design context blog: 2009

Linda Zacks

ILLUSTRATION, DESIGN, ART, WORDS

I found Linda Zacks whilst trying to get inspiration for a typography project. I love her style. I tried to imitate some of her pieces, which I have posted on my 'Design Practice' blog.

Project titled : ENVIRONMENT

Picture below representing the world. All the bright colours exploding out give the impression of how busy the world is and uncontrollable the environment is.

I love the vast use of colours and how bold it stands out from the worn cardboard. The words, images and colours work well together to give a jumbled effect.

The image below I tried to imitate. I like how the piece is mainly made up of paint splodges and dripping paint yet you can still see the image wanting to be portrayed, of a building scape. It looks like a sunset.

My inspired version:

This is taken from one of Linda's books. She has a few books posted online of places she has been and things she has seen. I could spend hours looking through her books. They are all so individually styled and all in the styles i love to work in, mainly being messy and abstract.

Below is a piece made for an advertising campaign for the Adobe 3 Suite. It explores different materials ad techniques.

PAPER, STICKY TAPE, INK, SCRIBBLES, CUT AND STICK, SWIRLS, BRUSH STROKES, ETC.

I like how busy the picture is, yet it is still easy to define the letterform.

-------- http://www.neasdencontrolcentre.com/ ----------

--------WORTH A LOOK ---------

Alyssa Monks

I found Alyssa whilst browsing on 'doitforthefame.com'. Her work has an amazing quality. She paints on par with photographs. My self not having a lot of patience with detailed observational drawing, I found this work surreally good. Some of her images I have had to study for some time to convince myself that they are in fact paintings and not photographs.

Dance Made

DANCE MADE - print / identity / typography

Made as a personal corporate identity for the site 'dancemade.com'

I like the approach taken in this alphabet. Normally I would start creating a font by building up the structure of the letterform its self first. Here the letterform has started off as a square and pieces have been removed to reveal the letterforms. It brings a whole new way to look at typography.

Placing the letterform in a different surrounding or creating it using a different material can totally change the feel and overall appearance of it. I think it looks good in the picture below how such a modern, industrial object can be placed in such a tranquil, natural surrounding and how they contrast against each other.

Another aspect of print... without ink. Merely the shadows from the raised surface reveal the logo. It is a very abstract idea but works well.

Another example of simple typography I love.

QUIT SMOKING GUM

Apeloig

Apeloig, a french type based designer.

Apeloig's style is very minimalist, it focuses on type in its very purest form, without the need for much illustration.

Below are some of my favorite pieces.

Musee d'Orsay

THE P.O.S.T.E.R

I think this is such a clever idea. By simply turning over corners from a piece of paper and creating letterforms. Using type to create lines within the letters. I think the colours work together well, they are bright and make the poster look interesting but still give off a minimal effect.

MAISON DE PHOTO

Simplistic, strong structure

MUSEE D'ORSAY

I like the way the typography blends in with the buildings, creating a new dimension. The word 'chicago' lettering zooms through the buildings and draws your eyes inwards.

Ice Cream For Free

MISCELLANEOUS PROJECTS

A muddle of limbs create a confused and intriguing piece. It makes you look closer into the image to try define the individual limbs.

Pack of cards represented with limbs.

I love illustrated hair. I think it looks elegant and interesting because of the sheer vast amount of individual strands. This image also looks like it could of been manipulated from a photograph and been set on a high contrast to define individual strands against the black hair.

POSTER DESIGNS

Milch - an electro party in Berlin

I like the weathered look. Very random images, but the colours give off an electro feel. Maybe not easy to tell what the poster is advertising at first glance, but if the festival is well known the logo will attract the audience.

Another advertisement for a German disco with featured DJs

The colours are not very bright and mix in together making the writing less legible.

This flyer is typical to the style off 'I.C.F.F' with abstract and somewhat irrelevant images, but overall creating a visually stimulating piece.

ADIDAS - COLOURFUL T-SHIRT ARTWORK

Vibrant, colourful, eyecatching.

The brightness of these designs reflects adidas' playful corporative identity well.

I like the collage, cut and paste feeling these pieces portray.

This image is quite disjointed. A dog's head stuck together with a dancer's leg and an arm?? Although it does work; It expresses the tag line 'celebrating originality' nicely.

Geometric shapes give the effect of mountains and mystery.

The designs work well on the t-shirts, slightly faded. The top image, not necessarily in-your-face recognizable, that it is adidas merchandise and the bottom image only has the image logo for adidas because it is such a well known brand.