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You are here: Home / Art / 28 Crazy Geometric Graphic Design Inspirations from 500 Years Ago

28 Crazy Geometric Graphic Design Inspirations from 500 Years Ago

November 3, 2009 by Douglas Bonneville

Boy, the term “been there, done that, got the t-shirt” rings true today. I’m a big fan of M.C. Escher and deeply appreciate and am inspired by his work, both as a graphic designer and artist, and so I was astonished today to find what is likely – directly or indirectly – the archetypal artist for his work.

I recently came across a blog, new to me called lines and colors run by Charley Parker. Charley says he created the blog because he delights in the “feeling of wide-eyed discovery” and by being “dazzled by the discovery of new artists or genres” that have sparked his imagination. He covers everything from Medieval to Dada.

I was shuffling through his recent archives and found a post about Lorenz Stöer that really caught me off guard. If you are an Escher fan, no doubt you will see why in a split second. Thumb through this gallery below and be sure to click through to see the high-res Flickr set of these great woodcuts and prints. Visit lines and colors for more info about Lorenz Stöer that Charley researched for our enlightenment.

Now I’m inspired! Random-geometric, psuedo-architecture, drawn-in-pencil-and-inked-with-a-Micron-in-my Moleskine, here I come! Right here, right now, I commit to doodling and then posting something along these lines :).

Ever so slighty, a few recent posts of mine reminds me of the heavy-lined geometric oddities of the work of Lorenz:

  • Art House Co-Op’s “The Sketchbook Project” Moleskine sketches, pages 12-13
  • Art House Co-Op’s “The Sketchbook Project: Library” and daily Moleskine sketches

The above 2 sketch posts were not intended to be architectural per se, but I do have a fascination with hand-drawn 3d lettering and fake 3d spaces filled with random geometric forms.

Filed Under: Art

About Douglas Bonneville

Douglas has been a graphic designer since 1992, in addition to software developer and author. He is a member of Smashing Magazine's "Panel of Experts" and has contributed to over 100 articles. He is the author of "The Big Book of Font Combinations", loves cats, and plays guitar.

Comments

  1. Daniel Wood says

    February 14, 2010 at 3:35 pm

    This is a great WordPress Blog. What theme are you using?

  2. Douglas Bonneville says

    February 14, 2010 at 5:58 pm

    Hi Daniel. Thanks for the kind words! This is a custom theme developed in the Hybrid Theme framework. Hybrid has child themes you can take and modify, or you can get Skeleton, which is a child theme for designers or developers that is 100% blank. The only thing that is done for you is the CSS sheet, which is complete in terms of references, but it is 100% empty of values for each class. If you have Firefox and Firebug (developer extenstion), it makes it super easy to find each class and then edit it as you like. For this theme, I mocked it up in Fireworks and the iteratively prodded the HTML with Firebug and built it really rather quickly.

    For some more info, check out this article about Hybrid Theme Framework I wrote and then visit the Theme Hybrid website for more info. I’m very pleased with the support directly from the author…

  3. Design babe Brisbane says

    July 1, 2010 at 1:45 am

    oh wow i see. it looks just like Escher. i though it was his work.

  4. Douglas Bonneville says

    July 1, 2010 at 2:14 am

    I thought the same thing. At first I thought it was some early work of his! On closer inspection I realized it was not him at all.

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