Wayne McDonald's Artist Blog: 2012

Wednesday 7 November 2012

Aaron Gilmore

Aaron Gilmore is another Artist which influences my work, the pieces which mostly inspire me are his t-shirt designs and he manipulates texts and then transforms them into picture of people or objects. I personally think that it is a very effective way of looking at a picture, in the picture he also uses words which actually go with the picture such as his illustration of Martin Luther King, he used words such as we shall overcome, hate, war, history and more I think this was effective because the picture actually tells a short story on who the person is, what they believe in and stand for.

I first came across Aaron Gilmore during my second year in college I was browsing other artists and then I saw his work and started to investigate, this then led on to me doing a little bit of independent work. I wanted to design something similar to this but for a music CD cover for an artist. The cover was successful and I believe that it was one of my strongest pieces, it was quite annoying to make using illustrator but the outcome looked great so I was quite happy with my work.

Rachel Whiteread

Rachel Whiteread is an English artist born on the 20^th of April 1963, she is best known for her cast sculptures. Rachel attended the Faculty of Arts and Architecture in Brighton Polytechnic for painting training. She worked in Highgate Cemetery fixing the top of coffins which have been damaged, her first exhibition by herself was in 1988, her first piece of work which caught the attention of the public was a piece called ‘Ghost’ in 1990, ‘Ghost’ is a cast of a room from Archway in London.

Rachel Whiteread inspired me in on one of my projects I did in the second year of college I was asked to create a seasons greeting card for my college, the winner would get there card mass produced and would be given out by my college. Whiteread inspired me to create a 3d project, I made square boxes out of paper and stacked them in a pyramid shape and made an origami star and placed it on top to look like a Christmas tree. Rachel was a great inspiration because she liked to make sculptures and models at large scales so I thought she was the best choice to choose from for this idea.

David Carson

David Carson is an American graphic designer born on September 8^th 1954; he is renowned for his experimental typography and his magazine designs. David first started designing in the 1980s at the University of Arizona. David Carson worked as a teacher from 1982 to 1987 at Torrey Pines High School in San Diego. In the 1990s Carson was one of the most influential graphic designers around. He published his first magazine in 1992; Ray Gun Magazine which included information on his interests; music and lifestyle.

I first came across David Carson in my second year of college; I used quite a lot of his typography work to influence my own. I found his work to be very creative which showed me how to create different forms of type. I also noticed in his work that it is not always important to make the work readable through visual communication; it is also important to make type visually stimulating to the eye. I wasn’t very interested in the magazines he produced but a lot of the work in them combined type with photographs; allowing a different way of reading. My favourite issue was number 3, I liked that the photograph was placed upside down; something you would not normally find on magazines.

Matt W. Moore

Matt W. Moore owns his own design and illustration studio which specialises in digital illustrations and water colour paintings, the studio is based in Portland, Maine. Matt W. Moore has a very abstract feeling towards his work he likes to use geometric shapes such as triangles and circles in most of his work. Matt is also the Co-Founder for Glyph Cue Clothing and Founder of Core Deco.

I first came across Matt W. Moore in my second year of Graphic Design at Croydon College for a Project called ‘Cities project’ where I had to read a chapter from a book called ‘invisible cities’. Matt W. Moore inspired me with his Geometric shapes, so I choose to make a 3d object using the shapes. My favourite pieces from Matt are probably from his collections of Vectorfunk images, his Posters Designed for Adidas NFL, the picture have an Aztec feel to it I like the different colours he uses and the patterns. I also was taken away by a few of his typography work from his ‘type Jam Archive’. Matt W. Moore has an urban feeling towards his typography work and I feel that it is something which I can relate to.

Michael Craig Martin

Michael Craig Martin was born on the 28^th of August 1941 Dublin in Ireland, best known for his paintings and his contemporary conceptual art. Michael is mainly known for his unique style of his paintings. In his early life Michael Craig Martin studied religious education for eight years in a catholic school and then moved to another school called English Benedictine Priory School where he and the other students were encouraged to look at the stained glass windows imprinted with religious images.

I first came across this graphic designer in my first year at college where I had to choose one artist from a list and had to do some research on him and them design a piece of work using his work as an influence. One of my favourite pieces of work from Michael Craig Martin is from the collection ‘Intimate Relations’ I like the different compositions he used some of the objects in the picture would bleed of the page and none of the objects size in the pictures are done to scale. I think this adds a great effect to his work. Since researching on Michael I have used his work to inspire my own in many occasions.

Monday 5 November 2012

Designers Statement

Designer’s statement

I am a graphic designer from South East London currently in my first year of university. I am currently studying Graphic Design & Advertising at the University of East London. I have been studying Graphic Design for 3years; I first took up graphics during college, where I was enrolled at Croydon College. I have many interests within the creative field; I also have an interest in Music. I produce instrumentals in my spare time and work with other artists to make tracks. I mainly work in the hip hip-hop, Rap and RnB industries. In my time in college I did a Btec in Graphic design and two years before that I did a Btec in business, this is what led me to picking Graphics and advertising at university.

My favourite area in graphic design is illustration; I have designed lots of pieces of work using the software. I created 2 posters for Croydon Council using Adobe illustrator, the brief was to create a poster to raise awareness of teen drinking and another was to raise awareness of the consequences of mixing alcohol with prescription drugs. I am also able to use other software such as Adobe Photoshop and Adobe InDesign I have done lots of different pieces using these programs such as creating a magazine on all my previous work and photo editing. I have also done work in typography, pictograms, logos, monograms, sculptors and a small amount of animation work using Photoshop and then editing it placing appropriate sound effects and background music.

My work has been influenced by many different artists, such as Michael Craig Martin, Matt W Moore, Aaron Gilmore, David Carson and Rachel Whiteread. I did a piece of work for my college, I had to create Seasons greeting card, Rachael Whiteread inspired me on this project because she likes to create 3D designs at a large scale so I created a Christmas Tree using paper which I then cut them out in a box template, stuck them together and stacked them on top of each other and stuck a star on the top.

I have also done some independent work I, created posters and cd covers for upcoming Music artist such as Jessy Say’na and Gio Tanna. I have also created leaflets and posters for the club promoter ‘Icecream’ . In my second year of college I was personally asked to make a poster by the head of the department, I was asked to make and design a poster of an up and coming event ‘Progression Fair’

Below are a couple of my designs mainly from my final major project which I done in Croydon college for my last project, the piece was heavily inspired by Michael Craig martin and his colour scheme. The posters are advertising the Olympic Games which are held in North Greenwich Arena, I used illustrator to create these posters. There is also a preview of a CD cover which I created using illustrator for upcoming artist Jessy Sayna