, making it difficult for an unauthorized person to copy someone's stamp. It also wards against theft by requiring a code to be entered before use.

I'm not sure how people can tell whether or not a correct combination was used, though. perhaps a Japanese reader can explain.

Mitsubishi Security Enhanced Personalized Hanko Stamp

What does the acronym API stand for? API means Application Programming Interface and they say that APIs are the underlying aspect of Web 2.0. But what does it really mean what is an api? Let's try to demystify the term a little.

The word to really pay attention to is Interface. If you have any experience at all with programming, all kinds of abstractions and contracts must be coming to your mind when you hear the word interface but we are more interested in the classical meaning of the term.

An interface is a common boundary between two separate systems. It is the means or the medium via which these two systems communicate.

Definition

An API is the interface implemented by an application which allows other applications to communicate with it.

Why Is It Needed?

In one word communication. You might ask why communication is so important. Just imagine Notepad couldn't copy-paste to and from Microsoft Word or Google Chrome. Imagine having to type each and every time although the text is already there in some other application. This is only one of the examples of communication between applications and all this communication is made possible via APIs.

What Is It Really?

You cannot run an API like you would run say a Notepad application. This is because APIs are generally invisible to the end users like you and me. APIs are carefully thought out pieces of code created by programmers for their applications that allow other applications to interact with their application.

APIs are specially crafted to expose only chosen functionality and/or data while safeguarding other parts of the application which provides the interface. Creating an API is indeed time well spent, because ultimately the more applications that interact with your application the more popular it becomes.

An excellent example is Twitter. Most people prefer their favorite Twitter client instead of the web interface. You can interact with Twitter whether you are using a mobile phone, a smart phone, an iPod or a computer. This has been made possible by the excellent Twitter API.

What Is It Good For?

As we have seen, APIs facilitate communication allowing different applications to communicate effectively with each other. So these are really well suited for extending a platform and for mashups. We have already seen Twitter as an example of how APIs are useful in extending a platform. When you combine data or functionality from more than one application to create another application, you have essentially created a mashup.

Such mashups are extremely popular on the Internet these days. The Internet thrives on communication so it is an ideal place to take advantage of APIs. It is a common practice to expose part of your functionality or data as an API to others on the Web. They can then tap into what you offer, combine it with what they (or someone else) offers and then provide improved and added functionality to their users.

Yelp for example has data on restaurants, hotels, shopping destinations and other local services but it would be a wasteful and tedious job if they set out to create their own Maps engine to let users know where the various destinations are. So instead they tap into the Google Maps API and plot their data on top of it, thereby increasing the utility of their service to the end user. This is a typical use of an API.

Popular APIs You Can Use Or Try

APIs are all over the place. The most popular ones are the Web APIs like Google Maps API, Twitter API and the Flickr API. These are not the only ones though. You can find a complete, classified and searchable directory of APIs at Programmable Web and WebMashup. Here you can see the level of interest in an API, what services are provided by the API and which services are making use of the API.

How you actually use an API depends upon your needs and your level of expertise. You might want to create the next big thing on the Internet, in which case you would most likely need to program for the Web using languages such as PHP, ASP.NET, Java or Python. A good starting point is to visit the official API page for the service you choose. Look for libraries others have written in the language of your choice. Usually these libraries make your job a lot easier and faster. Twitter for example mentions a number of these libraries on its API wiki. You can also find tutorials, official documentation and best practices on these pages.

APIs have existed in one form or another for a very long time. The first communication between cooperating applications may or may not have been through an officially documented API, but nowadays they are an important component of your application especially if yours is a Web application.

Have you ever created or used an API? We would love to hear about your experiences in the comments.

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It seems like just yesterday that school and academic librarians were wrapping up and reflecting on the academic year. Today, schools and colleges are gearing up for the fall semester. With the start of a new year comes a need to get out there and meet the new teachers and faculty members to share the services you can offer, as well as teach a whole new batch of students.

And as tempting as it is to try and get your entire message out there, it's sometimes easy to give so much information that the audience has a hard time remembering what exactly it was that you were saying. So here are a few tips for maximizing your message:

1. Know your audience

Knowing your audience means you're more likely to tell them something that they'll want to know. Are you talking to freshmen in high school who have never done a research paper before? Perhaps you want to introduce them to a library that's there to support research needs. Are you teaching college freshmen who have never seen an academic library before? New faculty who completed graduate school at another institution? In each of these cases you'll want to clarify the roles of your specific library. Likewise, if you're doing a refresher for returning students or faculty, it makes more sense to focus on new services they might not be aware of and existing services that haven't traditionally been well marketed.

2. Give them something to do

The academic year kicks off with lots of listening for many people. There are orientation sessions, committee meetings, classes, and countless hours of the day are spent listening to others talk. When you know your audience has been on the receiving end of a lot of informational sessions, it's nice to give them something to do. If you have access to clickers, even that small level of activity engages the audience and can even be used as a platform for discussion. If you don't have clickers, you can replicate the interaction with colored sheets of paper or having people stand up or sit down based on their answers. I've had great luck using worksheets to guide student note taking. Even the act of reading the worksheet to know what we'll cover, waiting for the pieces of information to fill in the blanks, and participating in small group activities to complete the worksheet has meant library instruction sessions having a higher level of engagement.

3. Give them something

Even if you pay attention to the characteristics and information needs of your audience, and even if you use good active learning techniques in your presentation, your information can still be lost. When flooded with a lot of new concepts, information, and facts it's hard to keep everything straight. Giving out your business card or a handout means your audience will have a way to get back in touch with you. Later, when they're going through all the things they've accumulated in these early days of the academic year, seeing the handout or card will trigger their memory to remind them that someone from the library came to tell them something. And sometimes that trigger is enough to get them back through the door (or into the email inbox).

4. Be virtual

Something good to put on that handout (or on your business card think a sticker with extra information on the back of it) is a URL pointing to more information. If you have a lot for people to learn but you doubt they'll remember it after they leave the room, giving them a place to find it later can be a good way to make sure they'll have the information at a point of need. Creating subject guides about library services, in addition to subjects, can be a quick and easy way to put information out there where people can access it later. Make a quick web-based video introducing yourself, and you'll help them put a face to a name. (And show them how friendly you are in the process!)

5. What's your number one goal for them to remember?

Any my personal number-one-technique is to have one major point that I want the audience to remember. Most of the time it's that they can always contact me for further information on the topic, whether that's how to do women's studies research, implement a new technology in their teaching, or think about the future of publishing. One of the first things I say in a session is that I'll be going over a lot, so it's okay if they forget. The one thing to focus on remembering is how to get in touch with me. When I introduce topics and can see that some people are struggling to keep it all straight in their heads, I say it again. Typically by the end of the session I've said it at least a dozen times. Sometimes I hear from people sometimes I don't, but by the end of a session when I get them chanting get in touch with you when I ask what should you do if you forget what I'm showing you? I know they are remembering the one piece of information I've identified as most useful, and it'll probably stick around in their heads for a while.

Do you have any tips for getting the word out?

Image Credits:

Beautyproof by larskflem

Free School Child's Hands Choosing Colored Pencils by Pink Sherbet Photography

A Wedding Present by lechampiondumonde.com

Geocaching by William Hook

Ghetomundial Youngfolk by d_runk

Lauren Pressley is the Instructional Design Librarian at Wake Forest University. She also blogs at Lauren's Library Blogs and spends a fair amount of time on Twitter, too.

Continue reading Sharpie Liquid Pencil, the aftermath: it's 'permanent,' not permanent

Sharpie Liquid Pencil, the aftermath: it's 'permanent,' not permanent originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 19 Aug 2010 15:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Graphite smudges and writing-induced hand cramps feel increasingly foreign as computers replace pencils in the classroom and workplace, but artist Dalton Ghetti's jaw-dropping sculptures prove that pencils are anything but obsolete. The Brazilian-American carpenter has carved his mini graphite pieces for about 25 years, using only a sculpting knife, razor blade, and sewing needle.

What do you guys think of Ghetti's art? What artists are you loving at the moment?

WowDalton Ghetti, is a patient man. It can take him anywhere between a few months to a few years to create his micro sculptures. And! He has never sold them, only given them away as gifts. Check out the full post for more photos. Amazing.

Via: KRonikle

Sanjay Patel is a animator and illustrator from Southern California who was born in the UK. Sanjay works as a supervising animator and storyboard artist at Pixar Animation Studios, where he has worked on numerous films, including Monsters, Inc, A Bug's Life, Toy Story 2, Ratatouille, The Incredibles, and Toy Story 3. He has also written and illustrated books on Hindu mythology and he loves how images can tell a story. Read more about Sanjay and his brilliant work in this interview.

I've been drawing since I can remember. It was the only thing I was ever good at. Growing up I drew homework assignments for friends and then I drew from comics. I was especially interested in saber tooth tigers, and dinosaurs and such.

I think in the second grade a teacher told me that I would be a very special artist and gave me a wonderful collection of vintage Superman comics. From there my education really kicked in with my high school art teacher who opened up my eyes to the renaissance. From there I went to Cleveland Institute of the Arts, from there I went to California Institute of the Arts. Every bit of professional art training has been worth its weight in gold. In terms of tools I love paper, pens, scissors, and pencil. For the last five years I switched to using the computer a lot. I discovered Adobe Illustrator and fell in love with it. But I still start everything with pencil and paper. My work station is very, very neat. I hate a messy work space.

As an animator my job is to understand a given scene and the characters within it. Once I have a clear idea of the attitudes and emotional states of mind of the characters I block out basic physical choreography for the scene. From there I work closely with the director to iterate the movements of the body and props to covey a specific story point.

I've been at Pixar for fourteen years. Each film has been a great opportunity to learn and fail with amazing professional artist. On Monsters Inc and Bugs Life, I learned a lot about the subtly that you can capture in the eyes and the eye lids of a character. On the Toy Story movies I learned so much about story boarding working oneonone with Joe Ranft. I also learned so much about understanding the subtext of dialogue and the circumstances of a scene. On the the Incredibles all that I thought I knew was relearned. I learned to approach storyboarding form a much more live action point of view especially in terms of camera angles. The mechanics of my animation were also scrutinized and made much stronger.

I arrive around 9am, head right over to dailies with the director and the animation team. We review one or two animators work for over an hour as a team. We typically tear it to shreds with the intention of making the scene more entertaining. The rest of the day we are left alone to work till the next days dailies.

I'm not interested in authoring books, I am really into images telling a story. From there I got interested in retelling ancient Hindu myths in a simple an relatable way. Yes, it was my first officially published book by Penguin Books. My parents are Hindu and I was raised with there faith all around me. Since my background was in animation, the flat colorful aesthetic was a natural fit. I also took a lot of inspiration form the cute designs of Sanrio.

There were a lot of different impulses that led to the decision to tackle the Ramayana. In many way The Little Book of Hindu Deities was a success and at the same time really didn't capture the full scope of my talent. As I began to read the Ramayana it became very clear that the mythology was loaded with a visually rich world. It was also very clear that no one has tried interpreting the epic story in pictures and illustration with a modern graphic flair. Or at least in a visual language that was in line with my aesthetics and love of mid-century animation.

I'm almost embarrassed to say this but I spent close to four years on the project. It took me the better part of a year to read different translations of the story and write my own summarized version. After selling both my manuscript and a full black and white dummy I took a year sabbatical from PIXAR to work on the ridiculously detailed vector illustrations full time. After working day and night for over a year and not leaving my apartment for days at a time I eventually ended up burning out. Luckily I discovered yoga and therapy and was able to finish the project. Once a pencil sketch was done which took about two days I could jump into Adobe Illustrator and start building vector shapes, which took another three days depending on how complicated the illustration was. If I was lucky I would get things right, but in almost every case I re-did things dozens of times.

Once a pencil sketch was done which took about two days I could jump into Adobe Illustrator and start building vector shapes, which took another three days depending on how complicated the illustration was. If I was lucky I would get things right, but in almost every case I re-did things dozens of times.

The biggest obstacle was of course the scope of the project, The Ramayana has dozens of character and locations, mega war scenes and complicated crowd illustrations. But somehow I was able to get things running fairly quickly that is until till I decided to redo everything top to bottom a few times. I kept fighting to work in a design style that was cute and silly, when the Ramayana is anything but that. As a reaction of too much cute I ended up turning the illustration into something much more grown up and stiff. Eventually the design pendulum settled somewhere in between cute and boring. Somewhere that I hope captures the action and drama in a fun modern style that honors this great mythology. I wanted the book to be cute and silly like a Richard Scary version of the Ramayana. Instead I think I ended up with a weird Charley Harper, animation hybrid. Hopefully the combination works.

That's really hard to say, I look back at it all and see how everything has built upon everything else I've done. nothing is done in isolation. So its hard to choose anyone without acknowledging the impact everything has had.

I love them both. Each discipline activates difference parts of my mind. Animation on feature films is fun and terrible because it takes an army of people to complete. Illustration is really satisfying in that I have a ton of control. But it also seems increasingly irrelevant and in many a very limiting way to communicate subtle ideas.

My office at Pixar is covered in Charley Harper pages. I actually bought two copies of the massive monograph that Ammo Books put out. I took one of the books and had it professionally cut and started using all the pages as wall paper for my office. So of course there is a ton of Harper in my everyday life and in my Ramayana. Like many other Cal Arts students I love mid century illustration. My favorites are Saul Steinberg, Provensons, & Sasek. Of course there are tons more artist that I love like Peter Arno, Tezuka, Steig, Boutavant, Lindberg, Wyeth, And of course the great master Mr. Bill Watterson and his Calvin & Hobbes.

The best tip that I can give is dedication, focus, and hard work.

Sanjay Patel on Web

• Portfolio

Sharpie's official blog, which you just now learned existed, must be having its biggest week ever: Recently, it cryptically introduced the new Sharpie Liquid Pencil (above), and people are pumped. The pencil's trick is that it writes with liquid graphite, which is perfectly erasable for three days, just like pencil lead, but which thereafter becomes permanent.

For such a paleo- form of tech, people seem excited about the liquid pencil, so far as we've gleaned by lurking the comment threads of other sites which have covered it. And I think that's instructive:

While gadgetheads fawn over overclocked things that go pew-pew and Internet denizens tend to scoff at anything in meatspace, much less things involving pen and paper, those incremental steps up in the boring and the familiar ultimately do a lot more to measurably change and improve our lives than the whizzbangs of the week. As Tim Carmody, who brought the pen to Wired's attention, wrote, the Sharpie liquid pencil shows that somewhere, engineers are always quietly perfecting something old & great.

The liquid pencil will be available in stores in September, just in time for back-to-school shopping; Wired noticed that one version is already for sale at Office Depot's website for five dollars for a pack of two pens and six erasers. The Office Depot page says that the pen uses a #2 lead equivalent, perfect for standardized test-takers; curiously enough, however, it says that the pen becomes permanent after just 24 hours.

(Gadget Lab via Boing Boing)

Sharpie has combined the permanence of a pen with the erasability of a pencil with their new Liquid Pencil. The "ink" inside this pen is a liquid graphite that stays erasable for three days. After that, it turns to ink and stays permanent.

Please sign below to claim your bingo prize. X ________________________________

What goes into making success happen? Work. Work with a little bit of preparation and a lot bit of follow-through.

You want to write a book? Schedule writing times. Julien and I just scheduled an hour a day together for the near future for the new book.

You want to get fit? Plan ahead and have healthy snacks in the house. Plan your sleep schedule and get up earlier in the morning to work out when your metabolism wants it more.

You want to get rich? Spend less, earn more, and find ways to earn while you sleep. Saving, oddly enough, isn't really the best of those ways these days, but that's a post of another kind.

You want more attention? Blog, make videos, get out to events, go out and hungrily find the audience you need. Asking for retweets all day dries up eventually.

Sharpen your pencil. Use the pencil. Follow through.

It doesn't get much simpler than that. But it sure isn't easy.

Coming over the next few weeks, as I remember and as time permits, I'm going to write a bit more about this, including sharing some of my visual methods for building projects, and some of my methods for staying motivated and keeping on task.

It's just as hard for me as it is for you, sometimes, but I'll share some of how I combat that.

Thoughts?

Connecticut-based artist Dalton Ghetti must have amazing eyesight. Pictured here are none other than pencils that he hand-carves to teeny tiny detail. Apparently, Ghetti is a carpenter by trade and the pencils are his side project. He uses razor blades, sewing needles, sculpting knives, and mad skills. My mind is officially blown. [Thanks, Markle!]

Yep, you read that right. Sculptured by Dalton Ghetti, some of these amazing pieces can take up to 2 1/2 years to complete! You know he broke a few links before getting this one done. Hit the jump for more insane works

Via Illusion360

Many artists have used pencils to create beautiful pieces of work but only one creates stunning masterpieces on the tip of one. Microscopic artist Dalton Ghetti spends up to two-and-a half years painstakingly crafting each handmade piece on the graphite of a pencil.

The New York Times reports

Mr. Ghetti, who owns about as many possessions as a monk, is aware how unusual his craft is. He started carving tree bark when he was a child and experimented with everything from soap to chalk before settling on graphite. It's second nature now, and for 90 percent of his work, all he needs is a sewing needle, a razor blade and a carpenter's or No. 2 pencil.

The pencil tip is great; it's like a pure, very homogenous material,' he said. It cuts in the same direction, not like wood, which has a grain. But when I tell people how long it takes, that's when they don't believe it. That's what amazes people more, the patience. Because everything nowadays has to be fast, fast, fast.'

It is really remarkable niche in the art world. There have been artists who use pencils as part of their craft, but none use the smallest and most fragile part: the pencil lead.

via & via

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I know everybody and their brother does logo roundups so you're probably sick of them, but I don't believe I've ever done one and there is a particularly impressive brand of logo design that I wanted to point out.

Today we'll look at 50 logos that are the result of going beyond the typical thought process and injecting a little wit and hidden symbolism into the design process.

Like the article? Be sure to subscribe to our RSS feed and follow us on Twitter to stay up on recent content.

What Makes a Logo Clever?

To explain what I mean by clever logo design, let's take a look at a typical logo, (i.e. one that isn't clever).

The logo above is a nice piece of work. The colors are perfect, the lettering is masculine, the overall feel is athletic and the glossy effect works well. It's everything that it needs to be.

However, my favorite type of logo design is that which takes the assignment one step further. Rather than just making something attractive, these designers look at the design process with a pinch of added intelligence and a perspective that skewed enough to see things differently than the rest of the world.

These types of logos make you smile at the brilliance of both the idea and the execution and have several layers of meaning that can hit you in waves. Some are amazing in their obviousness to all who see them and some find excellence in hidden secrets.

I've broken down this collection into three categories: visual double entendres (two things in one), word and character art, and ambigrams. Ambigrams definitely also fall into the word art category but I wanted to give them special recognition because they're so difficult to pull off effectively (if you don't believe me, try to make one!).

Visual Double Entendres

Lion Bird

If you stare straight at the bird's feet for a second, a stunningly clear lion's face emerges. Brilliant design!

Chad 2010

I love this one. There's a sort of ribbon theme that makes both a face and the continent of Africa.

Spartan

Simply beautiful use of negative space. The golfer and his swing double as a soldier's face.

DesignTent

A tent and a pencil.

Pepperhorn

A pepper and a horn.

GreenLabs

Green here is symbolized by a tree and labs is represented by the brain. That's a sharp looking tree brain!

Airtistic

Another pencil idea very similar to the one above. This one is a parachute and a pencil.

Ecotaste

A tongue and a leaf. A little creepy but a great idea!

Guitarshop

The letter G and a guitar. Simple but effective.

Mr. Couch

This is definitely one of my favorites. The couch has cleverly been crafted to also be a face with a mustache. Excellent work!

Eco Pup

The dog's ears are leaves. Sometimes subtle is better.

Mailhouse

The open envelope creates a house shape.

WordRefuge

The open book makes a tent. Not my favorite but it makes for a good visual read.

Australian Pork

This one makes me laugh. Australia has been turned into a pig's snout!

MetroMobile

The city skyline doubles as a row of cell phones.

PokerHills

I love that the shape of the hills genuinely matches the shape that cards make when you peak at them while they lie face down on the table.

Match

This one goes on and on. The matches come together to make a heart. There are two of them (they match). Fire represents passion. etc. etc.

ThinkTank

Ideas are often represented by lightbulbs. Turning the phrase think tank into a lightbulb tank was genius.

Rockit

This one is an excellent piece of art. The rocket blasting off and leaving smoke trails clearly makes a guitar shape.

Suitcase

This one is simple but so incredibly effective. It looks like both a suitcase and a folded dress shirt with a tie. The latter really emphasizes the suit aspect and therefore represents professionalism.

AirTime

Another really subtle double entendre. The hands on the clock make an airplane.

Uptown

The buildings in the city skyline are all arrows pointing upward.

Country Living Dentistry

The white picket fence is a perfect picture of country life, here it's been turned into a toothbrush to symbolize dentistry.

Push the Bottle

Another excellent use of negative space. The hand pushing a button makes the shape of a bottle. Notice how the fingers of the fist create the liquid in the bottle.

Pencil

It's amazing how little had to be added to make a pencil appear (just a triangle!). Some logo designers really have a gift for simple touches that change everything.

Spice Mountain

It definitely looks like both a mountain and a pile of spices.

Night Golf

Not only does the round shape of the golf ball reflect that of the moon, the little dips look like craters! A great visual simile.

Maritime Law

The logo says everything it needs to. Scales are a clear representation of law and justice and the bowls have been turned into boats to represent the maritime aspect.

GradBooks

This idea seems a little obvious but I'm sure it took a lot of tweaking to get to this point.

Antisocial Network

The sort of abstract skyline design is a cliche for community and has been transformed into a familiar hand gesture.

Mars

Another one of my favorites. The carrot has been beautifully crafted to make a rocket ship.

Nurd

The car's headlights make it look like a big nerd with glasses. Yet another example of the use of subtlety in wit.

Bananas Films

The film strips have been hung to mirror the shape of a group of bananas.

Food Writers

The negative space in the tip of the old style fountain pen has been turned into a spoon.

SparkPlug Creations

This is definitely not the best logo in the world, but the whole lightbulb spark plug idea is pretty clever.

Word and Symbol Art

Fish

The word fish has been crafted into the form of a fish. What more could you want in a logo?

Bipolar

A few simple typographic characters that perfectly represent the word below.

CodeFish

Coding is all about characters so it was perfect to build the fish out of typography.

Inequality

The equality symbol has been slightly modified so that the bottom is shorter than the top; a perfect statement of inequality.

Fuel Quoter

The quote has been simply turned on its side and it looks remarkably like a gas pump.

Infinity Crime Studio

The symbol for infinity has been altered to look like pair of mischievous eyes.

Octave

If you're at all familiar with music theory you know that an octave has eight notes (hence oct). Here the o and c have been stacked to make an eight.

Nosey

The impressive part here is how naturally the word seems to make a face. It's an excellent designer that makes complex ideas look effortless.

Twins

The two has been pushed over to look like an n. Since the word is twins, hiding a two in the logo was a great decision.

Upside Down

This one you have to stare at for a second to really appreciate. All the letters are upside down. The w is an m, the d is a p, etc.

Spork

The obvious solution was to make a spoon and a fork illustration. However, putting the ampersand in represents an extra step in the thought process that makes the idea really unique.

Umbrella

At first glance this logo says brella. Can you spot the other two letters?

Ambigrams

In case you've never heard of them before, ambigrams are words or phrases that you can spin around 180 degrees and still read them. They often require quite a bit of work and thought in order to make them easily readable.

Awesome

That sort of Old English look is definitely one of the styles you see the most with ambigrams. Notice how the e and o have been heavily transformed but still read well in the context of the word as a whole.

Edge

It's not easy to create an e that still looks like an e when you spin it around. Well done.

Eveva

This one feels like an ambigram, but as one astute commenter pointed out, it actually isn't. The beginning e and ending a are the same, but the letters in between don't work when flipped. Nice illusion regardless!

Conclusion

I hope the collection above isn't just another list post but instead is a healthy dose of inspiration that encourages you to put a little thought into your logo creation process. When appropriate, consider how you can infuse something unique and witty to make the logo that much better.

Leave a link below and tell us your favorites. Also point us to any logos that match this style that you've seen on the web.

They say that there are two skills that most humans wish they were born with. The first to sing and play in tune; the second to draw with ease. Unfortunately, most of us can only stare with envy as some of the blessed ones give voice to their talents.

I could never hold a tune, but to a moderate degree I succeeded in holding a brush and palette. I never reached the artistic heights of a Picasso or anywhere remotely close, but I did well enough to breeze through Biology's vertical sections and sundry anatomical illustrations. The art classes that I took certainly helped to shore up my understanding of symmetry and perspective.

Let's take computer art. Photoshop and Illustrator can help just that much with their tools and filters. It's the same with user-friendly drawing apps. To take it to the next level, a good drawing hand is essential. And it's never too late to dust off the years and take up lessons on how to draw. Think of the web and these websites profiled below as your free online drawing and art class. Brush up your skills.

How to Draw It

How to Draw it is a simple site but with lots of lessons. From the kid who is just beginning to take up the art to the guy who needs to go back to the basics, the lessons cover all. The beginner lessons are composed of 10 exercises from shading to use of watercolors. The fundamental concepts will require a lot of reading, but it's worth that for understanding how creative art comes together. For instance: the laws behind good composition.

The specialty of the site seems to be the lessons that show how to draw different kinds of animals easily.

Drawspace

Drawspace is definitely one of the best sites you could go to for learning how to draw and sketch. The person behind the site is Brenda Hoddinott. It's not only the variety of things you can learn to draw or the well supported discussion board on the site. It's also the layout of the site where you can jump straight to your skill level (Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced) or choose a particular skill from the dropdown. Then there is the Gallery of finished art to seek inspiration from.

You might especially like the high quality downloadable PDF tutorials that are detailed with illustrations and steps. You can also view them online. If you doubt your caliber as an artist, download and read the lesson titled Understanding Talent. To access the lessons in full, you need to register (free).

Rate My Drawings

Rate My Drawings is a leading online art community with 50,000 plus members. The site is a platform for drawing tutorials and community discussion forums to learn and share. The site has a Flash based interface that's like an online canvas. Users draw using the Flash based (or the more advanced Java based) drawing software tool, and people rate drawings with a score that's anything between a masterpiece and a disaster. The online drawing tool is also the canvas for multi-user collaborative art. You can draw and chat. For instance, an interactive tutoring session can be easily set up by two or more users.

About.com (DrawSketch)

About.com is usually a bouquet of guides written by guides who know their stuff. The DrawSketch section focuses on drawing and art. You can stat from Learn to Draw and go on to the various Projects and Techniques that cover everything from landscapes to anime and manga (Japanese cartoons). There are also a few video tutorials mentioned on the side. One thing you can definitely do is sign up for the newsletter.

Drawing Now

Drawing Now is a user driven site that's simple and not overwhelming for the beginner or the intermediate user. With a free membership you can enjoy interactive features like live chat and IM. The tutorials are step by step and easy to follow. What makes them easier to follow are the screencasts along with the step by step instructions. You can also create your own tutorials, thus teaching others how to draw.

Drawing Coach

Drawing Coach leans more towards caricatures and cartoons. Though the number of lessons isn't that many, it has a lot of variety. The lessons are rated according to their difficulty level, so you can jump straight in. Want to learn how to do tattoos? Check out the lessons that cover tattoo art.

Drago Art

Drago Art is not only about learning to draw dragons. That's just reserved for 80 odd of the 3,000+ tutorials the site offers. If you have drawing tutorials on mythical beasts, then you get ones on sci-fi too. Then there are categories that cover fantasy themes and manga too. Check out all the drawing categories on the left sidebar. Right at the bottom, you will find a few that cover the basics of drawing techniques. Drago Art takes you through the paces with both step by step illustrations as well as video tutorials.

How To Draw Cartoons Online

If you want to learn how to draw Spock or do a drawing impersonation of Darth Vader, check out this site. Though, very basic in looks, the site covers a lot of categories like 80's styled cartoons to video game characters like Pacman. And of course, Mr. Spock and Darth Vader.

Deviant Art

If you have just taken up the paintbrush or the pencil, it will take you a while to reach Deviant Art. Deviant Art is probably the largest art community on the net. The site says it has 13 million registered members. As a beginner, the sole purpose of frequent visits to this online art gallery' is inspiration. Though, there is a large enough tutorial resource. The site showcases what you too can create with a bit of work on your artistic skills.

YouTube

YouTube hosts a lot of video tutorials on drawing and illustration. Some of them belong to the sites we have mentioned above. Search YouTube with something like drawing' and the search box drops down a few auto-suggestions for you. For instance, with a keyword like drawing lessons' you get about 3,300 results.

A simpler search with drawing' gives 126,000+ videos. The search throws up a few drawing playlists which are series of videos arranged on the topic. Of course, you can be more specific with the keywords too. You can go into the search options and use filters like Channel and Duration to better organize your search results.

Well, do these sites somehow inspire you to take up the brush (or the digital pen)? Or would you rather pick up the saxophone? Let us know.

Image Credit: Gambarrotti

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