It’s not Wednesday, it’s not Friday, no dear reader – it’s Interviewday here on The Leap, so put down the Facebook, pick up the coffee, put on your headies and lock the world out for ten minutes (if you’re a very slow reader). Ready? Right then, let’s begin.

In the Cape Town CBD is a grand and ancient bar at the Kimberly Hotel, which is where, on any given Friday night, quite a few of the creative souls that plague the city are to be found sucking inspiration from glass containers. This isn’t about them, but rather about a visiting artist from Mexico named Gerardo Muñoz, who's staying at the Kimberly and I met at said popular joint over a beer last Friday lunchtime.

Gerardo’s from Tlaxcala – officially known as the Free and Sovereign State of Tlaxcala – which is the smallest state in Mexico. And he’s here in Cape Town on account of the good folk over at Am I Collective, who he’s joined for a year to share his skills and creative output (he’s already started busting out a great mural in their offices). Having been spraying, painting and generally pumping out unique brand of illustration and sculpture since the age of 14, Gerardo’s work has seen him enter the advertising industry after leaving university – he’s done time at Saatchi, Leo Burnett and DDB, but the lure of street art is too strong for him – which is why he’s in Cape Town.

Describing his range of output as mixed media, and mostly sticking to his preferred arsenal of acrylic and cans, Gerardo’s illustration is noticeably coloured by the rich contrasting palette associated with the best of Mexican art and could be described as psychedelic folk graffiti, which incorporates the flow and palette of impressionism with his unique textured colouring technique. His range is pretty varied too; he’s worked on illustration for magazines, album artwork, wall murals, skate decks and event posters and also sculpture. His true love? Wall art, which has seen him work with some of the world’s leading muralists, including the legendary Aryz.

Gerardo’s in town for another 11 months – if you see him, say hi, he’s a great guy who looks a little like a hobbit (thus the name of his blog: hobbitculturearts.blogpost.com). And if you see some crazy/beautiful wall art done in a style you’ve never seen before, you’ll know if it’s his.

Mucho gusto, Gerardo!

Like this post? Wanna read more artist, designer and illustrator interviews? Go here.

When you're able to introduce a designer with a single name, his surname, and there's no mistaking who it may be, then you know that the subject of today's post stands head and shoulders above the best. Which is saying a lot, but then there's only one Starck.

He's earned more accolades than everyone else combined, and the beseeching requests from the world's leading brands have rarely abated since he took flight as the darling of industrial, interior and product design. Since his first big break designing the interior for French ex-President Francois Mitterand's apartment back in the mid-80s, Philipe Starck's name and unmistakable '+' logo have become synonymous with excellence.

Which would be why his work is immediately recognised the world over: a bike for Aprilia (which, though it looked beautiful, even he slated as a worthless piece of junk). A yacht for Giga. Watches for Fossil. Nightclubs. Hotels. And then there are those unique twists on domestic items which display his rare thinking - the free-standing Dr. Skud fly swatter designed for Alessi in 1998. And of course, who could forget, that Juicy Salif lemon juicer.

He doesn't give a fig for the work of other designers, he's had 5 wives, lives in 4 cities and is only interested in goodness, not beauty. Considering the way he has with everything he designs, he's quite possible the greatest living designer of our time, and there's no way to wax lyrical more than simply bringing you these images, which speak for themselves.

Happy Friday! And if it's Friday, it must be Video Friday here at The Leap. Today we're going way, way back to the very dawn of animated cartoons, with a clip that marks Mickey Mouse, and his girlfriend Minnie's, first appearance on public screens with which the two mice made their splash into immortality with this, Disney's third-ever animated cartoon: Steamboat Willie. Many people claim this to be the very first that Disney’s studio put out: it’s not. That honour falls to a short clip named Plane Crazy, which also featured Mickey & Minnie, but failed to find a distributor and was thus not aired commercially until the 1960s.

One thing that's immediately obvious in Steamboat Willie is of course that Mickey and Minnie don't look quite the same as they've come to be known by modern audiences. No surprises there - this 7:43s short was first aired at Universal's Colony Theatre in 1928! On release it became hugely popular and paved the way for other animators' introduction to American, and subsequently worldwide, moving picture audiences. The major factor that created the short's amazing success was not necessarily the animation, but rather the fact this was one of the very first animated cartoons to feature sound - something crucial to the sketch, as the entire storyline contains musical skits by Mickey, Minnie and the rest of the characters.

Directed and produced by Walt Disney, who also did the voices, Steamboat Willie is a time capsule which takes the viewer back to the very start of what would become an entire industry which would revolutionise the way cartoons were consumed. Enjoy!

You probably don't recognise the name in phonetic Japanese, but you'll definitely recognise the image, right? Right. 'Under A Wave, Off Kanagawa' (or 神奈川沖浪裏 / Kanagawa-oki nami-ura), to give the print its full and proper name, is one of the most enduring design compositions of all time. Created by the master woodblock artist Katsushika Hokusai as the first print in the 36-print series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji (Fugaku sanjūrokkei (富嶽三十六景), this image was initially printed in 1831, and has never since stopped being printed and enjoyed by millions of art lovers across the world. 

As an example of the Japanese style of print named ukiyo-e, the 'Great Wave' as it's become known, has been printed thousands of times - both when originally released as the first print in the Thirty-six Views series, and subsequently in many unauthorised print runs. As a study in composition, its balance is found in the depth and perspective of the print - in the foreground the skiff carrying sailors is almost overwhelmed by a wave (frequently misinterpreted as a tsunami, but more likely the okinami, or 'deep-sea wave' of its title), creating a wild and beautiful scene where force and movement are fiercely shown in contrasting blue and white, whilst in the deep background Mount Fuji, the subject of the Thirty-six Views series, sits serenely distant (as it does in all the prints of the series).

As an example of the incredible skill of woodblock printing in Japan during the Edo period, the Great Wave has acted as an artistic ambassador for nearly 200 years, inspiring Western artists to develop their own block colour prints, as seen in the explosion of printwork and oriental styles which characterised La Belle Epoque. This is an interesting exchange, when considering the fact that the style of Hokusai's prints (and indeed those of his contemporary, Hiroshige) were influenced by the introduction of Western books and engravings to Japan in the early 1800's.

The results have ever since captured the imagination of art lovers the world over - in more ways than one. Nowadays you can easily buy anything from iPad covers to headphones with the famous print on it.

Little known fact #1:

In another interesting twist which not many people know about, the Great Wave was the example on which the original logo for surfwear giant Quiksilver was modelled, something easily seen when the images are compared.

Little-known fact #2:

Katsushika Hokusai used more than 30 psuedonyms during his life as an ukiyo-e artist. 

Good morning, good afternoon and good evening, wherever you are out there on planet Leap. It's either just about the weekend, or you're already moaning off a ripe hangover somewhere on the other side of the International Date Line. Welcome to Video Friday number 3 and have we got something fantastic to sink your eyeteeth into today.

A long time ago before CGI and Photoshop and Pixar and even pixels for that matter, the realm of animation was the domain of hardworking madmen (and mad women) who spent hours illustrating, sculpting, colouring or cutting each frame used in stop-frame animation. Disney (whose incredible collaboration with Salvador Dali we featured last week), of course, was among the great forerunners who revolutionised animation for the masses, as were many illustrators (such as Chuck Jones and Tex Avery) whose work continues to be viewed by millions the world over. Following in these big footsteps were many others, but few among them could be classed in the same category as the odd-looking guy who would go on to become the lone American in Monty Python's Flying Circus. Terry Gilliam is now known as much for his time with Python as he is for his amazing (yet not always profitable) features, among which are included some of the greatest films of our time: The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, The Fisher King, The Adventures of Baron Munchhausen, 12 Monkeys, Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas, Brazil and Jabberwocky, among others.

But oh! Wait! Long before any of those were so much as a twinkle in Terry's canny eye, he was an animator, who spent endless hours cutting and pasting (literally) hundreds of frames to create the end results that would see him earn the attention of, and inclusion in, the Python team. The proof of that pudding is the entirely mad, beautifully surreal and totally irreverent animations which bridge so many absurd Monty Python skits in a suitably unhinged manner.

I think we can all agree that they're fantastic and they've made countless millions laugh their asses off for many years. Fair anough but then, we've all seen those, right? Right. Which is why, on today's Video Friday, we bring you a piece of Terry Gilliam's earliest work, titled 'Storytime'. It's from 1968, and it's the charming story of a cockroach. Named Don. And hands, which which stay out late carousing and misbehaving. And a man named Albrt Einstein, who earned the scorn of his neighbours on account of being named Albert Einstein but not having discovered the Theory Of Relativity. But of course.