Last year, espnW did something special for their second annual IMPACT25 list–a group of 25 female athletes and influencers that broke boundaries and inspired–they combined forces with Marvel Comics and had the entire group drawn up like the superheroes they are. The results are every bit as stunning as you would expect them to be, starting with the unmatchable Serena Williams as a hero named Super Galactic Slam by Elizabeth Torque.
More of these gorgeous covers below!
Many of these protraits are even more exciting in the wake of the 2016 Olympics, such as Kevin Wada’s rendering of Simone Biles:
Simone Biles by Kevin Wada
Or Simone Manuel by Laura Braga:
Simone Manuel by Laura Braga
X Games’s youngest gold medalist ever, Chloe Kim (RB Silva, Walden Wong, and Rachelle Rosenberg):
Chloe Kim by RB Silva (pencils); Walden Wong (inks); Rachelle Rosenberg (color)
Special Olympics Gold medal winner at the 100 meters–who put off chemotherapy to compete with stage-4 breast cancer–Olivia Quigley (Alti Firmansyah and Jessica Kholinne):
And of course, Annie Wu’s stunning depiction of Misty Copeland, the first African-American woman to bear the title of principal dancer in the American Ballet Theatre:
“The project was inspired by the dilemma graphic designers and illustrators are so often faced with in commissioned projects – all your efforts won’t heighten the quality of a poorly written book,” says Martin Müller of Berlin-based Dicey Studios. “And more importantly, why become an accomplice in spreading preposterous, even malignant works by helping to give them a more appealing visual form?” Martin’s response to this was to design a series of speculative and absurd book covers for the likes of Martin Heidegger, Beyonce and Canadian president Justin Trudeau.
This is definitely not your grandmother’s embroidery. It’s stitched into the helmets of soldiers, onto car doors and fences, producing cats that pop out of shirt pockets and portraits so painterly, it’s hard to believe they’re made of thread. In fact, needlework stands in for everything from spray-painted street art to living moss in these extraordinarily artistic stitch-based creations.
Floral Cross-Stitch Urban Murals by Raquel Rodrigo
Cross-stitched street art is in bloom all over Madrid this week thanks to floral creations by artist Raquel Rodrigo, who wraps thick string around a wire mesh form and then affixes it to urban surfaces.
Cross-Stitched Microbes by Alicia Watkins
Rather than flowers and the other pretty things that are typically stitched within an embroidery hoop, artist Alicia Watkins puts the spotlight on nasty germs and microbes ranging from the measles to mad cow disease.
Pets in Pockets by Hiroko Kubota
Adorable, strikingly realistic cats and puppies pop out of pockets in this fun clothing line by Hiroko Kubota called Go!Go!5. The project started when the Japanese embroidery artist’s son asked for a custom cat-adorned shirt, and took off from there. You can even have a custom pet portrait created just for you.
Embroidery Gone Wild by Danielle Clough
Virtually anything that can be punctured or woven with embroidery floss is fair game for Danielle Clough, whose wildly unique creations have appeared on tennis rackets, shoes and fences.
Splotchy Embroidered Fashion by Olya Glagoleva and Lisa Smirnov
What appears, from a distance, to be splotches of paint roughly applied to textured textiles turns out to be hyper-detailed embroidery in abstract forms. Russian artist Lisa Smirnova paired up with fashion designer Olya Glagoleva to collaborate on this fun project for the eco-friendly clothing line GO!
This ain't your grandmother's cross-stitched bible verses. Contemporary artists exploit, subvert and otherwise manipulate the traditional craft of embroidery with hyperealistic portraits, surreal ...
Whether you want to call it a new art form or a simply a hipster hobby, an artist France is pushing street-side string art in amusing new directions.
Not quite your ...
Imagine rooms that expanded and compressed depending on occupancy, then stretch your mind to conceptualize a whole home that works the same way - it folds virtually flat then unfolds as you move ...
There’s a tendency for architectural photography to be cold and impersonal, favouring the building and its details over its place in the real world; its context, surroundings, and perhaps most importantly, its inhabitants. Not so […]
I’m starting a Lazy Syndrome club! Anyone else who has on occasion cried at inanimate objects and definitely does not have “depression” is very welcome to join! Password is ‘jesus chrisy’
Ok, no 7, that hidden room. Best. Thing. I have. Ever. Seen.
1. Extras on the set of Spartacus
Extras playing corpses on the set of Spartacus assigned with numbers so that Stanley Kubrick could address them individually and give them instructions.
3. “Perfect time capsule”: Explorer’s long-lost ship found
The second of two British explorer ships that vanished in the Arctic nearly 170 years ago during a storied expedition to find the fabled Northwest Passage has been found. The Arctic Research Foundation said Monday that the HMS Terror has been located by a research ship.
The Terror was discovered in 26 yards of water in Terror Bay, a small indentation on the coast of King William Island west of the community of Gjoa Haven. It was located right where an Inuit hunter said it would be.
MIT recently discovered a time capsule filled with some amazing materials from 1957 inside. It’s not supposed to be opened until the year 2957, and thankfully MIT is honoring that wish.
5. The New York Public Library’s little-known “human Google” service answers any question by phone
Set up in the 1960s, the line is manned by nine librarians and information assistants. The team gets a lot of calls from people who want to fact-check things they’ve heard on the news, says Caballero-Li. “Around the time that Prince died, we had a caller who wanted to know if they had found out what the cause of his death was,” she recalls.
Buried in one of these books, dating back to around the 1490s, is a to-do list:
[Calculate] the measurement of Milan and Suburbs
[Find] a book that treats of Milan and its churches, which is to be had at the stationer’s on the way to Cordusio
[Discover] the measurement of Corte Vecchio (the courtyard in the duke’s palace).
[Discover] the measurement of the castello (the duke’s palace itself)
Get the master of arithmetic to show you how to square a triangle.
Get Messer Fazio (a professor of medicine and law in Pavia) to show you about proportion.
Get the Brera Friar (at the Benedictine Monastery to Milan) to show you De Ponderibus (a medieval text on mechanics)
[Talk to] Giannino, the Bombardier, re. the means by which the tower of Ferrara is walled without loopholes (no one really knows what Da Vinci meant by this)
Ask Benedetto Potinari (A Florentine Merchant) by what means they go on ice in Flanders
Draw Milan
Ask Maestro Antonio how mortars are positioned on bastions by day or night.
[Examine] the Crossbow of Mastro Giannetto
Find a master of hydraulics and get him to tell you how to repair a lock, canal and mill in the Lombard manner
[Ask about] the measurement of the sun promised me by Maestro Giovanni Francese
Try to get Vitolone (the medieval author of a text on optics), which is in the Library at Pavia, which deals with the mathematic.
11. 7UP’S Psychedelic LSD-friendly Ad Campaign of the 1960s
In 1967 ad execs at J. Walter Thompson Company in Chicago pitched a radical repositioning of 7Up as a way of reviving dormant sales of the drink—the idea was to capture the new hippie market for 7Up. The Uncola campaign stretched from 1969 to 1975. The Uncola campaign was perhaps advertising’s most adventurous foray into truly psychedelic imagery, even to the point of appearing to endorse LSD use as an activity fit for 7Up-consuming adults.
The internet is a little undecided about this photo. Some sources say it’s a Rolls Royce gifted by the Queen in 1961, others say it’s Adolf Hitler’s Mercedes gift to the King of Nepal in 1939. Another source says it was the first car ever in Nepal. Who has the right answer?!
And here’s the video of Nepali men carrying a (the) car? to Kathmandu.
Fleeing persecution, Nayser Ahmed was separated from his family en route to Australia. While they rebuild their lives in Sydney, he remains stuck on Manus Island. In this Fairfax produced video Daniel Webb speaks to The Age’s Nick McKenzie about Nayser and his family and the situation for the men on Manus Island.
Today’s Doodle marks the 25th anniversary of Armenia’s Independence from Soviet rule with an illustration of the Yerevan Opera Theatre (The Armenian National Academic Theatre of Opera and Ballet). Opened in 1933, this architectural treasure is emblematic of the country’s deep cultural roots, and a must-see attraction in the vibrant capital.
On Independence Day, Yerevan comes alive with festivities galore, from fireworks to festivals. Tricolor red, blue and orange flags wave in the breeze, traditional culinary treats abound, and Armenian pop stars and dance ensembles perform in the open air on Republic Square.
Amid the festivities, Armenians also mark the milestone by commemorating their countrymen who crusaded for freedom. On September 21st, 1991, Armenia carried out a referendum on independence from the USSR after 70 years of Soviet rule. The Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic henceforth became known as the free, self-governing Republic of Armenia. Happy Independence Day, Armenia!
“The Pencilsword” is a comic strip by Toby Morris, an illustrator from New Zealand. His most recent comic, “On a Plate” hits hard at the heart of the issues of concerning wealth and privilege.
How many times have you heard the “I’ve never been handed anything on a platter” argument in regard to social security and other social benefits?
Toby wrecks this argument by showing how two children can grow up, be loved and supported, and yet still have two very different outcomes.
Make sure to follow all the way to the end for the powerful punchline. This comic is an increasingly sad reality for far too many of this nation’s children and families.
Reblogged from the source since someone deleted the text at the bottom.
this is so amazing
Not gonna lie this got me a bit emotional.
I’ve been thinking about this comic recently and suddenly it came up on my dash. It still hits me hard.
Slightly terrifying, right? Not the sort of crowd you want to run into alone, in an empty field, with the sounds of chanting coming from the woods yonder. But don’t worry, they only come out at Christmastime to haunt the innocent souls of children. You see, while the rest of us are celebrating the most magical time of year with red-nosed reindeers and tinsel-covered everything, in most Austrian Alpine towns, it’s tradition for the men to dress up as Krampus, a horned figure described as “half-goat, half-demon”. Ancient folklore warns of the horned beast who punishes naughty children and squabbling families who lose their festive spirit.
In the winters of 2010 and 2011, photographer Charles Fréger journeyed through 19 European countries, documenting the various pagan rites he encountered along the way. Dressed in bear heads and bell, behaving like beasts, he called them the “Wilder Mann.”
Kurentovanje is one of Slovenia’s most popular carnival events. Its main figure, known as Kurent or Korent, was seen as an extravagant god of unrestrained pleasure and hedonism in early Slavic customs. In today’s festival, groups of kurents wear traditional sheepskin garments and are believed to “chase away winter”. Being a kurent was at first a privilege offered only to unmarried men, but today, married men, children and women are also invited to wear the outfit.
Mechkari costumes of the bear handler in Prilep, in the region of Pelagonia, Macedonia.
Bearded Djolomari of Macedonia.
The Bulgarian Babugeri, to scare away evil spirits.
Survakari, Bulgaria
Old-Slavic pagan traditions held on the Easter Monday in Poland include symbolic acts of purification after the wintertime and the evoking of fertility for the arrival of spring is performed by throwing water on people from the community. The symbolic ancestors, dziady, wear costumes made of woven straw and masks of sheep skin. They can’t reveal their real identity or talk, and only murmur, whistle and hoot. They usually carry small baskets, into which they get small offerings such as food, or are greeted with a sip of vodka. They perform ritual dances and pull small pranks by each house they stop by.
Juantramposo, a mischief-maker, appears on Mardi Gras in Alsasua, Spain. The festival ends with all the participants taking part in a celebratory dance.
The Gallarones, Spain
On Christmas Eve in Germany, Pelzmärtle appears in the village of Bad Herrenalb with the Christkind (Baby Jesus) to scold naughty children and rap them with a stick. The straw costume is sewn on to the wearer.
Strohmann at Carnival in Germany.
Schnappviecher the snapping beast on Shrove Tuesday.
Stag on New Year’s Day in Romania.
Charles Ferger is an expert at sourcing out the world’s most interesting subcultures. I suggest you check out his website here.
The same ad spaces that shouted about insurance and laundry detergent last week now contain nothing but fluffy cats, as an art collective uses the internet’s number-one obsession to temporarily transform the London Tube system. The Citizens Advertising Takeover Service (CATS) is the result of a Kickstarter campaign by brand-new collective Glimpse aiming to “create a rip in the space time continuum.”
The group raised enough money to buy all of the ad spaces in the Clapham Common station – a total of 68 – for a two-week period, and the new posters feature cats from the Battersea Dogs and Cats Home and the Cats Protection charity. The organizers are careful to note that they’re not against advertising per se, but rather hope that the project will “inspire people to think differently about the world and realize they have the power to change it.”
But the broader point – and appeal – of CATS is the citizen takeover of public spaces, with everyday people getting to decide what they want to look at as they navigate their cities. Wouldn’t you rather be surrounded by what essentially functions as an ad for animal rescue services than dozens of posters pushing a bunch of junk corporations want you to purchase?
“Back in February we asked ourselves to ‘imagine a world where friends and experiences were more valuable than stuff you can buy,’” says Glimpse founder James Turner in a post on Medium. “The team began thinking about crowdfunding to replace Tube adverts with something else. Beautiful forests? Time spent with family? Hmmm. We wanted this to become famous, so we needed something the internet would love. Frame it that way and the answer’s obvious. Cats.”
“We’ve been on the news in China, and one of our backers is flying in from America to see his cat in one of the final posters. This project has uncorked a kind of energy that I haven’t experienced before. When you talk about CATS, eyes light up and new ideas start to flow. We don’t know exactly how Glimpse is going to work, but we want to carry this energy with us as we grow up.”
Transforming unused sections of the London Underground, this bold proposal envisions a network of subterranean paths for pedestrians and cyclists as well as spaces for pop-up shops, cafes ...
A proposal by an international architecture firm would reduce travel time in the London Underground, not with faster rail cars but by using people movers of the kind generally found in ...
We don't own our cats, they own us - and these fun feline furniture designs celebrate their rightful places in our homes. That is, sneering down at us from elevated perches on the walls and ...
Ehhhh, this is no big deal I think. But I really hope this is only a logo change. I am a giant RSS nerd and interface design changes always seem to disrupt my flow. :/
In our effort to constantly evolve sometimes you need to look from the ground up. When The Old Reader started, it was (and still kinda is) “the ultimate social RSS reader for The Open Web.” Our old logo represented multiple RSS feeds coming together in one place. But if I had a slice of pizza for every time someone asked us “what’s RSS?” we’d have a lot of pepperoni.
The Old Reader stands for delivering you content you love, all in one place. It’s the one website to rule them all. You don’t have to know what RSS is. Just plug in some websites and go. So we wanted to give ourselves a little facelift so that people knew this is for everyone. You OR you OR you. If you like technology OR design OR cat videos. If you’re on desktop OR tablet OR mobile. There are feeds of content for you to tap into. And we think our new logo achieves that.
Look for the new look and design in the app itself in the near future. But as always, you are a part of this community. We want this community to grow so it’s a better experience for us all. Do you think this logo will help us do that? Does it feel more approachable? Will it blow up the internet like the new Instagram logo? We hope so. Will there be millions of posts on “designers react to The Old Reader logo redesign?” Our designer hopes not. We don’t care about their opinion, we care about yours. This mark stands for us all. Read on!
This particular tweet led to an exchange that went viral.
First, a series of complaints about M-W failing in its parental duties:
And then M-W's response:
The responses to the response are almost all pro-M-W, and of course include a wide selection of mic drop, shade-throwing, and sick burn memes. One example among many:
Details on the page above were sourced from a list of sovereign states by date of current flag adoption, where it’s shown that the oldest continuously used national flag is that of Denmark — known as the Dannebrog. The nations in the graphic that existed long before the Dannebrog was introduced were simply using other flag designs. Here are a few alternatives you mightn’t be familiar with.
German imperial banner (14th century)
The French Bourbon flag (1598)
Grand Union flag (1775) — the first national flag of the USA
The Organizing committee of Antarctic Biennale invites young and courageous creators to compete for joining the first art expedition beyond the Antarctic Circle as part of the 1st Antarctic Biennale.
n. the moment a conversation becomes real and
alive, which occurs when a spark of trust shorts out the delicate circuits you
keep insulated under layers of irony, momentarily grounding the static
emotional charge you’ve built up through decades of friction with the world.
Beams of light dance, jump, squiggle, scatter and interact with each other as if they’ve taken on a life of their own in a series of animated light art gifs by New York City-based photographer Lucea Spinelli. Abandoned school buses, public park benches, playgrounds, glass jars and human bodies become the settings for surreal, almost ghostly scenes calling to mind the common superstition of supernatural beings affecting electricity.
In fact, all that seems to be missing from some of these animations is a proton pack from Ghostbusters, as the clusters of light created by Spinelli take on the movements of autonomous beings. Spinelli takes still shots of moving light using long exposure methods and then strings them together to create these animated sequences.
“In her project phötosgraphé, Lucea Spinelli creates long exposure photographs that afford us a view into the unknown,” reads the statement on the artist’s website. “For the duration of the open shutter the lens becomes a canvas upon which Lucea paints with light. The illuminated forms she creates interact with spaces and objects in a wa that evoke the unseen – such as spirit, dreams and metaphor – within the everyday.”
“Often staying in the dark for long hours and relying on muscle memory alone, the process reflects ritual as a necessary part of interacting and evoking the unseen aspects of our reality. Thus by using a medium is commonly used to mimic reality, to suspend it, Lucea invites us to push beyond the bounds of visual perception to explore other ways of knowing. Finally, by stringing sequences of these long exposure photographs together into an animated gif, the light forms are literally brought to life as they dance across the forever looping frame.”
Reclining in the space between the extremes of sped-up, movie-style GIF files and traditional, immobile paintings, this artist brings lazy scenes of everyday reality to life.
Rebecca ...
Translated into glowing orbs of light with a rainbow of colors representing signal strength, these visualizations of wi-fi signals are like Victorian spirit photography for the modern age. Luis ...
Words, ghostly forms and streaks of ethereal light take shape when photographers move a light source around in a frame while taking a long-exposure image. Variously known as light art, light ...
It is time people stopped with these Lifestyle Choices :/
Hi, Mike. I think you know why we’ve called you here to this conference room at the Holiday Inn Express. It’s because you have a problem, Mike. Also, they have a really great continental breakfast — scrambled eggs and everything.
No, don’t speak yet; you’ll get your turn after we’ve said our piece. You can either accept the help we’re offering or you can walk away. It’s up to you. But look around, Mike. There are a lot of people here that love you like crazy, and they’re sick and tired of watching you continue down this path of destruction.
You’re a Black man, Mike. I think you know that. And I think it’s time you realize that if you don’t stop being one, it’s going to get you killed.
That’s right. We’re not going to let you live this way anymore. It’s too dangerous. Standing in front of stores while Black, walking in your own neighborhood while Black… Hell, I’ve even seen you drive while Black, which, quite frankly, puts everyone else in the car in danger.
Fine, go ahead, leave if you want. But first, take a good long look in the mirror. It’s 8 AM and you’re already Black. Doesn’t that scare you? It sure scares us. Kathy is gripping her purse so tightly I’m afraid she’ll hurt herself. That’s on you, Mike — that’s on you.
Know this: If you don’t get the help you need, we aren’t going to be seen with you anymore. We’ve had enough. This hurts us just as much (if not more!) as it does you, Mike, but you’re putting us at too much of a risk. I mean, what if we’re hanging out, smoking weed or whatever — while you’re doing absolutely nothing illegal at all — and the police wind up arresting you instead? Or what if we’re walking down the street after pub quiz night and an officer drives up on the curb, wrestles you to the ground, and questions you because you vaguely match the description of a possible suspect for a crime that was committed miles away? You see how traumatizing that would be for us, don’t you, Mike? You see that, right?
Our lives matter, Mike.
Or say you’re pulled over on a routine traffic stop, and you reach for your wallet. Think about the police officer you might make shoot round after round of bullets at you. Do you really want to be responsible for his PTSD?
His life matters, Mike.
It’s clear you’re exhausted by this life you’re leading. I can see it in your face. Exhausted by the constant judgement. The constant fear. The constant persecution. So now — right now, Mike — is when you can make a choice.
A van is waiting outside to take you to the airport.
And we desperately hope you’ll accept this offer of help. Because maybe you don’t think you can kick this thing. Maybe you don’t think you’re worth it. But we think you are! Because all lives matter, Mike. All. Lives. Matter. We have a wonderful treatment center set up for you in South Carolina. It’s called Kristopher Kares Kompletely. They think you can be great again. We think you can be great again.
So what do you say, Mike? Will you get on the plane? Are you ready to have a life that matters?
German imperial banner (14th century)
The French Bourbon flag (1598)
Grand Union flag (1775) — the first national flag of the USA
The Organizing committee of Antarctic Biennale invites young and courageous creators to compete for joining the first art expedition beyond the Antarctic Circle as part of the 1st Antarctic Biennale.
