Links: Chopsticks, Transformers, Iranian cartoons, Israeli typography

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• Lakehead University in Ontario, Canada has a new ad campaign: Yale, Shmale
• PingMag is a great blog for visual inspiration. Check out these articles:
  • Oded Ezer does experimental typographical art in Hebrew.
  • Gez Fry dropped his diplomatic career path and became a pro illustrator in two years of self-training. (The article title, “How Japanese style illustration works”, is sadly deceptive.)
  • Chopstick design! I hadn’t realized that Japanese, Chinese, and Korean chopsticks are all designed slightly differently. (And Kwytza Kraft recycles disposable wooden chopsticks into lamps, jewelry, bowls, tabletops, bags, etc.)
  • MisFormers are sculptures made out of Transformers figures.
• When did the Muslim world start getting good cartoonists? I’m used to Islamic cartoons being crudely-drawn with blunt, boring symbolism, so when I checked out this Iranian collection of political cartoons I wasn’t expecting much. But wow, that’s a lot more sophisticated than I was expecting (though most of the cartoons aren’t from the Middle East). I was especially impressed by this piece from Iranian artist Mohammadreza Doustmohammadi, enough to look up his website. Antisemitic, sure, and somewhat conceptually disordered (What’s the cowboy imagery in there for? Is it because the six-pointed star looks a bit like a sheriff’s badge?), but graphically very good. And this one is just brilliant.