Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Monday, April 20, 2009

Herman Obrist




1. Krupp fountain in the courtyard of the Munich Kunstgewerbehaus, 1912
2. Fantasy, Composition with Roots,c. 1898, drawing
3. Sellete, forged iron, 41.7 x 15 x 15 in

So THIS is where H.R. Giger got his ideas. I think Giger took these Art Nouveau-ish design aesthetic, with the curvilinear/natural, symetrical forms, and threw all the crazy, morbid, occult, air-brushed imagery all over it. 

Paula Scher





1. Moleskin notebook
2. detail
3. Florida (part of map series), painting
4. Africa (map series), painting

Paula Scher is a grammy nominated graphic designer, who started out doing album covers for CBS Records and Atlantic. She moved on to magazine advertsing, then created her own firm, Koppel & Scher. She's now a principal at the NY office of the Pentagram Design Consultancy. 

The design work I saw on the internet is good, nice and dense, dynamic, exciting. But the large scale "Map" paintings are what's really get my attention. I'm really digging how she is jam-packing the composition with verbal information. What is at first seen as texture or details to a map turn out to be extreme details and information about the particular region, that doesn't just span topographical features, but delves into the political, economic, and cultural realms of the area as well. 

Jugend




From Jugendmagazine.net:
"Germany in the late 19th century.Jugend was a cultural weekly publication. It soon became a style-setting icon that launched the German art nouveau movement, named Jugendstil after the magazine.

Today, the word is still used by German graphic designers and by collectors who look for the uniquely German arts and crafts that came from this period."

(titles and dates for works unknown)

These lithographs are beautiful. One can see the proto-Art Nouveau style here, especially in Jugend cover image of the lady by the pond. The other two images are similar more in content and the use of curvilinear forms and emphasis on nature. Looking at these it is obvious these formed the basis for the all-out art nouveau explosions of artists like Mucha. 


Helvetica: Wim Crouwel










"Crouwels’s position of subjecting highly different appearances of art under the same typographic style would not be acceptable to some artists. But i also had to appreciate that transferring most different artistic trends and tem-peraments into typography might lead to a typographic chaos.”  - Eduard de Wilde

“When you're a functionalist you want to make things comprehensible, readable, make your ideas visible. I feel myself being a modernist, a functionalist, but aesthetics always stand in the way.” - Wim Crouwel

1. Vormgevers. 1968. poster, 95X64cm
2. Vormgevers, detail
3. Hussem en Bouthoom. 1961, poster
4. Gesel Van De Oorlog. poster.

From Crouwel's work I get a sense of uniformity and neutrality. Simple, straightforward designs that are easily read and assimilated. Beyond that I see this guy as a biiig influence on the whole American Apparel branch of the indie scene.
 



Monday, April 13, 2009

Monday, March 30, 2009

Quick Redux







Split Complements:

Bassification


Triadic:

Bassification


Monochromatic:

Saul Bassification


First, I had the instructions written down very carefully in my sketchbook, but have subsequently lost the sketchbook, so I'm not sure how many total colors were to be in each piece, and I can't remember what was meant by "analogous, variation".

The Movie: Putney Swope
IMDB

Analagous: YG, Y, O

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Character Logo


Character Logo for my Screen printing company:

Monday, February 23, 2009

Nautilus Logo



The 3 color nautilus design will be re-worked just as soon as I'm not horribly sick and I have some energy. 

Sunday, February 1, 2009

Type movie poster


Here it is, with reference material. The only thing is I couldn't make the outermost ring of text radiating from the head do the white/black thing against the parentheses like I did with the logo at the bottom.



Wednesday, January 28, 2009



"We were listening to rock and roll on his transistor radio and somberly drinking port. "

"His eyes were wet wounded rugs."

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

2nd Type Exercises







Type Exercise Redux






#1 scaled way way back
#2 slightly modified. I could either stop here or spend 8 more hours on it, but it does need more white

Wednesday, January 14, 2009