From lifelike GIF cartoons that movingly capture urban dwellers in their daily commute on Budapest’s public transport, to egg-shaped city maps that help relieve stress, to beautiful photographs capturing ballerinas in motion around alluring local landmarks, many avant-garde artworks spiced up the city’s bustling design scene during this past year. Delve into these eight great works of innovative imagery by aspirational artists depicting the city in unexpectedly creative ways.
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Budapest egg map
Anyone can unwind with Dénes Sándor’s eccentric egg map, which helps relieve stress while serving as a useful tool for exploring the city. The waterproof city map fits perfectly in the palm of your hand, and it comes in handy as a battery-free navigation gadget featuring a detailed map of 11 Budapest districts, including several exciting hotspots, transport hubs, and parks – to zoom in on any of them, all you need to do is give this durable stress ball a squeeze.
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Architectural vector graphics of landmarks
These high-tech visions of Budapest landmarks are the creations of Hungarian graphic designer Gergely József Kiss, and his illustrations represent several of Budapest’s monumental landmarks, like the Parliament, Heroes’ Square, or the Buda Castle in blueprint-style pink-and-white drawings. The artist intends to continue with other famous and not-so-well-known buildings of Budapest in future works, and to perfect his unique technique.
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Urban GIF cartoons
Capturing morsels of everyday life on Budapest’s public transport, Krisztina Bogó’s playful GIF animations illustrate the milieu aboard the city’s buses, trams, and metros as she portrays the oddest passengers encountered in her daily commute. These mini motion pictures are not only based on the artist’s own experiences, but she also uses other passengers’ stories as sources of inspiration, providing a sampling of typical characters in Budapest these days.
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Riverfront buildings in focus
This experimental project of Hungarian photographer Nóra Laki highlights impressive downtown buildings of the Danube bank for their distinctive appeal by tearing them out of their original environment. The photographer placed the pictures on a simple gray background, thus encouraging the viewer to focus on details of each edifice. Nóra named her project “Door-to-Door”, referring to the side-by-side coexistence of all these beautiful historic sites.
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Past meets present in Budapest
Past intermingles with present on the imaginative works of Magyar photojournalist Márton Neményi, depicting painted figures of famous Hungarian poets, politicians, and musicians from the past, now pictured in everyday situations of our modern world. The result is quite fascinating – characters from classic paintings hang out aboard modern Budapest trams, in parks, in metro stations, or in a shopping mall, along with other everyday locales of the capital.
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Historic photos of dogtown Budapest
Roland Bíró’s alternative portrayal of Hungary’s capital shows archive photos of Budapest with dogs as the city’s dominating species, going about everyday life just like humans do, and the result is a funny series of fictional images; some of these photos are even printed on T-shirts and postcards. The delightful series is a continuation of one of Bíró’s previous works portraying birds in similar situations citywide, which was inspired by Roland’s daughter.
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Ballerina Project Hungary
Graceful ballerinas elevate the beauty of famous Budapest landmarks as they pose in front of iconic locales, like Heroes’ Square, the Chain Bridge, and amid various parts of metro line 4, among other acclaimed sites. Local photographer Dóra Tünde’s artful series was inspired by the original Ballerina Project from New York City, which aims to promote ballet around the world, but at the same time these fine photos are pure works of art.
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Budapest fonts
These fascinating font families are the works of creative students at MOME’s graphic design school, who were tasked to draw inspiration from iconic metropolitan buildings and then come up with state-of-the-art typographies that represent a specific edifice. The assignment, called Budapestype, forms part of a broader project that meets at the axis of building design and graphic design. Some of these typographies have been published on Tumblr.
