I had the amazing fortune this week to attend a lecture by Leif Peng at Nook. Leif is the illustrator/designer/teacher/general-awesome-person behind Today’s Inspiration, a blog about mid-century illustration. He is a very talented speaker, the lecture was a smart analysis of the illustration industry today cleverly disguised as a series of really fun stories about Lyendecker, Al Parker and Naiad and Walter Einsel – I see what you did there! The entire lecture was recorded and you can check it out online at Nook’s blog.

Nook deserves a paragraph of its own! It’s a collective studio/events space geared towards illustrators and other commercial artists. There seems to be a lot of learning opportunities going on all up in there: businesses classes, group art jams, computer classes, it sounds really exciting! There are some really smart and talented people involved in Nook, including Julia Breckenreid, Kathryn Adams, Shelley van Benschop, Katy Dockrill, Aaron Leighton and Sandra Dionisi.