With a passion for design and a love for sewing, I’ve been creating clothing for myself and friends as far back as I can remember. I really relished the thought of being able to share my creations with a wider audience and take my passion to the next level. That said, this Summer marks the debut of my first collection for my clothing line, Ilana Kohn.

For this collection, I created three dresses and a shirt, all based on the graphic qualities of stripes and clean shapes. My inspiration for the collection ran the gamut from historic clothing to the loose, clean shapes of Japanese pattern books and Annie Hall-esque menswear, all in understated, neutral colors in order to let the graphic quality of the stripes do the talking. Simply, these are just the pieces that I want to while away my own Summer in.

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Despite his name, I’m guessing German illustrator Frederik Jurk must be a cool guy because his images, his limited palette and gorgeous textured line work are awesome.

I was immediately taken with the work of California artist Zack Paul. Especially the images created on various bits of driftwood and found natural objects. The most perfect backdrop to his clean, geometric images.

Stumbling across the comics of artist Vanessa Davis just made my day. Her personal meanderings and sketchy style just make me want to read every little thing I can get my hands on. I especially enjoy the memior-esque series she’s been creating for Tablet Mag. I can’t think of any better way to procrastinate on a weekday afternoon.

A little retro, a lot colorful and even more fun? It’s the work of Missouri illustrator Tad Carpenter, who truly presents the ultimate trifecta.

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At first glance, I was wondering what was going on in the illustrations of UK illustrator Gemma Robinson. Marmite! Shoulda known! I’ve become familiar with this British oddity courtesy of my significant other, who just loves to smear the questionable stuff all over his toast. So heck, a whole book full of adorable illustrations about marmite and all its very useful applications. I might even find myself rethinking my tepid relationship with that sludgy, musty smelling stuff.

Los Angeles painter Lisa Solberg was just what I was in the mood for this morning, as I was glancing through my links. Color, lots of color, tossed about, smeared and swirled all over the canvas. It really hits the spot. She also has a new video of her painting process.

With 2010 almost upon us, it’s time to replace my 2009 edition with one of these calendar beauties. Among my favorites are the Matisse like screen printed calendar from Lena Corwin & Mociun, The Wild Uknown’s Year of Feathers and Song Writers calendars, Camilla Engman’s calendar filled with a years worth of her incredible images, and last but not least, the dateless Seasonal Fruits of California and Wildflower calendars of Claire Nereim.

UK illustrator Sophie Alda seems to capture that hazy second between sleep and wakefulness in her surreal images, which are executed in the most delicate of Easter egg colors.

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I’m such a sucker for the childlike work of illustrator Joanne Neborsky. It reminds me of hiding under my bed as kid, cutting pictures out of magazines, and surreptitiously drawing on the wall where no one would see it. But, heck, I’d let Neborsky come and draw all over my walls any day.

As such a fan of New York illustrator Josh Cochran’s work, I was excited to discover that he has several limited edition prints, as well as t-shirts, alongside artists Dalek — a Lost At E Minor contributor — and Rueben Rude available through Neon Monster – an online, and brick and mortar art and design collective, selling art, art toys, records, prints, and clothes, among other things. These items were created exclusively for Neon Monster for the very first art toy installation set up at Art Basel in Miami.

Delicately rendered black and white drawings always hit the spot and the wildly surreal images of artist Scott Hassell are certainly no exception.

How much better can it get than little dollops of contemporary art interspersed throughout the breathtaking setting of Champagne Pommery’s Domaine in Reims, France. The most interesting part here is that this is an ongoing tradition at Champagne Pommery, going all the way back to the 19th century ‘when Madame Pommery commissioned sculptor Gustav Navlet to carve four bas reliefs for the estate and later had the famous cabinet maker and glass artist Emile Gallé create a solid oak Pommery barrel that holds up to 19,816 gallons (100,000 bottles). This barrel was displayed at the 1904 Worlds’ Fair in St. Louis’. The upcoming Sixth Pommery Exhibition, Sons & Lumieres, will be curated by French artist Bertrand Lavier and will include ‘everyday objects often set in difficult spaces’.

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Color heaven! Perusing UK illustrator Ben O’Brien’s portfolio feels a lot like wandering the aisles of a giant candy store. I could buy one of everything in sight.

I love it! With the CD now being eclipsed by the MP3, I find myself feeling even more nostalgic for the simple charm of the cassette. Australian artists Andrew Smart and Jared Schmidt create ‘large scale hand-made wooden cassette tapes, routed, sanded, bogged, primed, and painted with a high quality paint finish’. Aha! The perfect way to memorialize my old mix tapes.

The perfect example of art at it’s most raw and honest, The Art of Wooing: An Email Tale of Modern Courtship by Kaz Brecher is an intense distillation of the twisted eighteen month romantic saga between herself and her poet/kick-boxing instructor. The book is entirely comprised of emails between herself and friends, detailing the dalliance as it unfolded, as well as some pretty personal collages throughout. What could possibly be more enticing than such a raw, thoroughly up close, un-edited view at someone else’s love and loss? As Brecher puts it, ‘it’s a Griffin and Sabine for the Sex in the City crowd’. Perfect.

I love the finely rendered, graphic (yes, rendered and graphic) work of illustrator John Malloy. His charmingly quirky sensibility is the crowning element of his work.

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Presented only with stills from Italian artist Andreco’s stop-motion animation Fake Religion, I was really loving it, purely based on its stark, surreal imagery. I was pretty disappointed not being able to locate the actual video, but that aside, I simply adored the images. I really would have loved to have seen the video presented in the breathtaking setting of the Palazzo Re Enzo in Bologna. Such a beautiful contrast of aesthetics between the dramatic murals and vaulted ceilings of the Palazzo and the stark graphic imagery of Andreco’s animation.

Those amazing illustration seniors from The Ringling School have outdone themselves with their beautifully designed book, Illest of Ill. The book was created with the intention of selling it to raise funds for their senior show. They contacted various illustrators and asked them to contribute an illustration based on the classic Gibson Girl or Arrow Shirt Man (myself included). The book includes some fantastic work from illustrators Sam Weber, Nathan Fox, George Pratt and Sterling Hundley, among so, so many others.

Next time I find myself on my fifteen minute walk to the C train, I plan on cramming a little Halloween in. New York’s Merchant’s House Museum has a new hotline where you can call up and simply listen to the cell phone audio tour, Tales Of The Strange and Inexplicable, featuring some of the Museum’s most notorious ghost stories. Should that whet you appetite for something more tactile, the Museum is currently holding candlelight ghost tours and will even be hosting an authentic 19th Century funeral — antique coffin to be physically borne down the Bowery and all. The hotline is 1-877-646-1832.