The other day I decided to give myself a little bit of practice in Illustrator. Each print took about 1 – 2 hours. The point of the exercise was to teach myself fundamentals of Illustrator again. Here are the results:
I actually quite enjoyed working with Illustrator again. At my job I don’t really get much of a chance to do something creative. Currently I’m working on another file which I hope to show next week.
I don’t get to go out to exhibitions as much these days, so I thought I would post one that I had been to. Ghost Patrol is an artist based in Melbourne. He tells stories through his artwork through different mediums.
It was an interesting exhibition and I suggest anyone in Adelaide have a look.
The exhibition runs till April 18th at the Hugo Michell Gallery.
Although I keep an analogue journal for the things that inspire me I thought I would share some of the items I have been collecting lately. I’ve been collecting little golden books you can find at the supermarket for a couple of dollars. Obvisously I’m not the target market for little golden books by look at them it’s obvisous who is. I’m impressed at the simplicity of the characters in the books which allow children to copy easily.
Recently I have also been influenced by vintage or retro illustrations which could explain why I’m beginning to like little golden books.
Some of the recent ones I have found:
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One of my favourite comics of all time is Fables. I don’t only love it for the storyline but also for the fantastic art. So it’s a shame to see the cover artist james jean leaving the project. After issue 81 there will be no more James Jean lovely art works. However that doesn’t mean he will be disappearing off the face of the earth.
I love his works, so much he’s inspired me to take some more course in watercolours and life drawing at the ACSA and WEA. Tafe is over for another year in 10 weeks, luckily for me this is when those short courses start 
For anyone wanting to see James Jean’s site the link is here:
And a link to his blog:
I found a couple of good websites that I thought I should put down here for future reference and for good old fun.
A friend showed me this site and I have to say the drawings are just lovely we were both jealous of his (or her) talent. He has an introduction animation when you click on the pole in the centre. The drawings he has displayed are just amazing and secondary action with the breathing is done well. It’s something I would like to achieve in animation one day. I actually enjoyed exploring this site so it’s worth a look if you have a spare half hour.
Link: http://www.redbeardead.com/
I also found this site while having a look for other flash developers portfolio sites. His site is just beautiful, I was at a loss for words. It reminds me of the Gnarls Barkley song “Crazy”. I noticed one of the key words he used was “narrative” which I found interesting. The site itself isexploitative it doesn’t lend itself to a set navigation, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. However I believe the maker of the site is chinese which makes it a tad confusing when searching through the site but has english titles when rolling the text.
Link: http://www.jonathanyuen.com
While looking at these site I amazed at the level of creativity put into them. As a student I’m always thinking how should I code a site. To me that seems like the most complicated thing I feel that this is a weakness since coding and design should be given equal amount of time. It’s nice to see there is balance in these sites between authoring and design, I just hope it’s something I am able to achieve one day.
SALA festival is to celebrate living artist in Adelaide which happens every year. I do enjoy going to exhibitions on the weekend but I also enjoy the SALA festival for the wide variety of exhibitions held. I think going to exhibitions is a useful part of design. Design is part of art and vice versa. It’s something I picked up while attending art school. I think the major differences are: Art uses emotion to convey a message where as design tries to use emotion and a set formulas to convey the same message.
I also like viewing exhibitions to get some creative ideas flowing. I find these days I’m concentrating more on code and research rather than drawing and experimenting. I would like to find a balance between the two one day.
The festival runs from the 1st of August to the 17th of August. I’ve already had a look at a few exhibitions but I think these could be the highlight of the festival for me and other design students.
Thong Cycle by Gerry Wedd - I meet Gerry Wedd years ago at an exhibition. I thought he was quite a character and what amazed me as a 17 yr old girl was the fact he worked and designed for MAMBO I thought only super people worked there. I actually think he’s a very good designer. This exhibition accompanies the launch of the tenth SALA monograph and features works that run the gamut from graphics to jewellery making and ceramics. While your there it’s worth having a look at the Margaret Dodd exhibition. @ JamFactory Studio Works Retail Gallery 19 Morphett St ADELAIDE 5000
Mango SALA Salsa - Display of works created by the current and former staff of Mango Chutney Design including poster concepts for SALA. I had a look at this exhibition today and it quite good. It was nice to see the project brief and concepts shown for the SALA poster. It was really no different to what we’re doing now. I think this is an exhibition that everyone who wants to be a designer should see. There is also a craft south exhibition on the level below which is worth seeing as well @ Malcolm Reid Building 2nd floor 187 Rundle St ADELAIDE 5000
I am me - The I Am Me project is the youth based componenet of the 2008 SALA Festival. People aged from 5 – 21yeras, have contributed small canvases based on the topic of What is important to you? Where am I? What do I Like? and Who do I want to be? This exhibition looks pretty cool I might have a quick look if I make it to Adelaide Goal and Nova eastend
Light Space - I just saw a few cartoon drawings from this exhibition and thought it could be good. @ The Electric Light Hotel 235 Grenfell St ADELAIDE 5000
I will probably view more than these during the time the festival is on depending where I am and if I have time.
For a link to the site just click below!
I was cleaning out my desk the other day and came across these cards I collected in Japan from my trip last year. It seems I never throw anything away, I also found some old flyer’s, packaging and train tickets. I thought they were quite nice and decided to share them with people. There is a huge difference in advertising with the western and eastern world. I think finding those old advertisements and cards made me think about it.
For a larger view of the images please click on them
This is an entry card for the Aquarium in Osaka. One of the major attractions in Osaka was the Aquarium and the whale shark. This was used as a day pass on the trains and entry to the aquarium.
Phone card used in Japan. Much like the old phone cards when phones in Australia accepted them.
Washing room card.
The following are scans from a flyer I found at a store in town. I thought the flyer and business card was interesting and decided to scan it in and put it up here.
Front of the flyer
Inside the flyer
Inside the flyer
Back of the flyer
Business card for the Holy glaxe donut company
Back of the card. It has a nice use of white space. The type is a little hard to read
Front of the card. It stays consistent with the rest of the promtional flyers
Not much of a rap fan but this was pretty good, made me smile anyway. Using typography to explain the song. It goes with well with the clip
Song: Alphabet Aerobics
Band: Blackalicious
