While perusing some art and design blogs this morning, I came across a post on formfiftyfive.com about the Grammy's visual work this year. Last year wasn't a great one for the Grammy's, as it had an incredibly low audience, and it's been in steady decline in popularity over the last few years.

But this year they seem to be stepping up with first their nominations, and secondly, with their visual campaigns.

Grammy Spokesperson, Thom Yorke, has been helping to put out these ads for the Grammy's in the recent days throughout NYC. This campaign, titled "Celebrate the Music That Made Us", has popular music artist's faces sprawled all over subways, wheat pasted on walls, and strewn through subway stations beginning in New York and extending across the country.

Thom Yorke even has his own face in the campaign, which seems to be a pretty bold move considering the iffy publicity work of the Grammy's in the past.

"Celebrate the Music That Made Us" takes artists like Coldplay, Kanye, and Stevie Wonder amongst others and turns them into visual inspiration and art utilizing words. Each artist was asked the simple question of, "what songs influence you", and using that list, visual portraits were created.

Soon you'll be able to see commercials narrated by these artists, and when those come out I'll be sure to post their online links.

Probably the coolest thing though is that these are incredibly intricate portraits, done in a variety of typefaces for a variety of styles, and they don't have the standard "word portrait" boring look.

You should be able to tell who the artists are below, and the images are available much larger at this link for Pitchfork Media. Also check around the internet for more of these portraits, as they're scattered all over the art world, and also for more that are planned to come out closer to February 8th on Grammy Day.

Take out your iPod and,
Draw.