Jacqui Oakley

There's a wonderful rigidness about the work of Canadian illustrator Jacqui Oakley. Everything seems in the right place, with the perfect amount of color and texture. (Click image for detail.) We asked her whether she had an instinctive sense of when to let an illustration go. I try to find a balance between having the piece still seem spontaneous and loose in areas, and very …

Holiday Playlist 2007

Le Loup: The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations Millennium General Assembly A weird mixture of banjos, percussion and computer sounds Le Loup creates an experimental sound that's still fun listening. Based on Sam Simkoff's original cheap recordings of a hodge-podge of inexpensive instruments, such as toy glockenspiels and an old banjo, and recorded using the microphone and recording software included with his …

Cool Hunting Video Presents: Esque

Esque make all manner of unusual glass work in their industrial Portland studio

If you’ve happened upon an unusual work of glass in a design store, magazine or Donna Karan’s NY flagship over the last decade or so, it’s probably a piece by the Portland-based studio Esque. In this video we visit the workshop and meet the duo behind Esque, Andi Kovel and Justin Parker, who formed the creative partnership in 1996 and have been subtly reinventing the …