citylikeyou

The Shell Grotto is basically a subterranean passageway covered in mosaics created with seashells, 4.6 million shells apparently. Its quite incredible, I love it and its well worth a visit.

Liverpool / Beach

Hundreds of Anthony Gormley statues on the beach in Crosby

New York / Bookstore

My favorite place on Bedford Avenue, this bookstore has both new and used titles. If you're patient and look close enough, you can usually find a book that's worth more than they're asking. Not to mention their stellar selection of magazine titles. Good for design, art, photography, sociology, fiction, and everything in between.

The Hague / Bar

Relaxed wine bar with nice tapas.

Baltimore / Music Venue

An die Musik is an incredible place. It is a smaller venue--the general admission seats are cushioned and seem like ones you might find in a family friend's living room. They specialize in jazz (especially local jazz, from younger Baltimore folk), contemporary classical, and avant-garde formats. The tickets are inexpensive--especially for students, of which there are many in the surrounding area (Peabody, Baltimore School for the Arts, etc.). The impression one gets as an audience member is that some kind of secret is being uncovered, or that a quiet experiment is underway, and the findings are immediate, spontaneous, and elusive. Always interesting music, a small crowd, low-volume, familiar faces, etc.

Amsterdam / Restaurant

Hidden in the greenery near Westerpark, the perfect hideaway from street noise can be found if you know where to look: a little farm called "De Buurtboerderij". Surrounded by a bunch of sheep and a happily decorated garden, the restaurant inside serves one fixed menu a week for a low price. The farm serves as community center as well and is run by volunteers — and you when you eat there! — and there are plenty of sweet people and animals to hang out with.

Berlin / Club

Chalet is one of many clubs in Berlin. It's a very interesting option if you want to know what Berlins night can be. Music is great and environment too. It 's a decadent building in the inside with curious corners...

Paris / Bar

I'm in love with this place !

Portland / Cafe

Behind the Museum Cafe is a Japanese cafe, very bright and open with charming design. It is usually pretty quiet, and they have a great menu with onigiri, Japanese tea cakes, matcha and hojicha lattes, teas, mochi, etc. The space is also a shop, they have ceramics, kimono, cards and other small items. It is next door to Canoe, a favorite design shop.

Paris / Art Centre

This is another artistic centre that opened recently, this time housed in a former 19th century music hall that later became an indoor roller coaster attraction (yeah, really). The temporary exhibitions can be hit or miss, but I like hanging out in the free, open-to-all library on the first floor where you can sit in the futurist media pods and flip through the latest arts, culture, music, design and architecture magazines. Their shelves are also filled with a growing endowment of books which seem to be acquired according to the theme of the aforementioned exhibitions. Internet access is available on a dozen or so PCs (or via WiFi on your own machine) and for gamers, there are a few consoles connected to largish plasma screens. The café upstairs, with its classic baroque meets retro-futurist interior, is a sight to behold.

London / Restaurant

Small restaurant on Highbury Corner that started off focusing on (basically) posh kebabs, but which is now producing some of London's most innovative dishes, focused around unconventional meats, cuts, and breads. Not often you can eat incredible food while listening to heavy rock and metal, but Lee Tiernan has nailed a winning formula.

Barcelona / Bar

Every seven days a different food truck from the more than 300 that the association of tasty vans has in its database is in charge of the cuisine. In fact, at just 18m2, the Var has the exact measurements of a food truck, plus two entrances. Compensating for the tiny size indoors is the magnificent terrace under the bridge that separates Poblenou from the rest of the city. If you don't follow Van Van Var online, you never know what you'll find to eat if you stop by for a surprise visit, but you will always get a good draught beer.

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Amsterdam / Graphic Designer

Vera van de Seyp is a graphic designer and creative coder, currently living in Amsterdam. She likes to explore new technologies and is interested in typography, languages and artificial intelligence.

Barcelona / Art Director

Raquel Quevedo is a Barcelona-based artist and graphic designer. Her practice runs mixing graphic, sculpture, installation, spatial interventions, digital art, typography, publishing & artist books, focusing on process and glitches.

Konstanz / Graphic Designer

Annina is a German graphic designer born in Würzburg and currently living in Constance with a focus on editorial design. After having espresso at a small gelateria on the other side of the street, she is working in-beetween her 30 succulents while listening to detective stories. Her approach is to make her projects look as much fun as she had making them.

Madrid / Creative Director

I did Cultural Studies at Goldsmiths College in London, and History and Aesthetics of Contemporary Art in Madrid and Barcelona. I’ve worked in a magazine, an art gallery, an international art biennial, a museum, a news agency and a university. At some point in my life I realized that my dream job didn’t exist so I decided to invent it. I work as Content Director in visualMAG, an online cultural magazine that emerges from the fascinating encounter of the Internet and the creative industries. But that is only the beginning. The second part of the project, visualMANIAC, will magically appear in a few months. You're gonna love it.

Los Angeles / Photographer

Photographerrrrrrrr

London / Creative Director

Founder & CEO of Everpress. Living & working in East London.

Sydney / Artist

Artist

Cologne / Photographer

Thomas Wiuf Schwartz is a German–Danish Still-life Photographer based in Cologne, Germany. His work, in which passion and devotion are to be found, not only reflect his love of photography, but a visual minimalist imagery of forms, shades, materials and objects. These are skillfully set in scene, played by light and shadow which stands out for his work – the perfect composition of work with materials, structures and surfaces. His potential in graphic design and art direction is reflected in his conceptual approach. The perfection in the imagery, the eye for the unusual can be found in details or their emphasis in the pictures. His dedication is to unfold aesthetics in things, which give the whole strength through small accents, complement his way of work and stands out for his style.

Athens / Graphic Designer

Filippos Fragkogiannis is a freelance graphic designer and art director, based in Athens. He holds an MA in Visual Communication, and a BA in Graphic Design from Vakalo College and the University of Derby. Having collaborated with acclaimed graphic and type designers, on April 16th 2019 he established his own practice. His research-based approach is rooted in semiotics, symbolism and the mechanics of visual language. His projects center around visual identities, posters, and print collateral, and he regularly enhances type foundries with bold imagery. In 2018, he founded Certain Magazine, an independent curatorial platform that chronicles contemporary graphic design and celebrates handpicked design projects from around the world.

New York / Artist

Artist

Rochester / Artist

Ahndraya Parlato is an artist currently based out of Rochester, NY, where she lives with her husband, photographer, Gregory Halpern, and cat-friend, Lucy.

New York / Creative Director

Creative Director + Photographer based in NYC

London / Designer

I'm from Cornwall. Anyone who knows me knows that I rant on about Cornwall. The longer I stay away from Cornwall (in London) the more I seem to rant about it. But I still like to go back as often as possible to do crazy stuff like cast metal furniture on the beach or carve chairs out of Cornish granite in the various quarries dotted around the countryside. Otherwise you will find me in my studio in deepest darkest Tottenham whittling a lump of material into a spoon or chair.

Barcelona / Visual Artist

Joan Tarragó is a Barcelona based visual artist. His career started 17 years ago when he moved to Athens for a school internship. Since this time he became modern nomad of everyday life, always on the move between Barcelona, Berlin, Paris, Biarritz, NY, Richmond, Miami, Thailand, Bulgaria, Gambia, Copenhagen, etc... He is in an interdisciplinary journey between illustration and graphic design, two-and three-dimensionality. He believes illustration is no longer bound by the flat format, but very often inspects and develops space. With his projects he tries to build bridges between art and design, where illustration, graffiti, street & communication all play an important role. Joan illustrates his fantastic animal's world and characters, holy scenarios filled with symbolism and curious lines and textures. He currently lives in Barcelona and keeps spreading his world through his studio taking part in mural festivals, preparing new exhibitions and collaborating with brands and non corporate organizations.

Brussels / Artist

Katja Mater is a visual artist and filmmaker, interested in revealing a different or alternative (experience of) reality through capturing the areas where optical media hardly behave like the human eye, recording events that simultaneously can and cannot be – holding midway between information and interpretation. Next to her artist practice Mater is editor and art director for Girls Like Us Magazine; An independent magazine turning the spotlight on an international expanding community of lesbians and queers within arts, culture and activism. Through personal stories, essays and vanguard visuals Girls Like Us unfolds feminist legacies in arts, design and writing. Mixing politics with pleasure, the magazine maps collaborative routes towards a non-patriarchal future.

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