Emerging trends
& collect
penccil allows deep insights into what is happening in worldwide creative industries. We have selected a few projects representing emerging trends in the global creative industries.

In design, there is a new tendency to explore its 'missing link' with the expressions of art and a strong interest in ecology, recycling and alternative ways of making, if it is 'hacking' IKEA or employing industrial robots to build furniture from recycled plastic. Artists either discover new intersections with design and technology or rediscover the power of reduction through the simplicity of the graphite pencil. Photographers increasingly explore the hitherto overlooked and either create new worlds with digital tools or rediscover forgotten processes such as the late 19th century collodion process.

'Process' is the keyword: questioning, reinventing and rediscovering the processes of viewing, creating, and making is the main theme in all disciplines, if it is design, graphic design, photography, architecture or art. Common to all is that studios are increasingly multicultural and inspirations are taken simultaneously from East and West, North and South.
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Korean designer Wonmin Park likes to play with your vision. He creates furniture objects which seem as if seen without glasses or through a wall of fog. Inspired by the creations of the Italian design group Memphis, he uses colored resin to achieve this unique effect. Find the project at #9289
Yokihiro Kaneuchi creates design haikus: His inspiration is in the small, mostly unnoticed processes of everyday - flowing sand, the pattern left by coffee inside its cup, the turning of water to ice. His coffee cup appears at first sight to be stained, but he stain is in fact a fine landscape painting with trees and flying birds. Find the project at #9192
Also Israeli ceramist Michal Fargo makes the process integral to her work: She experiments with new ways of creating ceramic casts to arrive at objects with surprising shapes and delicate textures. Find the project at #9404
In "workbench", Paola Amabile and Alberto Fabbian, two Italian designers based in Amsterdam, integrate crafts, design, and the process of making into one piece of artistic furniture. They deal with "the flexibility of wood and the fragility of ceramics, the weaving and the dough, the drying cycle and the baking process, all are on the same table, where materials and methods complement one another and the final result is a contamination between two different worlds". Find the project at #9400
Lateral office, a Toronto-based experimental architecture studio, is exemplary for a new breed of creative studios working in between disciplines. Their work "Clearing" is an installation designed for interaction and an experience in creating personal space. Find the project at #8872
Also designer Takeshi Miyakawa wants us to look at things a bit differently. He is experimenting with notions to achieve a surprising end result: His chandelier, made entirely out of wax, melts away when in use. Find the project at #8943
Istanbul-based Candas Sisman uses both digital and mechanical technologies to create immersive installations in between technology, design and art. Find the project at #9161
Another designer working in the intersections of technology, design and art is Pascal Broccolichi from France. He designs speakers and creates installations with sounds. Find this project at #8433
Kosei Komatsu creates installations with the most ephemeral of materials: Feathers, paper and soap bubbles, subtly agitated by air. Find the project at #9311
New York artist Rosemarie Fiore gives new meaning to action painting by converting fireworks and other equipment into painting machines. Find the project at #9477
Jomi Evers Solheim is a Norwegian designer also experimenting with alternative production processes. In this project, he fills balloons with water and air and takes casts of these forms to create solid ceramics objects. Find the project at #9369
Dutch designer Bas Van Raay is prototypical for a generation of young designers questioning classical definitions of design and art and consequently exploring the yet unexplored spaces in between. Find the project at #9483
Milan based Federico Peri works with subtle recontextualization to create designs which question taken-for granted views on function and material from a philosophical viewpoint. Find the project at #9494
Tommy Støckel approaches the design - art intersection from the other side of the divide: Working with the aesthetics of design, he creates sculptures and installations. Find this project at #8995
Studiomobile, an Italian design studio, works on intelligent "green" scenarios employing photosynthesis, water and plant growth processes. Find the project at #9493
A very similar approach is taken by another Italian studio: ecoLogicStudio is working in environmental design and urban self-sufficiency. Find the project at #9250
"Control room", a work by New York based artist Roxy Paine, combines aspects of art, interior design and documentary model making. Find the project at #9111
In the meanwhile, Finnish photograper Markku Lahdesmaki shows us a control room in a Finnish power plant. The difference to Roxy Paine's work is the difference of art and life: Life has added the presence of a pensive, perhaps bored man with artistic ambitions (note the portraits on the wall). Find the project at #8722
Dutch photographer Hans van Vrouwerf shows us the end of the control room and the power plant in his personal industrial archeology. Find the project at #9452
Jamie Mills stands for a growing community of contemporary illustrators rediscovering the possibilities of pencil and paper to create intricate compositions with a particular handcrafted charm. Find the project at #9333
Wang Zhi Hong, a Taiwanese graphic designer, switches with ease between traditional Chinese, Japanese and Western influences to create refined book covers. Find the project at #8901
The Inspiration Pad by Belgian graphic designer Marc Thomasset is a take on the psychology of lines in a paper notepad. Would diffent lines make our writing more creative? A good illustration of how a thinking process can become a product. Find it at #8696
UMA is a Japanese graphic design studio driving an intrinsically Japanese concept of simplicity to its most delightful extremes. Find the project at #9431
Chinese arist Ren Han works only with graphite pencils to create modern graphic artwork inspired by Chinese motives. The graphite is applied in many layers so that it becomes an iridescent surface showing the traces of its making. Find the project at #9536
Dutch artist Marc Nagtzaam is using only graphite pencil for his highly conceptual compositions. Find the project at #9470
Kensaku Oshiro, a Japanese designer who lives in London and studied design in Milan, is another designer who in a truly multicultural fashion marries Italian and Japanese elements in his creations. Find the project at #9299
Studio Swine does not only have an interesting name. Co-founded by Japanese architect Azusa Murakami and British artist Alexander Groves, the studio experiments with materials and cultural notions. Some creations come with a good dose of British irony, others with a refined Japanese aesthetic. Find the project at #9294
Korean artist Osang Gwon's "Deodorant Type" sculptures depict his contemporaries by means of a unique process: He takes photographs of his subjects from many angles, prints them out and finally cuts and pastes them on carved sculptures. His process of deconstructing his subjects into fragments and reconstructing them in 3D space ideally suits his motive: Contemporary man struggling to piece himself together in Korea's hypermodern and hyper-consumerist society. Find the project at #9380
German designer Heike Bollig collects malformed jelly bears, coffee cups with two handles and screws without thread. Her "production errors" remind us that the industrial processes we put our faith in are as just as prone to occasional malfunction as we are. Find the project at #9317
Canadian designer Greg Papove takes redesign to the next level with a simple cover which converts three old chairs into a new couch. Find the project at #9186
Nikolaj Steenfatt, a Copenhagen based Furniture and Product Designer, experiments with alternative production processes: His series of stool and lampshade are made from recycled plastic granulate, melded together in a DIY fashion. Find the project at #9395
Thomas Vailly uses stretched Latex sheets to create interesting smooth surfaces. Find the project at #9406
Designer Dirk van der Kooij developed a process to create furniture by means of a robot arm which layers extruded liquid plastic strings from old refrigerator parts. The result are high-end design objects with intriguing textures. Find the project at #9527
"Hacking Ikea" by Swiss designer Andreas Bend is more than an equivalent to computer hackers: He does not only break the code, but reuses its so that it becomes better. Bend takes standardized parts provided by Ikea to create delightful designs which creatively and aesthetically surpass the objects in Ikea's blueprints. Find the project at #9519
Noah Addis finds vibrant creativity in squatter settlements. He states: "According to United Nations estimates there are more than a billion squatters living today--one out of every six people on earth. This number is expected to double to two billion by 2030. And by the middle of the century there will be three billion squatters. Although they face many challenges, these settlements are extremely creative and vibrant places and it would be a mistake to ignore them. Governments around the world have failed to take responsibility for this massive urban migration. Many of the world’s squatters exist in a legal vacuum, working outside of the official economy and living with only tenuous rights to the ground on which they have built their homes." Find the project at #9568
Italian photographer Ettore Moni finds a particularly American phenomenon: As if engaged in a perennial struggle with being forgotten, built environments come with large signs to reaffirm their very existence - a tradition stemming from the desire to be seen, to conquer the space of the visible. Find the project at #9438
Christophe Urbain from Strasbourg, France is another European photographer interested in the streetscapes of the US. He provides us with a slightly distanced, poetic view of the fleeting everyday in New Orleans. Find the project at #9533
The digitally constructed "Bild Bauten" by Swiss photographer Philipp Schaerer transport the viewer into a strange realm. Familiar enough to be possible, surreal enough to not be, Schaerer's images are a poignant comment on the practice of architects and developers showing renderings and heavily photoshopped images. Find this penccil project at #9371
Chinese photographer Lou Dan employes a historic, nearly forgotten photographic process - the collodion process - to depict people in remote valleys of Yunnan province. The process brings out a particularly touching beauty in his portraits. Find the project at #9551
Bas Princen shows us the absurdity of everyday architecture through forgotten corners, ignored perspectives and overlooked viewpoints. He says: ‘I go out to find photographs in which the artificial and the natural take each other’s forms and in which one is unable to see if things are being constructed or destroyed. I think that is the most interesting thing that can be said right now about the cities in which we live, and the landscapes in which we dwell (and vice versa).’ See the project at #8766
  Inspirations.  
SCARABOOK
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My calendar
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71 views of the magic mountain
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on paper books and e-books
these drawings were made thinking about what is happening to the books through various titles of cla...
Haribo Centennial
Haribo, the company behind the bear-shaped fruit-flavored jelly candy from Germany, is 100 years old...
Last and First Men
The first and last movie by iconic Icelandic composer Jóhann Jóhannsson (1969 - 2018). With his mu...
el cairel II
turistic housing complex buit in reinforced concret
The Demonstrations series.
A new series of paintings, oil on canvas, that deal with movement, the power and energy of the crowd...
Curtains
A series of watercolour paintings.
No.5 Warehouse Museum of Fossil
A space in the headquarter of a stone manufacturer in China. With its monochromatic walls, oddly sla...
Ebb and Flow
This student design project smartly uses paper to give shape to the intertidal coastline of Taiwan, ...
Pulp architecture
The need to stand out in a hyper-commercialized market results in remarkable examples of contemporar...
Dovecote-Granary
Tiago Do Vale took on the admirable task of restoring two maize granaries as examples for disappeari...
Culinary Tradition
Four examples of contemporary food packaging designs inspired by traditional Chinese patterns and gr...
TRIAL
Old-school postal packaging usually gets little attention from graphic designers. Not so in this fun...
Archip-elles
Swiss graphic designers We Play created this pop-art inspired, fun poster series for the Archipelles...
Kids House
For Inwayi Kids House in Ningbo City, China, designer Nono Xia of graphic design studio Ninemix cam...
Origami envelopes
Origami Envelopes have a special place in Japanese gift-giving culture. The four envelopes here rep...
Les Concerts du mercredi
The idea of Swiss based graphic design practice We Play Design for these posters for Les Concerts du...
Tatsuo Miyajima: Being Coming
Although this is for an exhibition of Japanese contemporary artist Tatsuo Miyajima at Shanghai Minsh...
Yokohama Museum of Art Calendar
Graphic designers Aizawa office from Yokohama designed this wall calendar. With its unassuming but a...
Core Agora
These shop pavillions in an area of a hotel complex in Greece, designed by Not a Number Architects, ...
Sonata
Sonata, a multi-housing project in Merida, Mexico, was designed by Mexican practice Arkham. Partly e...
K11 Musea
Westworld meets Surrealism in the interior design of K11 Musea, a new shopping mall in Hong Kong, a ...
Lotus Zen House
The Lotus Zen House hotel is located in Mount Jiuhua, an important Buddhist site in China. Hong Kong...
Laurel Hills Residence
A beautiful example of a contemporary Californian residence, designed by Assembledge architects. The...
House 33
House No 33 by Uemori Masaaki and Uemori Kokutou: A fantastic example on how contemporary architectu...
Pulp Fiction
A selection of American and Mexican Pulp Fiction covers from the nineteen-forties.
Spring 2020 - Project 2 - MassArt
A school project in which we had to redesign a small triangle shape park near Harvard Square in Camb...
Architectural sculptures
Architectural sculptures by K. Kegelmann as part of "Future City" curated by Mario Gagliardi at the ...
Objects of Desire
»Surrealism and Design 1924 – Today« 28.09.2019 – 19.01.2020 at Vitra Design Museum Surrealis...
Synthetic Paradise
Generative music combined with abstract graphics. Click the screen to generate new graphics: https:/...
Chromaglass
Chromaglass is a cocktail glass displaying its ingredients through colors. An inner insulating conta...
Francesco Vezzoli: Antique not Antique
Francesco Vezzoli at MUSEO MUSEION.
Surrealism
Inspired by Surrealism and some of the artists of that time (such as Dali or Ernst), I created basic...
Nature morte/Nature vivante
Until recently, artists, designers and architects were used to working with inert, non-living materi...
HYFY
HYFY is a project to rethink the functions, structures and formal expressions of audio hardware.
The gilded castle
Besides castle Neuschwanstein in Bavaria, Peles is the most remarkable turn-of-the-century castle i...
Upcycled
Furniture design from upcycled materials: Stools from old rubber tyres, oil barrels and washing mach...
The Heavy Palace
The Palace of the Parliament in Bucharest was built in the nineteen-eighties after a design by Anca ...
Back in the USSR
Great retro logos from the old USSR, and a Beatles song. https://soundcloud.com/thebeatlesrevisited...
Faces by 田中 一光 Ikko Tanaka
Inspired by the Bauhaus, by Jazz and by American graphic design, Ikko Tanaka (1930-2002) was one of ...
chair_ONE
chair_ONE is the best known design by Konstantin Grcic, a German furniture designer whose work is eq...
Cazal
Glasses by German manufacturer Cazal were considered a sought-after accessory in New York's hip-hop ...
Arte generativo
Ejemplos de arte generativo que sirvan de inspiración
Reactive Space
Inspired by Plato´s allegory of the cave, this is an architectural study for spaces reacting to its...
Omnidirectional microphone
Design for an omnidirectional microphone, recording sound from all spatial directions. Recorded soun...
Speaker
A sculptural speaker rendered with GLSL signed distance functions. (C) Mario Gagliardi 2018
Rudolf Belling
Rudolf Belling was sculptor, designer, architect and stage designer. In 1908, he founded a studio fo...
Calatrava : Sculptures
Sculptures by architect Santiago Calatrava.
Streampal
Streampal is a lifestream robot for Youtubers, Instagrammers and others who want to record passages ...
penccil
Concept, branding, design and coding of penccil, the site for creative people, studios and gallerie...
Pattern generator
A generator for tile and fabric patterns. Drag and drop images and see kaleidoscopic patterns emerge...
CoBrA Magazines
The avant-garde art collective CoBrA (Copenhagen, Brussels and Amsterdam) existed from 1949 to 1951....
PIXelated Cube
experiment idea materialmatters architecture
CAMOUFLAGE ARCHITECTURE
My thesis gallery about camouflage and architecture
The e-scooter Boom
The German Ministry of Transport announced that it will legalize e-scooters as road vehicles. All Ge...
Jonathan Ive leaves Apple
On June 28, Apple´s chief designer Jonathan Ive (born 1967) announced that he would leave Apple lat...
Abstract Form
Click 4 times on the canvas and watch how an abstract form is generated: https://www.mariogagliardi....
Essential Water
In many regions of the planet, water is increasingly becoming rare. Our understanding of water, refl...
The Venice Pavillon
The Venice Pavillon interprets the history of Venice as a point of contact between West and East. Sh...
Collaborative City Planning
The result of the Zero Carbon project: a collaborative scale model of the prototype site, close to t...
Generative Botany
An early app for generative graphics, realized in 2000 in the (now deprecated) Adobe Flash. To use t...
Cognition
This experiment looks at the process of human cognition. Letters get progressively filled with color...
Creative Changemakers & Future City
Promotional sites for the initiative Creative Changemakers and the event Future City. (C) 2018 MGD M...
The Persona Project
Social media are powerful because humans use the same parts of the brain to interact with machines a...
Structures
Architectural studies, Mario Gagliardi 2002-2004.
Dreaming of Skyscrapers
Mario Gagliardi 2006.
Blacker Box
Blacker Box is a design expression for an Intelligent Speaker. (C) Mario Gagliardi Design 2017
I See Violence in Your Eyes (I-VIII)
Pigment, graphite, charcoal, & mixed media on paper.
also:
Whiskey Bay Press Merc
Merch
Bookcover mockup
book cover design idea
Eden
Paper sculpture
Choreography of pictorial fetishes
Afterword by WM Hunt These are photographs. These exist uniquely as photographs. The artist, Manuel ...
McDEAD ..and lovin' it!
In Australia we call McDonalds - Maccas. Maccas holds a special place in my heart... it's called cho...
MILEY CYRUS is a ZOMBIE
This is an unused piece for the Australian comic ZOMBIE CITIES by Zorab del Rio. I can understand to...
TOKYO ZOMBIES
This is the inks for TOKYO ZOMBIES, a piece I did for the Australian comic called ZOMBIE CITIES by ...
SPACE GIRL
Comic Art, Illustration, Art, Line Art, Brush, Comics.
PAISAJES DE L'EMPORDÀ
Collage
CROMOS
Collage
SALTO
Sculpture
HISTORIA DE UN HUEVO
Sculpture
PERSONAJES
Collage
EL CAMINO MÁS LARGO
Sculpture
COMECOCOS
Sculpture
ADELA
Sculpture
SÚBER
Sculpture
EL PAPEL DE LA FAMILIA
Ilustraciones para artículo: El Papel de la Familia (Hospital Sant Joan de Déu) 2023
VIENTO EN POPA
Mixed Technique
PINTAORA
Painting
EQUILIBRIOS
Escultura
Shop Them - DR NOKI T-shirts are here!
penccil is happy to announce its launching of penccil shop <t https://penccil.com/shop with fashion ...
Mario Casa dining chairs
Dining chairs by Mario casa are 100% handcrafted in natural materials. https://mariocasa.it
Mario Casa Pillows
Mario Casa pillows are handstitched and embroidered on fine Raw Silk sourced from a family handloom ...
Mario Casa Carpets
Mario Casa carpets are handcrafted in 100% New Zealand Merino wool. https://mariocasa.it
Mario Casa Tables
Mario Casa coffee tables, side tables and dining tables are 100% handcrafted by our cabinetmakers in...
Mario Casa Lounge Chairs
Lounge chairs by Mario Casa, designed by Mario Gagliardi, are 100% hand-crafted in natural materials...
curve wood
Title is affranchir la ligne, a public art commission for the lobby of a sports complex, plays with...
briller par son absence
burn wood
Surface N° 2
Arctic Paper presents Surface N° 2 – a second edition featuring a specially curated selection of ...
String Theory: Architecture of Connections
This speculative project starts with the idea that space is not defined by volume, but by connectio...
The Frenchness of Russian Art: Montaigne and Death
"The Frenchness of Russian Art: Montaigne and Death" 105 NY-110, Melville, NY 11747 September 13, 1...
Coloured stones
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expansion series
“Chaos and Catastrophe unbound, worlds formed thrust together, Colour and light rebounded, befor...
All the Colour Drained Away
On days that the wind blows hard the leaves all seem to align the same way, the clouds roll in and t...
Printed textures
3D printing has become a viable production method enabling the rapid production of small and medium-...
The painted house
These experimental structures have been created by combining design processes of architecture and gr...
Candy Morandi
Giorgio Morandi's ceramic vessels have been the inspiration for this project. Morandi´s objects are...
Looking West
Glimpses at sunset, Snapshots of beauty, How deep the sea, Cliffs that soar away. Imaginings of the ...
Casa Sperimentale
One of the most visionary built experiments of 20th century architecture was created through the per...
Discs and Plates
Swirls of colour, lines, spots, imaginary layers of depth brought out into the light by transparency...
Gin is the Thing
While searching for inspiration for sculpture, a friend was talking about the ideal glass for drinki...