Índex per May 2020 a Computer Arts

Whenever I go to design events, I’m constantly asking myself, “Who is this aimed at, what will they be getting out of it, and should they be expecting more?” Then comes the hardest question to answer: “Is the promise of inspiration really worth the (sometimes eye-watering) price of admission?” Our readers include freelancers, students and creatives forging their path in design studios. In all cases, taking time out of busy schedules and spending hard-earned money on tickets and travel for the intangible benefit of recharging your passion is a big ask. And yet, when design events hit the spot, you can leave them not only with a head full of ideas, but also an iPhone full of contacts – not to mention new work. In this issue, we look at…

caserne.com Uniting graphic design, beer and a sense of fun, Canadian studio Caserne created its own Brasserie Caserne Brewing Co. for one night only, and launched a beer brand with typography by foundry Coppers and Brasses. The team’s branding was used across all aspects of the beer, including videos, posters, clothing, bags, coasters and beer cans. The studio worked with Parade, Content Content and Arthur Cloche on the video and motion design, as well as François Ollivier and Marianne Isabelle on photography for the project. The idea behind the type style was “to develop a simple graphic asset that would allow us to communicate in a bold and fun way,” says Léo Breton-Allaire, Caserne’s creative director. Caserne has worked with Coppers and Brasses on numerous previous projects, and type designer…

behance.net/valentyntkachenko Kiev-based graphic designer Valentyn Tkachenko has created the Mak font, which merges Ukrainian folk tradition and contemporary experimental electronic music. The font comes in light and bold weights, but lacks a regular – a reference to the boundary-pushing music that inspired it. “Mak aims to mix the historical shapes of Ukrainian Cyrillic with the styles of contemporary, ‘trendy’ typefaces,” says Valentyn, who chose the name as a reference to the Ukrainian word for the poppy flower, a key folk symbol in Ukrainian culture. It’s also the title of the first song he heard from music act YUKO: the “main inspiration of the typeface’s concept.” The free font has a large contrast between strokes, and is ideal as a display typeface for use in designs such as posters, record sleeve…

denomination.com New hand-brewed alcoholic kombucha brand Brewhaha is gearing up to tap into a new market for “interesting” but healthy products, boasting branding and packaging design by international studio Denomination. The design and copywriting styles look to emphasise the “odd” nature of kombucha, according to Denomination. Each variant – Cucumber & Lime, Green Apple & Hemp and Pear & Sour Cherry – was assigned a personality: Bearded Gymnast, Mad Magician and Dear Leader. The look is bold and striking, using colour-blocking in a bid to attract an Instragram-savvy target market. The brown beer bottle features a crown enclosure alongside craft beer-inspired labels and imagery. Denomination CEO Rowena Curlewis says: “Typically, kombucha focuses solely on the healthy and organic in terms of design cues, so we moved it into the craft…

THE CREATIVE BOOM PODCAST There are many design podcasts out there, but the newly launched Creative Boom Podcast is a little different. Presenter Katy Cowan, owner of the eponymous blog, has pulled in some big names, including Ian Anderson, Malcolm Garrett, Lisa Maltby, Anthony Burrill, Rankin and Stanley Chow. Her chatty style, combined with a sharp journalistic focus, elicits some surprising revelations from her guests. And as Katy has a background in radio herself, the production quality on this weekly show is high, making it feel as though you’re listening to a Radio 4 programme, rather than a bad Skype connection in an echo-plagued basement. creativeboom.com/podcast RE.DESIGN Coming to London this September, Re.Design is a hot new event for creatives who want to stay ahead of the curve… and we…

Based in Münster, Germany, Yeye Weller (real name Boris Bromberg) found his passion for illustration through skateboarding stickers and adverts for brands like Santa Cruz, and a childhood love of The Beatles’ animated film Yellow Submarine. “All those colours, the music and the awesome style of Heinz Edelmann is timeless. I always wanted to create something like it,” Yeye says. He founded his own skate brand at 14 thanks to a cracked version of Photoshop: “It was totally noobish and we just sold shirts to friends, but this was the starting point,” he says. “I was never a talented draftsman, but I always had a good eye for design and a feeling for balance and colours… with time and practice my drawing skills became better.” Yeye’s creative process starts with…

Netherlands-based illustrator and designer Sander Ettema initially aspired to be a filmmaker, but fell back in love with the easy expression and directness of illustration in 2015. Comics such as 2019’s Friends in Many Places have enabled him to create new worlds as he’d sought to in film. “It was a very direct, diary-like approach to my experience with freelance work,” he says. Working mostly on an iPad using Procreate and Photoshop, Sander describes his process as thematically and stylistically “informed by obsessions,” such as a song, image, film or video game that trigger explorations of a certain idea. These are then merged with his current emotional experiences, conversations with friends and more recently, a fascination with folklore and fairy tales. “I like the pacing of the stories, the large…

Yunong Xie is a London-based illustrator and toy designer originally from China who has a fascination with “mysterious creatures and subjects”, which also served as a catalyst for the launch of her own toy brand MINONO in 2019. Her practice ranges from illustration and animation to poster, packaging and book design, and fashion prints – it’s eclectic as a body of work, but coherent in style. Her work often appears cute, but there’s always an underlying sense of darkness in its surreal mix of motifs, especially when she’s working in primarily monochrome shades. Yunong enjoys combining handmade crafts with digital tools, and says she’s “always keen to explore new ways to integrate traditional illustration techniques and new media forms.” As well as mythical beasts, she finds herself drawn to themes…

At first we wanted the cover to reflect the eclectic mix of talent selected: 16 artists who each had a unique signature style. The cover’s design was drafted on the first day of the issue, with each of the artists having their own small panel on a collage that wrapped around the front and back cover. But when Sarah Maxwell’s wonderful self-portrait – Baby Blue, Just For You – arrived, everything changed. Her subdued, wistful yet utterly engaging artwork demanded to be used as an individual cover. Although Sarah’s inspiration for this work was personal (“My feelings of love and longing for someone who wasn’t in my life anymore”), for us it captured the melancholic nobility of the archetypal illustrator. As Emily Gosling explains in her article, “At its heart,…

Andy Payne Global chief creative officer, Interbrand interbrand.com “Pro bono work creates a positive feeling that projects both the client and designer towards what’s right for the audience, removing intermediary preference. The challenge is not so much getting the current audience to buy into the organisation’s ethos, but making its expression, interactions and experience recognisable and memorable to a wider arena. I learned early on that with pro bono, simplicity is often best. Look at some of the biggest charities globally: WWF’s panda makes both the brand and its call to action universally recognisable from first glance. Even where a visual identity isn’t directly linked to the cause, such as Royal British Legion’s red poppies, its symbol communicates the organisation’s purpose intuitively and universally, without the need for further explanation.…

So, starting a new graphic design studio from scratch, with no clients, during Brexit… what could possibly go wrong? It’s a fool-proof plan, right? Honest Studio was born out of conversations, a few pints, and a shared ambition and vision. The plan was crafted and hatched over a steady period of time. Anyone who knows me, knows that I’m a thinker. I like to dwell on things for as long as possible, overthink them, talk myself in and out of doing them a few times, before I’m ready to take the plunge. This could be ordering a sandwich or planning world domination. Truth is, I’m not sure you can prepare yourself enough for starting your own design studio. It’s a big jump from working for somebody else as a designer…

“Like many, we found it pretty difficult to not be instantly drawn into Charlie Davis’ work,” says Stuart Whitton, senior agent at illustration agency Handsome Frank, which signed the illustrator in early 2019 – and since then Charlie’s worked across everything from advertising campaigns and billboards to pub signs. “His expressive shapes, and considered colour palettes and textures allow his illustrations to tell an array of emotive stories,” Stuart adds. Much of the artist’s work is sparked by simply “being outside,” Charlie says. “When I’m out and about I’m looking at things and imagining how they could translate into pictures. It could be a ray of sunlight across a street, a tree in a storm or some interesting characters in a bar. Often, experiences in real life are the most…

“I’m known as Bad News on the internet, but I’m very friendly in real life,” assures Edinburgh-based illustrator and animator Mike Hughes, who’s worked with the likes of Dr. Martens, GQ, BBC, Adidas and Vice. With client work, he stresses the importance of thorough research and “a good conversation with the art director early on about what they really want” before submitting roughs. His main tools are pencil and paper for sketching, then a combination of Procreate, Photoshop, occasionally Illustrator for vector outputs and After Effects for animation, with everything hand-drawn on his iPad or Wacom. He makes notes more often than image-based sketches initially: “I find words can spark the imagination faster than making shapes on the paper.” Mike studied painting at art school but gravitated toward illustration because…

Since moving to the US from India, Shreya Gupta’s clients include Google, The New York Times, Fast Company and Penguin. Her creativity wasn’t encouraged growing up – instead she was told to focus on her studies, eventually taking a computer science engineering degree. But working in IT left her feeling “very frustrated”, and so she built up an illustration portfolio to gain an MFA place at New York’s School of Visual Arts. Her editorial work begins by reading and rereading the piece, making notes and underlining words that spark ideas for images. “Then I execute thumbnails to try different compositions,” she says. She then sketches three or more of the best ideas to send to the client, before finalising the selected idea by scanning her ink on paper work and…

Anna Haifisch isn’t an artist who’s new to the scene. We’ve loved her work for years, especially her comic The Artist, first serialised on Vice’s site and now immortalised in a book that brings the sad, struggling “frail noodle bird character”, as Anna puts it, on an international stage sold in places like MoMA. “I’m still asking myself how did I get here?” she says.”It hasn’t felt wrong yet to keep drawing him.” Alongside working on her own projects, Anna takes on a number of other illustration jobs that she says she “loves just as much as drawing my own artwork and books. As long as I get to draw what I like I’m very happy, because drawing is my life.” Anna’s process hasn’t changed a great deal over the…

RIZON PAREIN, FOUNDER Us By Night is a unique nocturnal experience in Antwerp, Belgium. Combining an inspiring lineup of speakers across two stages and an endless night-market, visitors can expect local street food, art happenings and even some fluorescent ping-pong. More than 70 artists from all around the world gather in Antwerp each September to share their stories and inspirational insights with over 3,000 people. “Last year we scheduled Hassan Rahim initially at the Living Room stage, a more intimate stage at our Night Market, because he had never given a talk before,” says Us By Night’s founder Rizon Parein. “Over time and texting with him I was charmed by his personality, little details, but most probably his honesty and humour told me I had to take the risk and…

PATRICK BURGOYNE, TRUSTEE D&AD Festival invites visitors to come and see the best work in the world and hear from the brightest minds, from the most exciting new talent to the industry’s leading lights. One of D&AD’s key missions is to lead us toward a fairer, more diverse industry, and one of the ways it’s addressing this is by having a broad variety of speakers, from seasoned industry legends to up-and-coming designers. Festival director Patrick Burgoyne says they’ve worked hard to make the festival content more peer-to-peer, rather than have everything confined to a large room with one person on stage. “We’ll have opportunities for people to interact with speakers in smaller groups, where they can really pick their brains for advice and insight, as well as other formats that…

JINHWA JANG Illustrator Jinhwa Jang is based in South Korea and China. She won the New Talent award in the World Illustration Awards 2019. jinhwajangart.com “DECIDE ON THE BRUSH STYLE THAT CAN BEST DELIVER THE THEME AND THE MOOD OF THE STORY” Two years ago during the summer vacation, I went on a 10-week comic workshop run by Quang Comics. At that time I hadn’t established my working process and style, and I thought that I’d not only learn how to write and make comic strips, but also get inspiration from great comic artists. Yet the more I learnt about comics, the more I realised that comic techniques can also be applied to digital illustration work. Here, I’d like to explain how I use comic techniques in my digital illustrations,…

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Jim Sutherland Founder, Studio Sutherland studio-sutherland.co.uk “We wanted to express the energy and variety of the performances at King’s Place, as well as reflecting the wonderful glass ‘wave’ façade of the building, which is located on the canal. So we looked at the idea of sound waves. We built a bespoke software package for audio analysis, visualisation and rendering called SoundWaveMachine, which can generate a new logotype based on any sound files. So our ‘machine’ can produce an infinite number of logotypes (static or animated) to reflect the amazing diverse and eclectic programming at the venue. We can vary the amplitude, gain and modulation. We can also use the waves themselves graphically, for building manifestations and in print. The staff picked tracks that had a connection to them and the…

Sarah Maxwell works across fashion illustration, animated GIFs and comics. She was born and raised in Austin, Texas, and then left to study illustration in Paris somewhat unintentionally – she’d missed the application deadline for the animation courses she’d intended to sign up to. “It turned out to be a blessing. I ended up really loving it,” she says. “If I’d stayed on my previous path I don’t think my art would have developed as well as it has today – especially moving to live abroad.” Working on a new image usually stems from collecting inspiring images, or snippets of song lyrics. “From there it’s easy for me to have an idea in mind and begin to sketch it down,” she says. The artist uses Photoshop with Kyle T Webster’s…

Like many illustrators, Slovakia-born and now Prague-based Barbora Idesová had been drawing since childhood, but came to the discipline through a meandering path: studying ceramics, teaching art, then working part-time at an ad agency. Through grafting out-of-hours, she was able to go freelance, illustrating editorial projects, children’s books, posters, self-initiated pieces and more. Barbora’s ideas usually begin as marker pen sketches in a Moleskine notebook she carries everywhere, drawing “micro-stories” or comic-strips based on overheard conversations, or the people and animals she encounters just walking around nearby villages or in nature. These are then photographed, worked up using a Wacom, and finished in Illustrator. “Sometimes I don’t feel like creating anything at all – that makes it hard to complete an assignment,” she admits. “I wait until inspiration or last-minute…

Over the years Eleanor Davis has made a name for herself in her unflinching, occasionally bleak, frequently humorous depictions of difficult subjects. These range from 2014’s How To Be Happy comics exploring the multifariousness of depression to 2017’s You & A Bike & A Road, an illustrated metaphor of cycling as pedalling toward better mental health. Last year saw the launch of the illustrator’s “biggest and most ambitious project” yet: graphic novel The Hard Tomorrow, in which the central couple navigates trying to build a better future world in a futile present. Eleanor says that while she’s relishing the chance to get back into working on editorial illustration commissions, and is developing a children’s book, she ultimately hopes to be able to take on a similarly large-scale personal piece in…

The sensitive realism of Manon Molesti’s felt-tipped pen illustrations look far more sophisticated than her tool of choice might suggest. They veer between striking photorealism and traditional French Impressionist-like imagery, and Manon relishes the way colours can be mixed to give that sense of movement and artistry. The French illustrator, who studied drawing at Lyon’s Emile Cohl Art Academy, says she’s always felt most comfortable with felt-tip – likely thanks to having used them constantly since childhood.”It came naturally to me,” she says. “I like the instantaneousness and [sense of] vibration. These markers are simple, as are my subjects.” Her work is usually based on personal photographs either as standalone images or part of montages she creates, which she either retraces using pencil and paper, then adding layers of colour…

Former advertising art director Sofia Hydman has loved illustration since first seeing The Little Mermaid in 1993. “I wanted to grow up drawing pretty girls and work for Walt Disney,” she says. Based in Stockholm, while she’s not working for Disney, she loves that her career means “spending my days drawing pretty fierce girls, working for myself.” These girls are often sparked by the work of photographers Sofia finds online showing “attitude and interesting poses”. She sketches by hand and finalises in Photoshop, After Effects and Cinema 4D to create colour and gradients. “I almost never do analogue stuff anymore – I just don’t have the patience to watch paint dry,” she says. Sofia describes her recent work with The New York Times as a milestone project: “They asked me…

“In a world too often characterised by twee scenes of bears on bicycles it can be difficult for illustrators to stand out,” says Design Week editor Tom Banks. “Mercedes deBellard’s hyper-real depictions of very familiar faces do just that though. Her ability to capture well-known personalities make her ideal for editorial commissions.” The Madrid-based illustrator, represented by Folio Art Agency, has worked with clients including The Sunday Times, The Guardian, Warner Bros. and The Hunger Games; and all thanks to sharing her portraits of celebrities including Amy Winehouse, Cara Delevingne and various Twin Peaks characters online a few years back. These were quickly shared across Pinterest and Tumblr, winning her that crucial first commission while still studying her degree. Though she’s clearly highly adept at the technicalities of line, form…

THE BEST DESIGN CONFERENCES TO ATTEND THIS YEAR OFFSET DUBLIN 3-5 April, 2020 Dublin, Ireland Fields covered: graphic design, fashion, animation, film, illustration, photography, advertising, print, type, motion, fashion, architecture, sound Year founded: 2009 Attendees: 2,500 iloveoffset.com FORWARD FESTIVAL 16-17 April, 2020 Vienna, Austria Fields covered: design, graphic design, motion design, photography, VR, AR, architecture Year founded: 2015 Attendees: 1,000-2,000 per city forward-festival.com FITC TORONTO 19-21 April, 2020 Toronto, Canada Fields covered: design, creativity, emerging technology, illustration Year founded: 2008 Attendees: over 1,000 fitc.ca/event/to20 OFFF BARCELONA 23-25 April, 2020 Barcelona, Spain Fields covered: graphic design, branding, illustration, film, digital, web Year founded: 2000 Attendees: 5,000 offf.barcelona HOW DESIGN LIVE 4-7 May, 2020 Boston, US Fields covered: graphic design, creative leadership, branding, packaging design, experience design, marketing Year founded: 1990 Attendees:…

SARAH MAXWELL The Texas-born artist studied illustration in Paris, before relocating to London. Her work includes fashion illustration and comics, and she’s training to become a tattooist. sarahmaxwellart.com JINHWA JANG Splitting her time between Seoul and Shanghai, Jinhwa has created work for a range of clients, including The New York Times, BBC Focus and Bloomberg. jinhwajangart.com EMILY GOSLING Emily is a freelance design and arts journalist, working as an editor-at-large for Elephant and writing for publications including Eye on Design and Creative Review. emilygosling.com LISA HASSELL Lisa is a freelance design writer, visiting lecturer and founder of Inkygoodness, a platform for emerging illustrators. She’s currently developing ideas for her first book. inkygoodness.com…