In Japan, an island nation, waves are symbols long found in a vast array of art, design and craft from around the country, which one author decided to systemize in a three-book series now available for free online.

Myriad ancient wave and ripple examples were carefully compiled and catalogued in black ink by little-known artist Mori Yuzan just over a hundred years ago, detailing different motifs and patterns for other creators and craftspeople to emulate

The sheer variety of waves in these volumes alone is mesmerizing, all fitting into a style yet representing various applications as borders, backgrounds and design details suitable for all sorts of applications..

These Nihonga style (Japanese painting) graphics, typically applied to Japanese washi paper with brushes, can also be applied to anything from everyday ceramics to religious objects, swords, scrolls and wall art.

Perhaps the most famous application of waves remains the Great Wave of Kanagawa, a classic image from the 1800s featuring an enormous wave threatening boats off the coast of the present-day city of Yokohama. While sometimes assumed to be a tsunami, the wave is more likely to be a large rogue wave. As in many of the prints in the series, it depicts the area around Mount Fuji under particular conditions, and the mountain itself appears in the background.

Following the Meiji Restoration in 1868, Japan ended a long period of national isolation and became open to imports from the West. In turn, much Japanese art came to Europe and America and quickly gained popularity. The influence of Japanese art on Western culture became known as Japonism. Japanese woodblock prints became a source of inspiration for artists in many genres, particularly the Impressionists. Hokusai was seen as the emblematic Japanese artist and images from his prints and books influenced many different works.

A few years back, artist Nobutaka Aozaki started asking directions from strangers on the streets of Manhattan, then collecting those maps (hand-drawn from memory) to assemble into a huge and growing work of geographic wall art.

To aid his work, the artist pretends to be a tourist, donning souvenir apparel and carrying around a shopping bag from a popular tourist destination. He then asks New York pedestrians how to get from one location to the next, all in ways designed to fill in the gaps of his larger composition.

From Here to There, he explains, is a “map of Manhattan composed of hand-drawn maps by various pedestrians whom I asked for directions. I have collected and aggregated together small individual maps provided by strangers that constitute a contiguous map of the island of Manhattan.” Like a pre-digital version of now-popular subjective maps (like the one below, the result of this art project is a patchwork quilt made up of slips of paper ripped out of notebooks, even paper plates from street vendors — whatever is handy to draw on, scribbled upon with whatever is handy to write with, in whatever style and format is favored by the individual creators.

It’s a beautiful thing to watch evolve, and it may never be complete, but that isn’t really the point of the project. These days, few people rely on paper maps anymore, so it becomes a reflection of what people still know, or think they know, about the city around them. It also turns out to be a handy way to gauge the helpfulness of strangers on the streets of a big metropolis, showing how they respond when asked for a simple kindness from a stranger.

At a glance, photos of Cafe Yeonnam-dong in South Korea appear to show a flat two-dimensional drawing of a dining space, but these objects are far more 3D than they appear. From the floorboards to the plants to the door handles, every detail of the cafe has been sketched in black on white and brightly lit to show as little dimension as possible. As you might imagine, it’s all highly Instagrammable, making it so popular with locals and tourists that the cafe often has to shut down early because they’ve sold out of food.

The cafe, which opened in July 2017, takes inspiration from a hit Korean television show called W – Two Worlds, in which the protagonist enters a cartoon created by her father. The owners realized they could recreate that feeling in a highly unusual cafe, noting that there’s probably nothing quite like it in the world. The only things that break the illusion are the lamps and the food itself, which stands out in bright contrast, making it look even more appetizing than usual.

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A post shared by Since 2017 / Greem cafe / 2D (@greem_cafe)

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A post shared by Since 2017 / Greem cafe / 2D (@greem_cafe)

All the more reason to wear a vivid ensemble if you can make it to the Yeonman-dong district yourself (or blend in, as some people have chosen to do). If you can’t, Instagram has plenty of opportunities to experience the cafe from afar.

Images via the cafe’s Facebook + Instagram

Painted patterns turn ordinary sidewalks and other urban surfaces into geometric artworks, creating a level of creative interaction as well as domestic intimacy in public spaces.

European artist Ali (Arthur-Louis Ignoré) takes cues from ancient decorative rug design traditions as well natural and geometric forms from other ornamental sources.

Using simple white-on-gray, the drawings themselves can be simple at times, or playful. Their contrast with monotonous paving stones and asphalt brings dull areas to life with a bit of unconventional decor.

Some span entire alleys, streets or even rooftops, reaching up to 10,000 square feet in size, and spanning cities in France, Finland, Canada and the United States.

But while these larger works are impressive, there is something simple and subversive about sketching out, using simple lines and patterns, a little cozy place-making rug on a street for all to share.

Originally painted in 1968 on the side of an Amsterdam museum building, this Keith Haring mural was covered in a subsequent renovation before recently being revealed once again to the public.

Standing 40 feet high, the drawing was added to complement an indoor exhibit at the Stedelijk Museum. A new layer to the exterior facade, however, later shrouded it from view for decades to follow.

For years, other artists like Mick La Rock have been pushing to expose the art once again. Finally, a move by the museum itself out of the building made that possible — the climate-controlling panels were no longer needed. In the end, the conversion of the structure to a grocery store from a museum enabled this reveal.

The original work is Haring’s largest in Europe. Created over a period of two days, it features a mythical creature and figures common to the artist’s work. More about the artist: “Keith Haring was born on May 4, 1958 in Reading, Pennsylvania, and was raised in nearby Kutztown, Pennsylvania. He developed a love for drawing at a very early age, learning basic cartooning skills from his father and from the popular culture around him, such as Dr. Seuss and Walt Disney.”

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A post shared by MickLaRock (@micklarock01)

“In addition to being impressed by the innovation and energy of his contemporaries, Haring was also inspired by the work of Jean Dubuffet, Pierre Alechinsky, William Burroughs, Brion Gysin and Robert Henri’s manifesto The Art Spirit, which asserted the fundamental independence of the artist. With these influences Haring was able to push his own youthful impulses toward a singular kind of graphic expression based on the primacy of the line.”