Design 10

Yes, this entry IS a chair. An award winning, Marilyn Monroe inspired chair. This design ignores form follows function by being as extravagant as possible with each 9mm MDF piece being painstakingly made to fit the overall shape. The piece was inspired by Marilyn's pleated dress in 'Seven Year Itch' and it matches the subject matter quite nicely.

Studios, OMC Design. "The Monroe Chair An Armchair by Alexander White." The Monroe Chair An Armchair. A', 24 Feb. 2012. Web.

Design 8

This post is for Elín Edda's Gombri these illustrations are a part of a graphic novel about the current times. The color palette is very dim, but colorful and gives a little bit of a dismal tone to the illustrations. They all look as if they were done with paint and it helps to portray the less-than-joyful world Elín has created. Although the middle piece is very busy it still refrains from becoming noisey, and the eyes help to point you toward the focal point as well as the swirl of the piece as a whole is located mostly around the black figure. These pieces give a grotesque depiction of the current events with very creepy and desolate illustrations.

Design 7

This particular piece done by Gail Bichler and does a pretty good job of explaining how the U.S. views the world. This is a good use of color and feels very reminiscent of the propaganda posters from world war 2. Another aspect that ties this into a WW2 poster is that his hands look very modelesque as well as the limited color palette.

Design 6

This entry is of something that is soon to be a relic, and possibly made history. Battleborn came out in May of 2016 and though some bad planning and competition, the poor game was stomped out of the competition. However that is beside the point this game had some pretty stunning visuals and their advertisements were always interesting to look at.

This particular ad was on a review of their game, and first off the use of color is very nice high saturation colors are being pulled off without burning your eyes. Their use of highlights and character placement help to create approximate symmetry and the interesting designs of the characters keep your eye bouncing around looking for details.

(I retrieved the image from here but Gearbox made the image)

Kelly, Rosh. "Battleborn Review - Unbridled Fun." Wccftech. WCCF PTE LTD, 18 May 2016. Web. 20 Apr. 2017. 

Design 5

This week's design is one for Kieran Timberlake, done Go Welsh. This piece is a wonderful display of  utilizing simplicity to create a successful design. It also makes you think about what the actual message says, by breaking up the text initially your mind doesn't make the connections that the text is actually a cohesive, but once you think and interact with the design you realize that it isn't just a series of letters and boxes.

Design 4

This week is the Demon Days Album cover. The first album I ever owned and still love, and I figured in honor of their next album being slated to release this year this album cover would be a good piece to include. This is obviously a simple design it feels pretty reminiscent of Andy Warhol's Marilyn Diptych mixed with mug shots. The piece is symmetrically balanced in the typical horizontal and vertical fashion as well as putting the character's who's head shapes are most similar diagonal from one another. The use of color shouldn't make sense but it ends up working overall for the composition and in general I love this piece.

Gorillaz. "Demon Days [Tracklist + Album Art]." Genius. Genius Media Group, 11 June 2016. Web. 23 Feb. 2017.

Design 3

This week we have our final piece from Workbook Illustration Volume 26, from page 526. This piece is another example of asymmetrical balance. The bright colors in the top right portion of this counteract the dark cluttered space in the lower left. Another part that helps your eyes from leaving on top left is the fact that his face is the only thing not being pointed to the right, and it is bright which makes it bring your eye back to the piece.

Look, A Design

This week I picked another image from Workbook Illustration volume 26 this time Dan Cosgrove is the creator. I chose 2 separate pieces because they weren't connected but felt very cohesive, their color palettes work on either piece, they have a similar style which are both indicative of being made by the same artist. The lion is particularly interesting due to its ability to keep the focus even though he is looking off the screen. This I attribute to the line of yellow that is his highlight, this design may not look like it but it is treading a fine line. If the yellow was any more vivid then it would be heavy on that side, while if there was a little bit of detail in the lion's eye we wouldn't be able to keep our eye on the page.
The Tuscany piece isn't treading a fine line quite as much  but there is still a balancing act being performed. There are three dark, huge bunches of grapes on the right but that isn't keeping us from looking at the little house in the middle of no where. There are a few things at play here; firstly the little house is where all the information that is important is, next there is a literal cue, just above the little house there is a bunch of grapes that ends up pointing directly to the focal point. Finally there the most visually calling color is what makes the house's roof.

First Blog Post

Artist’

This image was scanned from Workbook Illustration Volume 26. This was the first volume in this series that did not show its age immediately. That being said there was a theme across the vast majority of the pieces in this volume. They all looked painted with the same kind of fuzzy brush or filter as this one.
This piece stuck out to me because of the dynamic angle of the camera. the ropes are the most definite form of line in this piece but not the only instance. The pirates are all connected with implied lines. The pirate with the accordion is looking back at the rest of the group which the one with the white bandanna is pointing directly up to the captain who points back to the accordion player. Another formal element obvious in this piece is the unity and this is a very particular type of unity, most of the time unity requires the subject to be the same color or the same shape but the unity here is expressed with their faces. They look like a tough and rugged band of baddies while at the same time looking nothing alike. The final formal point i would like to emphasize is the balance and this is balanced because of the huge white mass that is the surprisingly busy-looking cloud and sky combination. There is enough happening in the sky with the birds and the tone variation in the clouds that is roughly equates to the amount of busy-ness of the ship with pirates.
Image source

Helquist, Brett. Roger, the Jolly Pirate. 1996. Medium. Parkland College Library, Champaign.