It's Been A While

I would just like to apologise for not updating this as frequently as I should, as I've not been very well recently and because of that I haven't been writing as much as I'd have liked to. I should be back up and posting often again soon.

Extracting Knowledge from the Creative Field

Alexis Winter

One artist/designer that is definitely on me 'must interview' list is Alexis Winter. Her work is so varied, from graphic design, paper embroidery and photography, to a combination of them all. I can really relate to that as I don't just want to focus on one thing, I want to mix and match, continue to explore and learn as I design.Winter spends her time in Melbourne, Australia working as a Communication Designer, and loves 'layered concepts with hidden meanings.
Here are a few examples of her work (also some of my favourites):
Pad loves 'layered concepts with hidden meanings.

Contact Details
Email: alexis.k.winter@gmail.com
Blog: http://alexiswinter.tumblr.com
Shop: https://www.etsy.com/au/shop/AlexisWinter#_=_


Oliver Munday

Oliver Munday lives and works in New York as a graphic designer. He co-founded a socially based design collaborative named 'Piece' with Bernard Canniffe and Mike 
Weikert. Together, they believe that designers can play a key role in social justice and 
positive change. I love how Munday's work is so simplistic yet eye catching, with the minimal colours playing a key part as they contrast well together. 
These are just a few of my favourites:
Wire Poster Project
Knopf
See, Mix, Drink 

Contact Details
Latest work shown on: http://omunday.tumblr.com
Email: oliver.munday@gmail.com

Avinoam Noma Bar

Noma Bar is an Israeli born graphic designer, who studied typography and graphic design and states that he's “after the maximum communication with minimum elements”. He's currently working for the design agency Dutch Uncle, who have office in London, New York and Tokyo. His work has become well known within the advertising industry, resulting in him winning numerous awards for his work. One thing I would love to know is where the ideas are derived from and who his influences are, as those are the types of things I struggle with the most. He has such an effective and creative way of using the negative space within the images that he produces. 

Here are what I feel are his best pieces of work:

Tea for Two

Winter

Cut it Out

Contact Details
Twitter
Facebook

Metaphors in Art & Design

During my time at college today, we started to look into metaphors in things such as commercials and numerous works of art. We were shown different images and each had to write down what other meaning they could have, such as a runner wearing high heels on a racetrack - an advert for Pirelli tyres. The meaning behind it was that you could have the most powerful vehicle in the world (the runner) but if you haven't got good grip/tyres (represented by the high heels) then you won't get very far and you won't get the optimum performance. We then went on to look at other things similar to this, such as the Bill Viola 'The Messenger' artwork (rather scary in my opinion!)
To this collection I would like to add this rather strange advert, Beagle Street. Life insurance. Reborn., as i think it's a great way of saying that most insurance companies can be a right pain and hassle with life insurance, making them not very approachable. When the fluffy, more approachable creature arrives, that represents Beagle Street, making them appears to be kind and approachable to customers. 

We also started to look at professional websites to take advice and inspiration from, and I found one which I signed up to a while ago but didn't really look into as I didn't know how to use it - Behance. This is an Adobe run website, making it a specialist site mainly for graphic designers of all subcategories, including photographers. On this site you can find artists and designers from professional to amateur, resulting in a mix of talents and creative knowledge in 30+ creative fields. The site is mostly used to post ongoing or completed work by the users, but it can also be used to post jobs for others to complete. It's such a great site, especially for freelancers as it can be quite a good way for them to showcase their portfolios and to get them noticed and recommended by the community, essentially boosting their career.

YSP

Ursula von Rydingsvard was born in 1924 in Deensen, Germany. She attended the University of Miami – Coral Gables in 1965 where she received a BA and an MA and an MFA in 1975 from Columbia University. She then attended the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore in 1991 where she received an honorary doctorate. She spent the majority of her childhood in post-war refugee camps and Nazi slave-labour, which she reflects upon within her work. The aim of her sculptures is to show the trace of the human hand and for them to resemble wooden bowls, tools and walls that reflect on her past, pre-industrial Poland before WW1. Her work almost reflects puzzles with the staggered forms and surfaces. Rydingsvard has achieved many awards during her lifetime, including a Joan Mitchell Award in 1997 and a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1979 and in 1986.

Rydingsvard uses cedar wood beams that have been commercially cut in 4x4 pieces, which had been central to her work since 1975. Sometimes when she’s creating her sculptures, she uses cedar molds. For a period of 20 years, she cut all of the wood herself but now has a team of four cutters; two men and two women. They use circular saw, chisels and personally developed and adapted tools to suit their needs. To begin with, Rydingsvard marks the wood with pencil so can execute her designs. As quoted by the artist herself, “my cutters are very experienced and know exactly what I want, we work and eat together and we are like a family” “I can only hope that the cedar feels that all the abuse we inflict on it is worth what it becomes in the end”. She applies graphite power with a soft bristled brush and sometimes chalk or plaster to the wood to give it subtle age.