SAM CHIVERS

I came across this guy in new scientist magazine when he did the illustration for an article on 'Cosmic lighthouses'. I still don't know what cosmic lighthouses are because when i saw the illustration I went to find out more about the artist who did it rather than reading the article.

Anyway, I checked this guys website out and found out his work on there is way better than the one image I had seen. He uses a lot of collage, photoshop and illustrator, whilst also incorporating other media such as line drawing and screenprinting to give his pieces a lot of different levels.

Sam creates and builds a lot of illustrator based landscapes, as well as producing band artwork and editorial work. This kind of work is not my favourite type of illustration, but for some reason it is the kind of thing i cannot get bored of. I really like his use of different textures and shapes and although he uses quite a few that I would never dream of using, his pieces as a whole are still really nice

LOGORAMA ANIMATION

Apologies to Chris Madden for blatently stealing this off his blog. It is just an amazingly well put together and clever short animation. This is well worth taking 10 minutes to watch.

JOHAN POTMA

It is not usually the main image or character that I find the most pleasing in these illustrations, it is everything else going on around it. There are always tiny little bits of detail or interesting things to find if you look properly, and the more you look at his work the more attached to it you become. Johan Potman always adds in charmng little details like the wings on the back of the monster in the first image that you dont see straight away but when you do notice these little subtleties then you begin to like the work more. Other nice bits such as the line drawing of mountains, the text, stamps and found materials make the image more pleasing. On first inspection of these images they appear to be averagely drawn, slightly weird illustrations (which would have appealed to me a few years ago) but when you spend longer looking at these images and you notice little sketches or bit of text that the artist has put in the background, or little layers of texture or secret shapes drawn in and it adds a whole other level to the illustration. This work has something cute about it, something weird, something interesting, and the guy knows how to use different surfaces and textures. This is the kind of work that you might not like the first time you see it, but you will like some of the things you find when you look closer.

 

BBC Philharmonic

This an illustration I saw for the BBC Philharmonic family concert, sorry for the worst quality image ever, it is just a nice design and a way of showing music in illustration like I'm doing in my major project.

LAUREN MORIARTY

Lauren is a 3D/textiles designer who came to Stockport in March to talk to us about her work. She studied for a degree in textiles in Loughborough and now she designs products such as lamps (see below) and cushions which she has been able to sell to stores like habitat and various independent design stores. Her degree show at Loughborough was based around her study of textiles where she created 3D pieces that were made up of layers and layers of lazer cut vinyl. After exhibiting this work she got a lot of interest in her idea although it didnt have an actual use. Renault bought her design an used it as a parcel shel in one of their concept cars, and Lauren went on to make the structures into cushions which she hand made one by one and sold off.

Laurens work is often simple looking, but with a great deal of though behind it. Many of her designs are initially built up of simple, sometimes repeated patterns which as a whole make a really interesting piece of work.

After her degree, Lauren started a Masters with the intention of learning how to use her work and push herself towards creating final products which she could manufacture and sell.

She spoke about how she likes working on collaborative pieces with other artists and designers as it is always a good way of coming up with new ideas, or making your own ideas that you previously thought wouldn't work, work.

Lauren spoke about the work she creates and told us to, overall, make sure that we do something we like. She spoke about how important it is to make sure we create things that we are happy with because in the past she has done things which she hated, and then felt guilty for hating her own work. She spoke about how sometimes she had to reproduce the same work over and over again and explained that this can be boring therefore you should make sure that you are making something that makes you happy because the last thing you want to do is get bored of your own work.

Lauren spoke about the industry and told us that it is important for us to ask ourselves questions about our own work such as: 'What is your work?', 'Why would people buy it?', 'What would they do with it?' etc. otherwise you can spend a long time creating something that could turn out to be useless in the real world.

She spoke from experience about the fact that working with companies and other people means you will have to compromise- a lot. She said that often you have to simplify and simplify your work down to fit in with what other people want. A project she undertook with Camden council to designs some lamps for a main street showed her that, when working with other people, the final design is never going to be exactly how you imagine it because of so many limitations and other peoples opinions and ideas.

Tips:

Lauren told us that it is important to build up a relationship with the press, to be quick, efficient and polite, and it will work in our favour. She told us that it was important to have decent images of our own work, and be organised so that if somebody shows an interest in you, you can send them work quickly and it makes you seem more reliable and professional

She also said that customer feedback is very important as these are 'your' customers and the people that will be buying your work.

She spoke about buying our own equipment, (photocopiers, vinyl cutters for example) as it saves a lot of hastle and you don't have to pay to use someone else's machinery. Also it gives you the opportunity to play and experiment, which, in an art related job is always necessary.

Thanks to Lauren for coming in and speaking to us, she has been an inspiration in the way that she has done everything for herself and works for herself creating what she wants to create.

KATE FORRESTER

This is the work of Kate Forrester. One of my friends mentioned that I might like the work she does so I had a look and the First things I came across was her work For Harvey Nichols. The thing I like about Kate's work is that it is simple enough to be eye catching and get a message across to you straight away, but the drawing and the typography in her work is always really detailed and carefully drawn. I still haven't managed to find a perfect way to get my detailed drawing and mixing it with simple shapes to make an eye catching and interesting poster. The only criticism I have about her work is about her use of colour. Often she sticks to shades of the same colour but in her multicoloured images some of the colours don't seem to sit well with the rest of the image. Here is a small selection of her work...

LONDON: KEMISTRY GALLERY

Back from Landan town now, it was the first time I'd been and it was a lot better than I had expected to be honest and there was so much inspiration everywhere that it has made me want to move down there after I graduate. Anyway, we went to Kemistry gallery to see a Polish poster exhibition while we were down there which turned out to be one of my favourite places out of the ones that we visited. Polish illustration has a look that is instantly recognisable and distinctively un-English although I can't seem to work out why. Some of the pieces we saw were similar in style to that of psychadellic posters from the 60's and 70's ( by artists such as Milton Glaser, Bonnie Mclean and Wes Wilson), but still had something about them that made them stand out and still be original.

The thing that impressed me most about these polish designers is not the fact that they are fantastic drawers or amazing artists, but the way they can always take two images, such as the gun/trumpet above, and merge the two ideas seamlessly into one image. The simplicity of a lot of these posters was interesting as well and has made me realise that sometimes i unnecessarily overcomplicate my work. Finally, this is hard to explain as I cannot upload the photos of the images I am specifically talking about, but a lot of the colour palettes used by polish designers are strange as they very often use extremely bright colours whilst somehow managing to make them look subtle and keeping the posters from looking garish.

TED BAKER PROJECT AND COMPETITION BRIEF

This is some of my work from the Ted Baker competition brief I was set. The brief was to design a window display for the Ted Baker stores. It had to be interesting and eye catching and should in some way promote Ted Baker and their winter range. I went for a pure black and white theme to get across the feeling of winter and for my displays I made a lot of different 3D models that could be set up in any way to fit any size and shape of window display. The models were different on each side so as you walk past you would see different parts and as you walked past one model it would reveal bits of others and I thought this would be more interesting than just having mannequins or an installation piece. I like the way I drew all the designs and they look good when they are at a bigger scale. Another thing I like about my idea is that it can be flat packed so it is easy and cheap to transport and send to the stores, it is all card and paper so it is environmentally friendly, and it would make the Ted Baker store stand out and seem fun.

Here are some of the final images and mock ups of the window displays:

A REQUIEM FOR DETROIT

This was a documentary on BBC about Detroit, it's history and the fall of the car industry that brought in almost 100% of the cities revenue. Detroit used to be the centre of the car industry, it is where Henry Ford designed and built his famed model T and in the past was a rich vibrant industrial city. Nowadays because of the recession and then decline of profits in the car industry, Detroit has become almost a ghost town with vast streets of abandoned buildings, factories, and barely any people. I watched this documentary to inspire me for my final project in which I am focussing on the fall of the music empire. The documentary helped me come up with ideas and imagery and I rarely see something that fits so well with what I am trying to do in my work so finding this documentary was pretty cool. At the start of my final project I didn't have much diirection as I hadn't seen something that had properly inspired me but now it is focussed on the music empire, using the huge grand yet redundant buildings in Detroit as a start point.

This documenary is well worth watching purely for the imagery it shows. Detroit is huge and the way all the buildings have just been abandonned and left to the elements and nature is something you don't see every day. Nature has begun to reclaim lots of the buildings, and others have just fallen by themselves. Although it would be a really difficult place to live, it would be an awesome place to drive through.

The film and details about it can be found below:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1572190/