Featured: Marie Luise Emmermann
A couple of images from the Skizzomat Illustration Diary, a creative outlet for Marie Luise Emmerman out of Germany. This stuff is rad, but check the figurative collage work in there as well. Really nice, slightly bizarre, sensual and fleshy. Lots more to see at:
www.skizzomat.blogspot.com
+
www.skizzomat.de
Featured: Matt Stevens
A side project of grand proportions: the Air Max1-a-day series by designer/art director Matt Stevens out of Charlotte, NC. The tribute portion is very cool as well. See if you can guess who’s who by style alone.
http://largetype.squarespace.com/
Young designers take note. This is a totally valid way to get some big-brand work into your portfolio. Think a step or two beyond just mock ads and make something interesting.
Featured: Crystal Sylver
Geisha of the Golden Phoenix – Oil on wood
Luna – Oil on Wood
Inspired by Fashion, Art Deco, Egyptian Art, beautiful women, and sensuality, as well as by her travels through ancient cities of the world, her work is an exploration of life — past, present, and future. Drawn to the mystique and power of icons throughout the ages, her emotional and erotic figure paintings are an expression of life, love, and beauty. Her current medium is oil, and metal leaf on wood and canvas.
Catch Crystal’s work in person at the Hive Gallery’s MAYhem show.
Featured: Bruce Peterson
Some great macro photography from Bruce Peterson out of Boston – personal/side projects + great campaign/commercial stuff. Take a look at ‘Oddments’ and ‘Old Money’ when you’re there, along with larger versions of ‘Acorns’, shown here.
Killed Comps
Well, they’d really be dead if I never posted them. Here’s some stuff I’ve (Gabe) worked on recently, either for pitches or early-round creative presos. All killed for various reasons, but all projects that I thought were headed somewhere cool. Such is advertising though. And this is why I only ever really count on my side projects to keep me creatively charged.
Contemporary
So we can all look back on the trends of the 80s, 90s, maybe the 00s a bit, although that’s trickier. We can all see what design styles ruled the decade – what was contemporary. So then we should also be able to take a step back from the right-now, from what’s contemporary today, right? We can see what we (graphic designers, art directors, interactive creatives, animators etc.) are working on this week, or this month, and we *should* be able to recognize the aspects of our creative work that are lining up to fall into that category of ‘contemporary’. Do we want our stuff to look and feel like everything else that everybody else is working on this week, or this month, or this year?
The problem is that ‘contemporary’ and ‘trendy’ are constantly blurring together. They’re really one and the same. When our deadline is tight, or our clients are unimaginative, or we’re too buried in work to apply our own imaginative abilities… we fall back on what’s cool right now, and we contribute to the larger body of ‘contemporary’ work that we’ll all look back on in 5-10 years and be embarrassed to have been a part of.
Wouldn’t it be great to create, sell-through, and champion creative work that breaks the contemporary trends that surround us? What are the barriers, project to project (because they’re always different), that keep us from doing the unique and imaginative creative work that we know we’re capable of producing?
This weekend, I’ll be blasting out some design comps that will, I absolutely guarantee, be trendy and cool, but unimaginative. I will have to rush my work, and I will fall back on established and expected solutions. I’d like to apologize in advance for my contribution to the cheesy design trends of the early 2000-and-teens. I’ll blow it all out and work some fresh magic the next time, I promise.
Interviewed & Featured: John Gilsenan of IWANT design
It’s probably safe to say that one of the most inspirational things in a young designers life is the album artwork adorning their favorite music. So, we thought it would be fascinating to get a look behind the scenes with an interview and some perspective from John Gilsenan of IWANT design. Based in London, John designs for Buzzin’ Fly Records, the electronic label of Everything But The Girl’s, Ben Watt. If you’re not familiar with them, you probably do know Tracy Thorn (the other half of EBTG) who was featured on Massive Attack’s prolific song, Protection.
Now at the at the forefront of the British dance scene, Buzzin Fly will be releasing it’s 50th single called Bright Star featuring Stimming, Ben Watt and Julia Biel. Buzzin’ Fly is well know for their quality audio and their attention to packaging and developing a visual brand with award winning artwork has helped to define the label. It’s no surprise then that the Bright Star single will be lovingly packaged as a double gatefold with gold foil block and a poster insert. We caught up with John recently to learn a little more about his background and the creative process of designing for a record label.
Full interview after the jump.
Anders Creative: Letterpress
Here are a couple of recent letterpress cards. The type is a handset wood Gothic Condensed typeface for the “Thanks” and handset foundry Huxley Vertical for “Anders Creative”. As for the elk… just a random line cut. Long live letterpress!
The thank you cards are available for purchase here.
Old Magazines
Hadn’t broken away from the computer in a while, so I pulled out an old magazine, shredded a few pieces, cut a few pieces, and glued it all down. Of course it comes back in to the computer and gets tweaked up a bit. Just a bit though. Sometimes a quick (and otherwise pointless) side project is the perfect fix.
Happy New Year
Happy New Year from the Phase Collective. Get in touch if you’re looking for cool projects or collaborations in 2010. We’ll have plenty.
Best wishes from California!
![Phase 01 Brainstorm [pdf]](http://www.phasecollective.com/images/phase01_thumb.jpg "Issue 01")
![Phase 02 Community [pdf]](http://www.phasecollective.com/images/phase02_thumb.jpg "Issue 02")
![Phase 03 Play [pdf]](http://www.phasecollective.com/images/phase03_thumb.jpg "Issue 03")