Julia Fullerton-Batten is a UK photographer with an incomparable universe. I discovered her through her "Teenage Stories" work, depicting young women inside minitatures universes - sometimes tragic, sometimes innocent, sometimes fashionably ingenuous. I would describe Julia's unique narrative vision as being constructed like a Russian Doll, a "Matryoshka-esque" vision: small elements/within a surreal world/where happens a surreal story/featuring young women.
You may admire Teenage Stories for its uniqueness, but you should also admire for its technical prowess: it's hard to distinguish what is constructed environment from what is real. The ambience, the inventive lighting, the model's carefully studies positions -- all of it makes for quite the disturbing Alice In Wonderland setting that you cannot look away from (if you have seen the Jan Svankmajer czech rendering of this story, you'll know what I'm talking about).
There is other impressive work to be discovered in the "New work" section of Julia's website: The seemingly random activities of young girls inside public spaces. Sometimes expressing some kind of a visual rendition of emotions inside a young girl's mind as time passes (my take), or just simply rendering the eeriness of an surrealistic situation featuring young girls in a random space or parallel dimension.
I'm sure that by now I'm rambling by myself, as you are now outbound to discover Julia Fullerton-Batten by yourself. In case you're still reading, it's time to go my friend, I need to have breakfast. Check out Julia's website, at http://juliafullerton-batten.com/.
Well recently I had the pleasure of receiving email from James, telling me he just finished his latest project titled "I Met The Walrus" -- an animated short about an interview with legendary John Lennon during his May 1969 bed-in at the Queen Elizabeth in Montreal, conducted by then 14-year old Jerry Levitan -- producer of said animated short.
Directed by Josh Raskin, the short movie presents the original reel-to-reel interview tape featuring James' illustrations metaphorically telling the story, animated by digital motion graphics talent Alex Kurina.
The teaser is now online at http://www.imetthewalrus.com, and if you ask me, promises a movie worth one or two Oscars in the Kickass Brilliant Animated Short category. You read it here first, folks.
I can't wait to see the whole thing. Hopefully I'll be getting an AdKrispies exclusive email interview with James and crew about the production of the entire thing *wink, wink*, and get to post it later on AdKrispies. Stay tuned.
View the teaser, and visit James Brathwaite's web site The Bathwater.
I'm not an art critic -- I usually trust my emotions and not my brains, when I consider art. I cannot explain why some of the things I like, I like. Or if I do, the words won't truly translate what I feel. And this is especially true when I look at the Bathwater collection: The Art of James Brathwaite. Disarming simplicity through naive drawings that tickles your Brain Organ of Oddity Perception (the BOOP.) You know that little twitch in your brain that goes on whenever you look at something paradoxal, weird, or otherwise unreasonable by normal standards? I like that little organ. It's the organ that makes me appreciate circus acts, freak shows or morbid yet artful depictions. When I see these, *boop*. Same thing happens when I mix a balsamic vinegar with olive oil, and dip cheese bread in that. *boop*.
James Brathwaite's art has that effect on me. I look at it. *boop* goes on. I like his semi-narrative, naive illustration style. I like the strange correlations he creates, and trying to figure out the crazy idea behind each illustration. I like art that speaks. And his art really has the gift of gab.
As reported on his site, James is a "semi-hairless ape, who currently lives in his cave in Montreal". His illustrations have been featured in many magazines including Dose, Warrior magazine, Maisonneuve, thefanzine.com and he's currently working on a book of medical inaccuracies -- I like the idea, coming from his style I'm sure it'll be great -- as well as an animated short about John Lennon.
I'm not going to ramble on my moments of booping, as reading this might actually make you go *boop*. But I suggest you experience it yourself.
It's always interesting to see what students/juniors are made of these days. And it's also very motivating for senior art directors to see new minds, new ways to approach the design problematic, and fresh styles. Every now and then, by pure chance, we'll see this one, good portfolio that just reeks of talent. Well, I Stumbled on Patrick's page, exactly by pure chance.
Folks, this is one good design portfolio. Well Pat, here's your 15 minutes of fame.
Patrik Berg is a 24 year-old student born in Stockholm, who's now studying design at Hyper Island in Karlskrona, Sweden. Wow. When you're studying design in a place called "Hyper Island", you can't suck. You just can't. Our man Patrik produces awesome work in different design media, exploring print, packaging, cross-application of technology and software, illustration and more.
Indeed, his craft is very imaginative and, if I may add, narrative - a quality I think is essential in any creation of intellectual property. Patrik looks like he has a keen understanding of the bond between form and function, a notion that shows in everything he produces, especially in this group work in which he and his teammates produced a flash game controlled by scratching a turntable, as part of a student project. I didn't do stuff like that when I was in school. I did Bauhaus. Bah.
I cannot say enough good about this portfolio. In the words of an ultimately cool swedish film director, Joakim Eliasson, (which whom I once worked and got this saying I still use nowadays, in a thick Swedish accent) : "To me, it is perfect". If I was a big and intelligent ad agency somewhere in California, or if I was Crispin + Porter (I wish), I'd do me some good and hire this guy now.
Patrik Berg is available for an internship from Autum 06 'til March 07, as he states on his webpage. I've no idea if he's been hired or interned as of writing this, but if you're interested, I suggest you hurry.
I decided to feature this in Inspiration Tuesdays because I thought this general Coke campaign is quite inspiring indeed, and is a well-thought refreshment of the Coke brand.
By now, you have probably seen the nifty Coke Side Of Life animation, where a guy puts a quarter inside a vending machine, and you discover this little big happy Coke-makin world. This is only one of the many Coke-commissioned ads, created by great animation and design minds of this world. Actually, here's another one of these ads, as featured on YouTube:
What you might not have known, is that there's a colourful website (hosted in Germany) that comes with the campaign, and features interesting interactive bits. I think the website is sparkling with creativity, and is a great example of opening a whole new world for the consumer, and for the brand as well. It looks like anything is possible in there. I like when a brand does more than providing entertainment as means of connecting with the consumer, but adds to it by creating intellectual property in which the consumer will be drawn, will learn to like, and will participate.
On a pleasant side note, it's interesting to know that while the "Coke" side of life is an interesting and aspirational slogan, some people thought of it otherwise.
The Dreameris a website revue of the coolest things the web has to offer these days in terms of branded content, music/entertainment, photography, corporate stuff and more. It's divided into categories for your comfortable use, and you can discover a lot of interesting stuff in there.
Just like I did for the following article, right above this one. Yay! Easy references.
The characters from "Mr. CityMen" are the work of Eric Lerner, a young 3D animator and designer from Jerusalem. The Mr. City Men are Mr DejaVu , Mr Afraid, Mr Fortune, Mr Dreamer and Mr Sunken - all of whom live excentric or surrealistic adventures inside the urban jungle. Featuring outlandish soundtrack by different indie artists, Eric's CityMen animations could be described as the "short lucid dreams of a overly joyous industrial designer", and portray the vivid paradox between the harsh scenery of urban no-man's lands and the careless, colourful Mr. CityMen.
There are 5 movies total, plus awesome wallpapers you can download. View them all, it's incredible work and something that gives you a small virtual vacation at the same time. Great work, Eric. (Thanks, TheCoolHunter!)
The first sentence in the "info" part of the Shinybinary website is "Nik Ainley is a UK based web designer who also has a passion for producing personal art and illustrations. After teaching himself Photoshop in his spare time while gaining a degree in physics at Imperial College London...". Now wait a second here. This guy actually taught himself Photoshop "in his spare time" while educating in rocket science, and is now producing incredible illustration work using software (which he probably taught himself as well) like 3D Studio max, Cinema 4D, Bryce, Poser and Xara 3D ? Became listed as the "Top 10 up-and-coming creative talents of 2006" by Computer Arts magazine? Made the top covers of many popular books, websites and magazines ?
Now I call that genius. Talented genius. And there's no denial that, from the care and detail shown in his work, our man truly has passion for what he does.
Nik creates carefully crafted environments, well-defined by any superlative in the dictionnary of modernism. Some creations feature mechanized portraits in knot-like metallic arrays, others feature strange abstract nebulas that loom inside a dark atmosphere, or gigantic cumuli-type clouds in colourful spaces. Waltzing from the abstract to the representative, Nik Ainley seems to have a sculptor's imagination, trapped inside the mind of a crazy impressionist painter.
The results are impressive indeed. Wait no more and check out Shinybinary.
On last weekend I was lucky enough to get tickets (thanks AnneMarie!) to attend the ADAPT 2006 Conference, held here in Montreal. ADAPT stands for Advanced Digital Art Production Techniques, and featured worldwide industry professionals in 2D and 3D digital production who came to talk about their craft, and show us how they work.
If the name doesn't ring a bell to you, the man is The Man responsible for the creation of vehicules, scenery and general conceptual universe for movies such as Blade Runner, Tron, Aliens, 2010, Short Circuit, Star Trek and other blockbuster hits -- and still works today at 50-something. He's a true example of industry evolution adaptation, and how you can (and must) always stay in front of TEH FUTURE, conceptually speaking.
Among other great moments, he gave us his views and techniques on creating believable machinery inside believable universes, and the general creative process behind the production of ideas in visual formats.
You can check out Syd's web site by visiting www.sydmead.com . He sells some DVDs on his techniques (I actually got one, and its really great), and books containing samples of his work. A must see, and must have.
Another really interesting speaker at ADAPT conference was Christian Lorenz Scheurer, matte painter/conceptual designer/art director, a brilliant artist and teacher who has worked on incredible productions such as Titanic, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, The Matrix, The Animatrix, and the recent Superman Returns -- among others.
He had this very inspiring and motivating conference about the creation of original and groundbreaking intellectual property (IP) for feature films and next-generation video games. Intellectual property is everything that one mind can create, and that becomes a known universe to the general public. For example, everything pertaining to the Star Wars universe is proper to George Lucas's IP, even though other people are working on new content creation for it. He presented us with his approach on the conception and production of digital art for movies and games, and the importance for an artist to create his own IP for better self-development, and breaking into the movie and video-game business.
I liked his views on art direction, mainly as he was saying that it was "...not a democracy, but a soft tyranny" - funny, but true. While the process behind conception and production requires teamwork, there must be someone with a definite view on how things will end. When an art director decides something will be white with blue dots, he might listen and see if anybody comes up with better ideas, but then if he doesn't like them it's going to stay white with blue dots, and that's that.
Check out Christian's Web Site at http://www.christianlorenzscheurer.com/ . You can also buy his Gnomon Workshop DVDs (I also got myself one of these), on which he presents step-by-step tutorials on different matte painting and drawing techniques.
Funky, powerfully explicit and vibrant colors, images filled with life and almost vibrating elements, social statements and opinionated imagery - sometimes just feelings, sometimes more figurative - and masterpieces you could see gracing the inside of any self-respecting bar in Shibuya, Tokyo - this describes (in surface) the art of Drew Flaherty.
Drew points to this link in his F.A.Q. : Lucid Dreaming - this state of dreaming while knowing you are dreaming - which I found to be most interesting. I take it he inspires himself from lucid dreams (funny, because I had one last night...crazy how we are all connected somehow) to create his highly expressive art - and it truly pays off. I like how he mingles with different media, and how his creations are easy on the eyes, and absorb you inside different little universes.
I have the most immense respect for the work of these people, whom I only know through their agency name, Platinum. You are about to see the biggest-collection-in-a-single-spot of the most inspired, brilliant, and pertinent art direction that you couldn't find anywhere else. As an experienced art director myself, I consider I have a lot to learn from these guys. Each piece of their portfolio is nothing short of jaw-dropping, with perfect execution and great attention to detail.
Without any further drooling, ladies and gentlemen, the extraordinary work of Platinum FMD from Brazil.
Here's the online portfolio of artist/illustrator David Foldvari, from UK. Most of his (quite inspired) work features monotint illustration, making use of shadow and light techniques - sparsely visited by inspired colour interventions. Just like I did, you might already recognize some attempts at imitating his style from various sources, nowadays. And yet, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, as the poet said - and I'm sure he takes it all in good sport. Or he sues the bastards. Who knows :)
The 1K project is a 3 minute animation featuring cars racing, and a cool tune ("Flower", by Moby). It was done by overlapping 1000 replays of the PC game TrackMania, and creating some new skins for the cars. All it needs is some car company to add its logo and BOOM! Instant Cannes. (If you're an agency interested in buying the project, and you want this post removed when you think you're about to do it, hey - no problem. With money and love, everything can be arranged.)
I don't know Serge Seidlitz personally, yet I'm sure I could draw a quick portrait of the man: loves confusion, grotesque and absurdity, mixed with flavourful, colourful and vibrant illustration. Loves homemade stuff. Probably has been smoking a bong or two, if only in dreams, with people like Andy Warhol, Terry Gilliam, or anyone working at Rolling Stone magazine - all that while listening to Liz Phair, White Stripes, The Rolling Stones themselves and The Kinks. He must have a crazy sense of humor. His mind must be like this huge toybox in which you throw stuff as kid, and re-discover when you're 30 or so. But like, everyday.
Of course, this is all subjective. But what's not is the work this man produces: you can feel creativity bursting from every stitch, everywhere in there. He's done stuff for MTV, Cingular, Computer Arts, Fused Magazine, Honda, The Cartoon Network, and more. I just look through his stuff and it gives me the profound need to DO MORE.
This is simply awesome. At TypeDrawing, you get to create your own crazy bauhaus/80s design type drawing, using a simple and intelligent interface. This is the perfect example of "creating an artistic experience" for the user. In advertising or in art, I salute things that create experiences for people, that draw people inside new horizons they didn't expect to see, and help them connect more neurones together for increased thought harmony. Wow. That sounded good. And I didn't smoke.
Create your own piece of typographic art! Visit TYPEDRAWING.
This is what internet is about. TV shows you can manipulate.
Today is officially Inspiration Day : where, for no particular reason, I celebrate talent in design and art direction by showing some great work from around the world. You might also consider this some sort of aspirational endeavor to push forward every people's ideas and visions on art and communication.
Without any further oscar-emcee comments, let me start with Virtual Hitman Designs. I actually stumbled on this site by pure chance, and I must say the work there is nothing short of inspirational. Urban themes, unknown faces, consumerism themes, expressive gestures upon silhouttes - sometimes dark, sometimes beautiful. All this composes the oeuvre of Virtual Hitman Designs. To paraphrase a great critic of this first 21st century, mr. Peter Griffin: "This is freakin' sweet".
I'm a freelancer and free thinker in the field of marketing and communications, trying to continually expand the known universe in my little mind -- and yours.
Among other great moments, he gave us his views and techniques on creating believable machinery inside believable universes, and the general creative process behind the production of ideas in visual formats. 
