Illustration and Graphic Design

Intaglio is a printmaking technique where an incision is made into the image surface and the sunken area holds the ink. 

Monoprinting is a type of printmaking that has lines or images that can only be made once.  An impression is printed from a reprintable block. However, it is done in a way that only one of its kind exists, for example by incorporating unique hand-colouring or collage.

I am interested in monoprinting for many reasons. I think the way monoprinting is done is really interesting, especially since its not a form of printing that can be redone again and again. I like that only one of the prints can be made, it makes it slightly more unique in my eyes.

Vince frost, a graphic designer from Brighton, is the founder and executive creative director of ‘Frost*collective’ in Sydney. Before moving to Sydney to start frost*collective he gained lots of design experience. Frost previously completed his design education in west Sussex college of design, became the youngest associate of Pentagram in 1889 and in 1994 formed his own consultancy, Frost Design, in London.  

Now Frost is a graphic designer who works across advertising, design, digital, environments and fashion. His work strategically uses striking typography among other elements such as photography to create innovative pieces. A lot of his work seems to focus around advertising and branding, doing work for the exhibition at the 11th architecture biennale in Venice, OzHarvest, the Sydney dance company and many more.

The photo above is Frost’s design for the Sydney Dance company. Here he has merged photography and typography together extremely well. The typography is playful and creates a nice frame for the photo of the dancer. Using only two colours was an effective choice as it gave him the opportunity to mix the words Sydney and Dance together, creating an eye-catching effect.

Sascha Lobe is most known for merging graphic design and architecture. He is the founder and lead creative director at L2M3 (1999) which focuses on signage, print, branding and identity projects. He is now also a partner in pentagrams London office.

Lobe specialises in special linguistics and three dimensional communication, working with big companies such as Hugo boss. His work is bold and creative. The architectural inspiration is clear in his work as, despite being playful, it is also structured. The typography in his pieces are refined but interesting as you can see in the photo bellow. 

Tschihold, compared to many of the other typographers I have researched, was living in a much more unstable time where something as simple as a poster could have dyer effects. After Hitler was elected and designers were required to register themselves with the ministry of culture, Tschichold gained a teaching post in Munich. After this both he and his wife were denounced as cultural bolshevists. Subsequently, in 1933, they were both arrested for scrutiny, due to soviet posters found in their flat, before escaping to Switzerland.  

Throughout his career Tschichold became a strong advocate for modernist design. His most important piece showing this ‘Die neue Typographie’ was a testimonial for his support. It was a book which reflected his opinion of application of different type faces and became quite influential. However, in a turn of events, he later condemned his own book for being too harsh and returned to a more classic approach. Overall, Tschichold was a very experienced designer with a lot of knowledge to give. Before his death he had even written a set of guidelines for penguin based on typographic and composition instructors for editors and compositors called the ‘penguin composition rules’.

Tshichold’s work reflects his life and experience. His work isn't playful or abstract compared to some of the things we see done with type in modern times and whilst a lot of his work does have a serious or corporate feel, Tshichold’s work was unique and interesting. An example of this is his film poster for the Phoebus-Palast cinema in Munich. The type is simple but is refined. The composition is interesting and the use of only two colours creates a pleasant and eye-catching contrast.

Astrid Stavro is an Italian graphic designer who is now based in London. Stavro has a BA (HONS) in graphic design from Central Saint Martin’s College of Art and Design and a long list of experience that includes being a contributing editor of ‘Elephant Magazine’. Stavro is also a member of ISTD and was an elected member of Alliance Graphiques International in 2010.  

Astrid Stavro studio is a small independent design consultancy. It was established in 2004 and is currently based in Majorca. They aim to offer high quality products to a select range of clients. The studio is described as having ‘an international reputation for appropriate and discerning editorial design with a strong emphasis on clean, distinctive and considered typography.’ . They work across lots of platforms and its main principles are clarity, simplicity and commitment to finding unique, tailormade solutions to each project.

Stavro’s work is clean and simple. It is creative but, in some ways, quite corporate. This can be seen in these postcard prints above from Stavro’s website. They were advertising a housing exhibition and are minimal but well thought out, with lots of block colours and clean shapes.

Again, the font is very simplistic and this is the same in many of stavro’s prints. There seems to be a pattern in stavro’s use of fonts in the way that they are all bold and a main focal point of the piece.

For this project I will design a jacket for the non-fiction book “The Uninhabitable Earth” by David Wallace-Wells. During this project I want to focus on learning more about typography and improve my work by simplifying it. Whilst researching other non-fiction book covers, the cover for the graphic depiction of “The Gettysburg Address” stood out to me as I like the use of typography and negative space. One concept I already have in mind for my own cover is to use words to form a shape/image, similar to the cover above.

My mural is a Greek statue with accessories to make it look stereotypically Scottish and a background that is supposed to be a grand staircase with paint splatter all over it.

I knew from the beginning that the main focal point of my design would be a Greek sculpture. This meant that when I was developing my mural I paid a lot more attention to the designs for the word sculpture rather than exploring each word equally. Whilst this meant that my sculpture was fully developed. It also meant that I found it difficult to incorporate the other words into my mural and in the end, my background was not up to par with the image in my head. 

Overall, I believe this is not my best work due to incorporating too many big elements into the piece. In my next projects I’d like to focus on simplifying my work.

Saint Mungo by Sam Bates (Smug), Glasgow High Street

Sandy Skoglund, Revenge Of The Goldfish

This is a surrealist piece by photographer and illustrator Sandy Skoglund. She has used two complimentary colours, blue and orange, to create a really interesting piece of art. Using very minimal colours means that the two that have been used stand out. This is then enhanced by the fact that they are complimentary.

Vincent Van Gogh, The Olive Trees, 1889

In this painting Van Gogh has used analogous colours. (colours that are next to each other on the colour wheel) The colours he has picked are very natural, which makes sense since this is a painting of trees. He has placed the colours strategically as the blue background makes the green trees stand out. I also find it interesting how Van Gogh has used colour to create movement.

ICARUS, 1947

This piece by Henri Matisse is very flat and abstract. He has used only a few but large and bold shapes to represent Icarus floating through the sky. I think that the space that using very few shapes has created really does give off this feeling of floating. This piece shows how shape can be used to create motion or give off a certain feeling.

DANCE, 1931

This is another example of Matisse creating movement through line and shape. The drawing is a representation of dancers. Again, he hasn’t used a lot of lines or shapes, but it is still effective.

WOMEN ON BYCICLES

Teju Behan isn’t a very well known artist therefore I was not able to find many of her pieces. However her work is amazing so I had to include her in the inspiration for my own project. 

As shown in this piece, Behan uses dots and lines a lot in her art. The use of these principles creates strange and overexaggerated images. Her work is eye catching because it is obvious what the subject matter is, however the use of lines distort it in a way that’s unique.

ADELAIDE, 2016

James Cochran is most known for his graffiti art. He uses pointillism to create amazing portraits and landscapes. In this piece he has used small dots and large dots to create every aspect of the painting. I love the level of detail Cochran is able to create despite only using dots. I believe this detail is created through the colour and size of the dots.

CAMDEN, LONDON, 2014

In this painting the dots, have been used again all over the painting. The most notable parts of the painting are the level of detail he has created on the hands and also how he has created depth in the centre of the piece.