I'm a big supporter of working for others to learn from, as well as primarily working for passion and financial gain of course. This is why I amongst many others am a big fan of the works of great magazines and websites such as Creative Bloq and Smashing Magazine. They not only provide updates on trends and innovations within the design community but they also teach the future designers of today with tutorials and free resources. The tutorials are not simply for the purpose of teaching though.
Many of the tutorials and lessons provided are a result of some really awesome design created by an inspiring artist who then picks apart their creation to provide the methods behind their madness. It might not have been the intention of that artist to inspire people with his creation. It might have been to serve a purpose e.g. creation of a new logo for a client in exchange for money. The inspiration is perceptive from the viewers of the artists' work who seek to create similar creations.
Last night I came across this fantastic piece of artwork on Adobe's blog which not only provides visual stimulus to inspire my own creations but it also gives a very in-depth tutorial for others to learn from.
It is great work such as this which makes me think should designers keep it in mind that their art could one day inspire someone to create something equal if not great to it? If that is the case should every illustration be created with equal passion to present our best work every time no matter the size of the task?
I think it is great questions such as these which should be commited to memory with every brush-stroke or mouse-click designers and artists make. It is a great feeling to know that your own creation could inspire the future Picasso. After all the notion that every original idea is simply a remix of previous ideas is one that appears evident in many current day 'invention'. The TED Talks video below by Kirby Ferguson champions this very notion. What are your thoughts on the matter?
Two weeks ago I watched the outstanding Dark Knight Rises
film, Christopher Nolan's final instalment of the awesome Batman trilogy. I
understand that it has a completely different and darker take on The Caped
Crusader compared to its previous versions; however, in my opinion this has
been the greatest of all the Batman films created…ever!
The artistic creation of the film poster for this great
movie managed to keep the majority of the plot on the Q.T. until its premiere.
Now that I’ve seen the film it makes much more sense to me and for now I don’t
want to give too much away as I know there’s still people out there who haven’t
seen it. All I’ll say is that the “Rise” is quite literal and the poster
reflects that particular scene.
So for your enjoyment here is one of the official Dark
Knight Rises film posters, followed by the movie trailer:
Over the weekend I spent some time on art and design forums to look for some general chat on the topic and I came across an artist who used light with hanging tetrahedron frames to create shadows, supposedly related to the city as they'd chosen to play a CD of city background noises with the display. The image created did look pretty cool, like a bunch of post falling in my opinion, but more than anything it got me thinking about the creation of shadows and how artistic they can be. The artist's work can be found at this art forum thread: http://www.artforums.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?f=51&t=1379.
The forum got me reminiscing of my final year of sixth form when I created the set design for a small theatrical production - the final year project for my drama course. We used shadows as a way to add drama to a scene, which lead to me creating a series of free-standing door frames with tracing paper trapped in the middle of them so that when light was shone from behind a frame the shadow of the person behind it would be cast, visible on the front facing side of the frame as just a shadow of a man/ woman. It worked really well and scared the audience when the real person punched through the tracing paper frame - perfect for our off the wall version of Berkoff's "The Trial".
Combining my experience with the forum artist's project I started to think of how dramatic this art form could be. Imagine a large frame filled with tracing paper in an art gallery with light shone from behind it, casting the shadow of a series of objects to visitors presented with the front facing side as they enter. Combined with the right soundtrack, a whole series of moveable or static creations could be made - similar to the shadow puppet stories or "shadow play" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_play).
I like this idea but I'm fully aware that it's been done on some level before. I've even seen it in a John Lewis advert once where they used light to present the shadow of a woman from their product range. It's still something I'd be interested in creating though.
Personally, I prefer more controversial art so if anyone has the capability to champion the idea I'm about to propose then I encourage you to do so as my current position won't allow me to. I'd like to see an artist take the tracing paper canvas shadow casting idea but also take the idea from the John Lewis advert where they used their products. Instead of using random products though I'd love to see something provocative e.g. thousands of branded chocolate bars, coke cans, and other obesity creating manufactured goods, which will form the shadow of a naked obese person. Next to it should be rolled up fashion magazines to create the shadow of an anorexic figure as a contrast, like Supersize vs Superskinny.
The audience should be allowed to look around the back of the frame to see what has formed the image they first see as just the shadows of two unhealthy figures. It's a weak and obvious example, however, I'm sure many other connections can be made such as the shadow of the breast cancer trust's logo with cigarettes being behind the 'canvas' casting the shadow.
I'm unaware as to whether these kinds of art have already been done but if they haven't then someone who likes to bring controversial issues to the surface should create it.
Let me know if you like the idea of if you know of someone who has already done it because I'm fascinated by this art form.
