Erik Johansson

"I use photography as a way of collecting material to realize the ideas in my mind"
"I don’t capture moments, I capture ideas"

"Every new project is a challenge and my goal is to realize them as realistic as possible"

Erik Johanson is a graphic designer/photographer from Sweden, who like myself, does personal and commissioned projects. His quotes are inspirational to me as a working student, as every new project set for me is a challenge, trying to make my work individual, and to stand out from the other designers. Just like Erik who believes if you make the project feel realistic enough, it will look it, I believe if you get personal with your work, a successful outcome is achievable. I think Erik Johanson stands out as a designer more so than others because you can feel the passion he shares for his work, that's inspirational to me working in Graphic design, as there are tasks where I don't feel motivated to do, therefore the outcome isnt pleasing, however Erik pushes them boundries and teaches you to engage with your work. Looking at his work as a whole, I cant help get the impression he has created a new form of modern day surrealist style, which again, is motivating for me because I'm always trying to think of ways to create new art.

 

Daniel Nyai

Daniel Nyai definitly has a very distinctive style about his work as a Graphic designer. Although his work is not something that inspires me to create my own style of work, his style and passion clearly plays out in all his work.
Nyai has done work for clients we know as 'The National Geographic' programe, and ESPN, In America, and has been featured in The New York Times and many other magazine articles.
Although I have stated his work doesnt inspire me, one thing I can relate to about his work is  the simplicity of his designs. Because I am at ameture level at first year so far, I feel I can get away with simplifying my work like Nyai shows us. He sticks to very bold colours, no tone, no detail, something I feel I can do perfectly well in my course. As an aspiring Graphic designer to be, Its a good and successful outcome if you want to get straight to the point with your art.

Shigeo Fukuda

I absolutely adore Shigeo Fukuda’s Graphic Design work. He was mostly known for his Optical illusion, Graphic Design, sculpture and poster design work. As an aspiring Graphic design student myself, I enjoy finding the hidden meaning to his work, researching and understanding the concept of what he was trying to portray in his art.
“I believe that in design, 30 percent dignity, 20 percent beauty and 50 percent absurdity are necessary”

 

 I personally love how his work has a simple touch to it, it leaves you focusing on one part of the picture, the important areas, he portrays this well by also with the colours he uses. My guess would be he has used Illustrator to colour the posters, as the blend on the forst photo resembles the style of illustrator style.

John Henry Alvin

John Henry Alvin has an extremely high profile for designing movie posters. The most recorgnisable ones we know of today enclude The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, Batman Forever, Jurassic Park, Harry Potter, Pirates of the Caribbean and many more from the film studios of Warner Brothers.

I think John Henry Alvin is a massive inspiration to me for my course of Graphic design because he covers a whole spectrum of projects that resemble my course, Typography and Graphic Design.

He mostly inspires me how to make a page layout, what type faces to use for my work, font size, colour and the whole design aspect of it. I've realised he focuses a lot on more of the magical, fantacy based posters, his style of art relfects on all posters he has designed for Warner Brothers.

 

Avinoam Noma Bar

Avinoam Noma Bar is an artist born in Israel, born into a highly artist family. He now lives in London where his art combines illustration and graphic design. While being in my first year of graphic design, throughout some of my projects, I've learnt less is more, thats the same impression I get when I look at Noma Bar's work. No detail, not a lot of colour used throughout, simple yet meaningful design work.
I can relate to Noma Bar as a learning aspiring artist, as I am new to Illustrator and Photoshop myself, therefore his work projects to me as it shows I can create strong pieces of art, that doesn’t need to be detailed, just strong and bold, and unlike most artists it indicates a clear understanding of the meaning of the peice, his work gets straight to the point.

Audrey Kawasaki

In the last couple of years Audrey Kawasaki has had a lot of public attention over her unquie style of art. She paints erotic style art in a very 'pretty' manor, we know erotica to visually be, a dirty form, creatively Audrey Kawasaki has made erotica, cute. Although most of her work is painting, hands on projects, I've related her to my subject of Graphic design for the design aspect of work. Something I've learnt about Graphic design in my first year of learning is, creating a cleaver piece is sometimes the most successful, and meaningful. Audrey has painted very meaningful art, on such a small scale.

Like most graphic designers, Audrey is influenced by Art Nouveau, and Manga.

Like most Graphic art, Audreys meaning of work does not come out bold, to some up all meaning of her work, it meansm female sexuality.

 

Barney Bubbles

Barney Bubbles is described by some as "A radicle English artist". He was born in 1942 and died 1983. Bubbles did everything from paintings and sketches as well as graphic art. Through my personal judgement of Bubbles work, it appears to me a lot of his inspiration comes from the art form 'Art Nouveau' mixed with a bit of Cubism in areas of his work. I think its an interesting mix of art forms however as final piece, However, I don't agree with the mix of media and personally don't think anything interesting can come of this as I dont find it as a new, unqiue work of his own. On positive note, I like his careful use of color, his carefully proportioned the use of color on the page so you're attention isn't drawn to one part of the page.
Other work audiences may be formillia with by Bubbles is the weekly music magazine NME. Bubbles also designed a couple of posters for art exhibitions for other artists, and a few furniture designs which were published in 'The Face' in 1981.
Soon after his sucesses in the late 70's - Early 80's, Bubbles committed suicide in 1981 trapping himself in fumes, gassing himself.

Olly Moss

Olly Moss is an Engish artist, Illustrator and Graphic designer born in 1987. He is currently living and working in Winchester.

Olly's intentions are clear and visual, he re-creates movie posters, which occasionally gets featured in Empire Magazine. From an outsiders perspective, I very much like Moss's work. I feel he has a unique style about his work that not a lot of artists can visually portray.
Although Moss hasnt got the years to thread about his life and sucesses like other artists, he has a varitey of work shown in different media that is most definately influencial and eye catching to the younger generation of today, and movie/media fans.

One of my favourite peices I stumbled across of his would have to be his Pokemon plate that he designed for his own personal use. As part of the younger generation of today, I think people have a soft spot to art when they catch something they can relate and remember growing up to, like a connection. I feel in love with this peice because it was most definately something I am interested in, unique in some sort.

Apart from this more 'hands on' approach to art, Moss's specialties seem to lay on the more computer aspects, conecptal art.

Adrian Frutiger

Andrian Frutiger was born in 1928 in Canton of Bern in Switzerland, where as a child he experimented  with typefaces, and invented her own. He was encouraged from a young age to take printing as a career option.

is mostly known for her Typography Typography work and Swiss Graphic work. He created the fonts 'Courier New', 'Monotype Ioinic' and 73 other types, but mostly known for his Univsers and Frutiger fonts.

"I first experienced the  power of type to make the world intellectual world readable with the same letters in the days of metal."
        
In 1952, Frutiger worked in Paris where he got the job as a typeface designer and a artistic manager at Deberny & Peignot. His recieved several awards and honours for his work.

IDENTITY

Culture, Gender, Feminism, Homophobic, Racism, Race and Religeon are all categorised as the simplistic terms of Identity.

'Made in Dagenham', the film created in 2010, which gives the audience an insight for sexual descrimination in 1968. Potioning for woman to have the same equal rights as men. This film is a perfect example to label the Identity of a person by their gender.

Cultually, Malala Yousafzai is one of the worlds newest and youngest voices to be heard, who stood up for self determination, educational rights, and freedom. In western Pakistan where Malala originates, many men such as the Taliban, who shot the 15 year old, strongly disagree with Malala's self beliefs, which defines Malala's situation to be Cultually discriminated as woman do not have the same privilages as men. Deeeper meaning to the case, Race and Religeon also fall under the same category.

Rosa Parks, one of historties most famous and inspiration woman, who was an African American civil rights activist after she refused to give up her seats to a "white person" as the rest of the bus was full. Culturally, racually she is an inspiration to modern society today.


"Through others we become ourselves"
                              - Lev S. Vygotsky


A final quote to what I believe covers Identity as a whole. In the examples listed abov, This quote stands out to me as if we was to never hear the voices of strong, indipendant people who faught for that they believed in, we may never know right from wrong. 

Semiotics

Semiotics was proposed in the early 1900's.

Semiotics is described as "the Science of meaning", breaking the 'rules' of the original intent of any object that make sense as an individual object alone, but once adding them together, breaking the rule, and it seen as a total new meaning.

For example, I have a bottle of Carlsberg Beer as an individual object. I then add a wine glass, Once again, another individual. I pour the beer into my wineglass knowing the appropriate use for the glass is for wine. It then adds a new meaning to the picture from.

Peirce, One of second men who proposed  idea of Semiotics, distinguished between three types of science, Symbol, Icon and index.

ICON, is an image that represents meaning. for example, it can be a Graphic, or a visual representation such as the Microsoft Word icon shown on a computer.

SYMBOL, can be described as a visual idea. the purpose of a symbol is to communicate a type of meaning. For example a Symbol we are all aware of is Mc Donald's. It's simple red and yellow 'M' shape represents a fast food restaurant, the simplicity of the symbol makes us remember the fast food restaurant, we instantly become aware of it.

Modernism and Postmodernism

                                                          MODERNISM?

"Todays artist lives in an era of dissolution without guidance. He stands alone. The old forms are in ruins, the benumed world is shaken up, the old human spirit is invalidated and in flux towards a new form. We float in space and cannot percieve the new order."
                                                           Walter Gropius
                                                          -Designing a new world

"The maxim of the British people is 'Buisness as usual'"
                                                          Winston Churchill

Modernism, is an architectial, cultural, Graphic Design based art form that differes different meaning depending on whom you speak to. For example,  John Keenan, Associate Senior Lecturer (Advertising and Media) Explains Modernism as "I only believe in what I can see and what I can prove" "Modernism is a way of looking at the world".
Modernism first started in the 19th century, leading into the 20th century. To simplyfy the meaning of Moderism, I interperate it as a troditional art form, where ideas, designs make sense to the world, ideas that can happen, where ideas stay timeless.
           
           
                                                      POSTMODERNISM

"People say the world is different now then it was 30 years ago. And I think there're right."
Brad Williamson

"An incredulity towards metanarratives"
Jean-Francois Lyotard
French Philosopher

My interpritation of Postmodernism, is enhanscing Modernism. It's simply what we have after Modernism. It's the change we make of everyday use of design. It's a movement that is often mistaken as identical to Modernism, but to understand Postmodernism we must understand Modernism.
Postmodernism is the play and change of design.

Design

Basic girls hair clip,
No style, just shape,
One shade of color








                   



              Change

             New design, added accessories
             Change of style for feminine look
             No longer one shade of colour