Tactile

Just found these extraordinary tactile maps by Inuit travellers. The wood carvings are representations of the East Greenland coastline, designed to be used at night or in low visibility.

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Liz

Usually revisiting the music of my youth is not at all appealing. But a Spotify subscription has proved too tempting when it is so easy to search for half-forgotten sounds. In the case of The Cocteau Twins I have had their albums on the iPod - but not all of them, and not the EPs. So it was a joy to hear Those Eyes, That Mouth again, and listen to her newer collaborations with Yann Tiersen.

Liz Fraser still has the most extraordinary voice, and a visit to elizabethfraser.com reveals she is recording again - great news.

Hitchcock

This clever imagining of Hitchcock film posters is by Matt Needle. Bold and memorable work, (almost) to rival Saul Bass.

Clones

Brilliantly inventive work by artist Peter Funch. At first it's difficult to work out what he has done, but fairly quickly we can tell that there is some clever image manipulation. It offers a perceptive critique of city life by aggregating common themes, through which a typology of urban activity emerges.

Cartooning

Although he became famous (to me at least) through the LOLcats cartoons - his alleged 'discovery' of a 1920s source for the internet meme - Adam Koford has provided a constant stream of surreal, self-deprecating, sideways humour on Twitter. Always a joy. But here he is in illustrating action, mesmerising with penstrokes on a series of YouTube videos. Takes me back to the days of Vision On...

And find him on Twitter here.

Plans

For a long time it has seemed poor to feature interesting architecture in the media whilst assuming that the public would be 'confused' by floorplans.

So it was a pleasant surprise to find that Wallpaper has been publishing interactive drawings for some time, allowing you to alternate between an orthogonal drawing and photographs of the building concerned. It makes for an easier understanding of the project, whether you're an architect or not. Well done everyone.

Layering

Manhattan Transformations provides a visualisation of urban development on Manhattan Island. The highlight is the layered map, with the original settlements and farm patterns. It is limited in scale and scope, which is a shame as there is some interesting research within.