Paris vs New York - Vahram Muratyan book review

I have a whole heap of overdue book reviews to write up... so stay tuned!

I can never understand those people who say "I hate Facebook" and refuse to use it.. without it I wouldn't be able to find out about new and interesting things, and I wouldn't have found out about this awesome little book.

Perhaps you've seen this awesome image before: Macaron vs Cupcake. I had. Except I never bothered to look into who created it or why/how it was created, etc. Well it's created by the genius that is Vahram Muratyan. The Parisian graphic artist has made an indepth cultural observation and comparison between two great cities, Paris and New York, by way of some simple and gorgeous illustrations.

Look at this image for example. If you were going to compare these two big airports Charles de Gaulle (CDG) and John F Kennedy (JFK) what would you think of drawing? An airport? Some planes taking off? Some people pulling suitcases? He doesn't. That's why I call him a genius. He draws the path of a plane in the shape of a profile of the person the airport was named after. Is that not genius? He makes something complicated (like how would you draw an airport exactly anyway?) simple and easy to understand. And beautiful.

Despite the fact that you can see many of his works on his blog (link below) this was a book I simply had to have, being a lover of Paris and large cities in general, and all things graphical and beautiful. :)

I read it with my Parisian boyfriend this weekend and we tried to work out the meanings and links between the images. Sometimes it's not so obvious as there are abbreviations and slang and you have to know Parisian/French and American culture well. We got all of them except one or two.

As I'm so fascinated, I found some articles about this guy and his book:

* Interview in English
* Another interview in English. Page 1 | Page 2
* Interviews (and videos) in French (also pasted below)






* Buy the book here on Amazon Paris versus New York: A tale of two cities
* Buy the prints (pack of 100 postcards) Paris versus New York Postcard Box: A Tally of Two Cities in 100 Postcards
* Read the blog The blog: Paris vs New York

Disclaimer: I have no connection at all to the author or publisher but love this amazing little book so much I highly recommend you get your own copy to keep! :D

(top picture from here)