If It's Hip, It's Here (Archives): art direction

Showing posts with label art direction. Show all posts

Anderson, Kubrick and Tarantino's Directing Styles As Seen by Kogonada.

Kogonada is a filmmaker and regular contributor to Sight & Sound. His projects have been featured on NPR, The Atlantic, Canal+ and Der Spiegel, and have screened internationally. He was born in Seoul, Korea.

His videos posted on Vimeo are almost always “Staff Picks’ and that’s because they are both informative and entertaining for film buffs as well as the general public.

I’m sharing with you three of his projects that are visual compilations from the work of directors Wes Anderson, Stanley Kubrick and Quentin Tarantino. Each focuses on a central stylistic component of their directing. Wes Anderson’s beautiful symmetry, Stanley Kubrick’s one point perspective and Tarantino’s worm’s eye view.

Wes Anderson "Centered":

Stanley Kubrick “One Point Perspective”:

Quentin Tarantino “From Below”:

See more of his interesting projects here
follow him on twitter at twitter.com/kogonada
or on Vimeo at vimeo.com/kogonada

Fabulous Design, Illustration and Packaging by Veronika Kieneke for the GÖRTZ brand.

Hamburg-based creative and design agency Gürtlerbachmann has created many beautiful in-store promotional pieces for German shoe store chain GÖRTZ. From designing sock puppets and wearable bags to promote their children's section to beautiful packaging for wool socks. Such a slew of well-designed pieces and all of the art direction and concepts were created by the talented (now freelance) illustrator and designer Veronika Kieneke. Every in-store promotional piece and package design in this post has received at least one design award - and in most cases multiple awards.

A self-initiated design project by FormNation, they took it upon themselves to give such US Tax forms as the ol' W9 and 1040 a much needed makeover for both hardcopies and digital. No one likes doing taxes and the fact that these painfully necessary forms are both confusing and downright ugly does not help.

Original and redesigned US Tax Forms 1040 and W-9:

Setting out to prove that design can help to innovate, promote ease of use, and add value to business and society, FormNation streamlined the fonts, clearly prioritized the sections and added color to help distinguish the forms.

The redesigned 1040 form:

The redesigned W-9 form:

“Change in the broad sense can be transitional, revolutionary, and transformative. It’s about making life easier, and making things more possible.” - FormNation

Nice work guys, now if only the US Government would follow suit.

FormNation

Artist Rohitash Rao's Trash Is Most Definitely A Treasure.

If Ralph Steadman, Robert Crumb and Jean-Michel Basquiat ever combined their artistic talents, the result may look something like the whimsical, but edgy illustrative art by California artist Rohitash Rao, known as Ro to his friends.

above: artist Rohitash Rao

Ro is loaded with talent. So much so it was hard to decide what of his I ought to feature on this blog. An art director, film director, animator, illustrator and all around great guy (I speak from personal experience) he has three illustrated children's books to his credit (The fabulous Herbert's Wormhole series ), multiple music videos ( "Speeding to My Death" Official Video by Still Pacific and A Great Big World - "Everyone Is Gay" are must-sees), advertisements for well known brands, his fine art and more. His fabulous 'TRASHart' is what I've chosen to share with you today.

Combining multiple aspects of popular culture - such as the consumption of fast-food, excessive waste, movies, books and cartoon imagery along with graphic design and illustration, Rohitash's work exemplifies the old adage "One man's trash is another man's treasure." Stomped upon paper cups, crushed cigarette packs, soiled fast food containers, flattened spray paint cans and other garbage serve as the canvases for Ro's illustrated and painted figures, creatures, silhouettes and occasional commentary.

Since I have the pleasure of knowing Ro personally through both our Alma Mater, Pasadena's Art Center College of Design, and the world of advertising, he graciously offered to answer a few questions about these works for me:

IIHIH: WHEN DID YOU START CREATING THESE?
Ro: Technically I've been painting on stuff I find in the streets since I was kid - mainly because they were free canvases. But I started up again about 6 months when I moved to Venice and discovered all this great trash in the alley behind my studio. The first thing I painted on were these abandoned lottery tickets I found by a dumpster. I painted faces of the people that I imagined angrily chucked them on the ground after obviously not winning. I showed the paintings to a few friends and the response was so positive I did more.

Now i collect trash wherever I go. I was recently in Germany and Malta and I grabbed a few things off the streets while I was there. I am also getting commissions, most recently from Brazil. People are starting to mail me trash from all over the world. I'd love to do series about the geography of trash and collaborate with a litter organization or even someone like Surfrider down the road.

IIHIH: WHAT MEDIA DO YOU USE?
Ro: Everything is a mix of gouache, acrylic and spray paint. It's usually whatever material will work on the different textures. Some fast good cups are plastic coated so water based paints don't adhere to it. It's amazing how much I suddenly know what trash is conducive to what paint product!!!

IIHIH: WHAT OTHER ARTISTS INSPIRE YOU?
Ro: I like gritty, surreal stuff. So I guess the main ones would be Basquiat, R. Crumb, David Shrigley and Francis Bacon.

Let's hope that as long as people continue to make trash, Rohistash Rao continues to turn it into art.

Visit Rohitash Rao's tumblr site to see more.

Soft Guerilla by Kyle Bean

A series of weapons made from harmless materials by artist Kyle Bean, who creates playful, imaginative work for a variety of clients that appear in editorial and commercial projects as well as installations for luxury fashion brands and events. These items were created for a feature article that centered around the topic of ‘Guerilla Gardening’ and ‘Yarn Bombing’.