Designers can find inspiration from varying forms of creative expression. Looking at the batik murals of the American artist and designer Lydia Bush-Brown (1887–1984), her sources seemed clear. Sketches capturing scenes from her travel in the 1920s to Syria and Italy can be found repeatedly in her work. Murals featuring Syrian villages on terraced hills,...

Walking through Central Park I enjoyed seeing all the brightly colored leaves in the trees, while the fallen leaves crunched underfoot. I thought this wallpaper with its warm colors and hints of green seemed to beautifully capture the essence of the fall day. This is a fairly stylized landscape scene which includes trees, vines, and...

Winslow Homer, an artist best known today for his facility with watercolor and beautiful seascapes, started as a largely self-taught, freelance illustrator. His skill gained him a position working for the popular mid-19th century periodical Harper’s Weekly. While working for Harper’s, Homer became intimately acquainted with the Civil War. He was sent to the front,...

Though this striking drawing may at first seem to present a colorful abstract fantasy, the design meticulously translates 78 measures of the 1870 music drama Die Walküre into a new complex visual form. Before creating this ornamental design, John De Cesare worked very successfully as an architectural sculptor. He provided sculptural decoration for some of...

This wallpaper caught my eye at first because of the graceful swooping lines of the birds and the watercolor-like application of the blues. I thought it was a lovely scene of swallows flying in a morning sky. Then I noticed that many of clouds are actually water lilies. Are we looking then at the surface...

Dragon robes were worn as court dress during the Liao (901-1125), Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties in China, with embroidered iconography used to symbolize the emperor’s dominion over land and sea. Common elements include waves, forming a wide band at the bottom of the robe, mountains in the central plane, and clouds, occupying the...

Dutch Clouds takes a very unusual approach to the traditional scenic paper or mural. When viewed up close, the design is composed of thousands of multicolored icons arranged in rows. The icons were developed by Martens as a language to express color combinations. Reflecting Martens’ monoprint works, begun in the 1990s, these icons are based...

In the aftermath of the French Revolution, many public squares required new monuments that celebrated Revolutionary ideals instead of the might of the fallen monarchy. Several fascinating proposals followed including a suggestion by Jacques-Louis David who suggested  in 1793 that a large statue of Hercules be erected on  Place de Pont-Neuf  with each limb of...

Delicate cloud lighting forms float over, and mirror, island seat forms below, like the puffy white clouds that sit over the many islands scattered across the Pacific Ocean. Aotearoa, the Maori name for New Zealand, means the “land of long white cloud.” It is not primarily to do with recyclable materials, efficient material use. To...