“You have to utilize who you are in your work. Nobody else can do that: nobody else can pull from your background, from your parents, your upbringing, your whole life experience”. This a great quote. It reminded me that anyone who loves to create has an amazing opportunity to inject their own unique personality into their work. Being inspired by others work is often valuable but we must not rely on it. By putting personality into our work we can progress the current thinking and take it into undiscovered territory.
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What a stunning collection of wildlife inhabiting derelict buildings by photographer Kai Fagerström.
I’ve always enjoyed the eerie sense of nostalgia in photography of empty buildings, and he captures the moody darkness inside these abandoned cabins of southern Finland beautifully and the animal inhabitants who make themselves at home in the crevices.
They can also be found in his book “The House In The Woods”.
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You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.
— Jim Rohn
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Olly Moss OFFSET 2012
After watching Olly’s first speaking gig at Offset in 2012 there were a couple of ideas that stand out for me.The first is that learning to become a master of your craft takes time and persistence. This talk shows really well that this was a journey that he went through to finally get to the level of quality that his latest work contains.
The second idea that resounded with me was when he speaks about his “American Werewolf in London” poster, being told that he should make the concept more obvious, colouring the werewolf white in case the audience missed it. By assuming that the audience cannot possibly be smart enough to find hidden meanings in your work and dumbing it down, you inevitably create something thats lost its element of charm and surprise.
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I believe that in a large part dissatisfaction is one of the key ingredients of success.
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Artisans 001 – Aaron Draplin
Aaron Draplin is a graphic designer originally from Michigan and now working in Portland. It’s quite obvious that he’s gifted when it comes to design, but he also clearly believes that the best results will only come from hard work. His company motto, “Work hard. Do good work. For good people.” reflects that.
Shown below are examples of his logo design style.
So why do I find inspiration in his work? He manages to reduce a complex idea into a simple straight-forward design that has a great sense of purpose and quality. He shows great restraint, limiting his colour palette, choosing bold geometric shapes and typography that is a far cry from the mass of over designed branding that we have got used to seeing on so many products. He takes an approach that harks back to the days when limited technology placed restraints upon the user. He talks about this love of past design in his fascinating Creative Mornings lecture “50 ways to ruin your career”.
He describes going out “digging in garbage with my friends totally delusional looking for treasures” - discovering under appreciated pieces of lost art. His passion for this stuff is infectious. Again he shows his hard work ethic and belief that putting in the time and effort to “Get out there and get dirty” is totally worth it.
Check out his flickr collection for more finds from the past. I’m certainly inspired to start the search for those old treasures that stand out and have proved the test of time - its fascinating when they still resonate after so many years.
Aaron Draplin knows how to make an impact with design that is built to endure. Its simple, but powerful. I hope I can learn some artistic restraint and bring back some of that old fashioned design sensibility into my own design work.
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“In closing this little brain-dump, I should clarify that I’m still very much in my infancy when it comes to learning about the craft and art of photography. I like to think I’ve got the technical basics reasonably well sorted, but it’s this stuff – the psychology, the relationships and the thinking behind the art of photography – that I find far more interesting than infinite techno-babble about lenses and apertures.”
A great point in Tom’s article on the minimal-gear approach to photography. To stop obsessing over gear, and to start thinking about creating a moment thats worth capturing - thats sure to result in greater images.
(Source: thomasmperry.com)
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“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes ‘AWW!’”
Recently, I discovered The Great Discontent, a fantastic and inspirational website, full of interviews focusing on creativity, risk, and what connects us as artists. At the very top of their ‘about’ page, this quote is clearly displayed. Its a really long time since I read ‘On The Road’, but I love this quote, because the world would be much worse without those “fabulous yellow roman candles” who have what it takes to stand out as different.
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I enjoyed taking a look at this gallery of Louise Hearman’s oil paintings.
They all contain an element of eeriness and intrigue. Faces of animals and people are placed against backgrounds in interesting ways, which makes the paintings look more like a figment of the artists imagination than a reality. Also, the contrasting light and shadows are beautifully painted with a loose, expressive style. I recommend having a browse.
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“The sketch on the left is one of about 30 or 40 that I doodled, over the course of about 3 days. It took a lot of time. The three vector versions on the right (in blue) took me about 3 minutes.”
The exploration of an idea on paper is crucial. When designing graphics and logo’s the best ideas rarely spring to mind in the first few attempts. In fact most of the time it’s best to let your thoughts stew for a while, to ‘simmer and reduce’ to use a cooking analogy, because only a simple, well thought out idea will be immediately compelling.
