Tuesday 8 December 2009

Richard Wentworth, Making Do and Getting By

Richard Wentworth is best known as a sculptor whose work tends to focus on the idea of transformation in alteration and juxtaposition of everyday objects. Looking at his works our perception of our world is changed too, because of the alteration of the connotations of those objects and their inherent symbolism.

The images below are from his photographic series Making Do and Getting By in which he observes the ingenuity of humankind in the appropriation and adaption of everyday objects for new uses, new meanings, and new narratives. A wellington boot becomes a doorstop, a cup becomes a window prop, a brick and piece of board become a ramp, a book becomes a means to steady a chest of drawers (but is rendered impossible to read).







Thursday 12 November 2009

Tomi Ungerer





Tomi Ungerer paradoxically made a living producing political posters, children's books and visual erotica. Again clarity of message, simplicity of palette, visual balance between light and shade, positive and negative.

Ed fella & Geoff Mcfetridge



Collaborative work, it can happen.

Ed Fella





Ed Fella, typographer and Illustrator, uses observed typographic forms to take content and articulate it expressively.

Geoff McFetridge









Jamie Reid



The language travels. Poster for the Sex Pistols by Jamie Reid.

Atelier Populaire









Poster produced by the radical Marxist revolutionaries Atelier Populaire [see more here]during the uprising in 1968. Simplicity/Clarity/Immediacy. At the time the production of these posters had to be quick and immediate, with posters being ripped down almost as soon as they were put up. Ideas and opinion were communicated directly and in a partisan manner.
Probably some of the best examples of the poster as communicator/influencer/manipulator.

Tadanori Yokoo







A series of poster images by the Japanese master Tadanori Yokoo. These are complex and involved images involving disparate visual components [perhaps think about how you use your kit?] which are unified through a clever use of colour and process.

Wednesday 11 November 2009

Non Format - the potential of type






Some imagery here courtesy of the Non Format website the design company responsible for the original [and best] design of Varoom magazine. Take note of the image/typography overlap, the letter forms 'just' retain their legibility but start to assume the more poetic potential of abstract imagery. It is a fine line that is being tread but can give the Illustrator scope to include typography that is both expressive [meaning it can carry forward an idea beyond the literal] and communicative.

Eduardo Munoz Bachs - ICAIC





2 poster images by the great Eduardo Munoz Bachs, Cuban poster artists/designer working consistently for the ICAIC [Instituto Cubano de Arte e Industria Cinematográficos] over the 60's and 70's. Often using 'vernacular' hand rendered typography to complement the idiosyncratic imagery. Look at the simplicity/clarity in thinking regarding color and composition and the use of 'edge' as well as line to distinguish between one form and another.