What is Vector Art?

Vector art is something very easy to visualise, and very hard to understand. I have read many different definitions of what vector art is and I am still finding it hard to understand myself so I am going to try and put it in the most simple way I can (and hope that I am right).

A vector is something that can only be produced by a computer. It is the space between two points, or three or four, or however many you have. For example, if you drew a square in illustrator, you would have four points. A vector is the information of where these points are in comparison to each other, so you could increase the size of the square and it would not become pixelated. If you had a picture of a square on photoshop, it would be made up of lots of small squares, and however small, eventually you could increase it to a size where you could see these individual squares (or pixels as they are called in computer world) a vector does not have pixels, it is just the space between points. The reason it has become so useful to us is so that we can create small images on computers that can be blown up to fit on huge scale things such as billboards without it looking pixelated.

After writing this I now realise why all the definitions I have read are so complicated, it is not an easy thing to describe!

David Shrigley

My personal tutor introduced me to an artist, and animator, called David Shrigley by showing us a video made by him called 'Who I am and What I Want'. I'm not really sure what my first reaction was to the film. Its very weird thats for sure! The film contains a lot of gory scenes, which i would have thought hard to achieve when drawing in such a chile like style, but that could also be why its so disconcerting to watch, but it also is very funny, and you cant help yourself laugh at some of the scenes. I love the style of child-like black outlined drawings and it is something I would like to experiment with at some point, although it is not my usual style. I am still not too sure of the meaning of the film, or even if it has one, but it makes you think. And that is always a good thing.

Here is the Video. 

Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Jean-Michel Basquiat

Jean-Michel Basquiat was born in Brooklyn, New York. He started out as a graffiti artist in the late 1970's and 1980's. Many poor black people in Brooklyn were starting to try and make themselfs heard and voice there opinions through the form of art, often graffiti or rap music. Basquiat started out working with friends under the nickname SAMO. "Plush safe he think.. SAMO" and "SAMO as an escape clause.", these are some of the messages that can be seen on walls and building around Manhattan. In the late 1970's "SAMO IS DEAD" was seen sprayed on walls around soho and this was the end of the project. 

In late 1979 he became friends with Glenn O'Brian through a TV show he appered on and then was introduced to Andy Warhol who he later collaborated with. In late 1981 he joined Annina Nosei gallery and by 82' his work was being showed regularly alongside big artists. He based a great amount of his work on his views of racism. One of his most famous paintings was entitled 'Irony of a Nigro Policeman'.

He was known for many different things, such as a short romance with singer 'Madonna', some work with singer and artist David Bowie and his obvious stance against materialism. He would paint in Armani suits and would ofter be seen in public wearing the expensive suits splattered with paint.
In 1986 he appered on the cover of 'The New York Times Magazine'  and it was around this time that he was at the hight of his career.
When Andy Warhol died in early 1987 his heroin addiction and depression bacame more sevier and despite a few attempts at soberarity he died of a heroin overdose at his studio on 12th August 1988. He was a great inspiration to many and will always be an artist remembered.

Jean-Michel Basquiat pictured here with Andy Warhol.

People Are Trying To Help

I came across a lovely little animation while 'surfing the web' the other day all about saving water.
After doing a little bit more research into the makers of the animation I came across a group called 'Nice and Serious'. They aim to teach people about issues such as environmental, health, social, economical and other area's surrounding these things. They are a full service production company dedicating there time to trying to open people's eyes to the problems in the world around them and I personally think they deserve a lot of credit for what they are doing.
The animation is interactive which helps to maintain interest and grab the attention of its viewers. Give it a watch and see what you could learn. everylastdrop

For more information or to watch other videos visit www.niceandserious.com

Post Consumer Waste

Post consumer waste is human waste from every say life that has never been previously recycled. It consists of things like junk mail, packaging, used newspapers/magazines, used batteries, broken toys and ripped clothes. Things that also fall into this category are food waste, weeds, fallen leaves, water and also human waste.
The Environmental Protection Agency report that America produce approximately 220 million tons of post consumer waste a year. We do not have a world wide figure yet but America is only 4% of the worlds population so we can work out that the figure is very high.
Issues around this waste are what we do with it, how much of it is unneeded waste, and the fact that it harms other living things around us such as animals.

Greenwash.

Greenwash:

Greenwash is a growing problem all over the world.  The Advertising standards agency in the uk are receiving more complaints than ever before about advertising company’s that are not living up to there claims.  Countries all around the world are trying to keep up, France and America both announced new guidelines a few years ago but the problem is still getting worse.

Greenwash is basically false advertising. With the recent worry about global warming growing more and more people are looking to buy more environmentally friendly products so that we can all feel that we are doing our bit. However this makes production a lot more expensive for company’s so many of them claim to be green when they are not.

Some companies do this without you even noticing, they will not claim things outright but they will hint or suggest things. Things to look out for too notice greenwash are green images that indicate a (un-justified) green impact. For example flowers blooming from exhaust pipes, no proof of the things they are claiming, declaring that you’re the best and greenest company, even though all the other companies are pretty dire anyway.

Now this problem has become something we all have to try and stop, so if you see an advert that you think is trying to greenwash don’t hesitate to call the ASA (advertising standards agency) and make a complaint as this is what will alert the government that something really does need to be done.

Olly Moss:

Olly Moss is a young, British graphic designer born in 1987 in Winchester.  Despite only being 23 years of age his work has caught the eye of The New York Times magazine, The directors and creators of popular T.V series ‘Lost’ and the executives at popular fashion outlet, Urban Outfitters.

Moss’ work is in a variety of different mediums. Most of these are either illustrations or vector Images. Most of his work has quite a retro style and many of the images have Noise filters on to make them look more grainy and aged. From looking through his archive it becomes apparent that a lot of his influences come from music, film and computer gaming. He has designed many film posters in his own style using mostly just two block colours and silhouettes which is very effective.

He has worked for a variety of different companies from magazines through to fashion designers; some of these include Levis, Nike and Puma. He also designed the book cover for penguin book “You Are Not a Gadget, A Manifesto” by Jaron Lanier. For this he took a comical approach and used an image of a kindle (a tablet like device that can hold up to 1000 books). On the screen of the kindle he had the book as it would actually appear in real life.  However this is quite a contradiction from the title of the book.

I think that the reason that I like Olly Moss’ work so much is because he takes this comical approach with everything he does and this gives it a very light hearted but it also makes it seem quite clever. He also takes subjects that are still quite taboo in our society and makes jokes out of them. I think this is a good thing as it makes people realise that we don’t have to be so uptight about such things. I think that if he can make people think about things just from looking at his pictures, even if they don’t partially like his work, then he has achieved more than most people ever will. It is very important to me that my work means something and makes people think otherwise I don’t think it has much point.

^

This is my favourite piece that I have seen by Olly Moss. It is not particularly complexed and it is not about anything practically important but it is funny and it is actually very true. It makes me think about all the different way that you can know what people are like without talking to them as this is a very important skill in life. This picture was most likely done using vectors as it is a very clean image and there are no photographs involved.

In my opinion Olly Moss is a very clever graphic designer who can do an extremely simple piece of work but it can have so much meaning and this is what I would like to be able to do with my work. All I wish to do in life is make people stand back and think about it.   

Corey Holms:
Corey Holms' name has been well known to designers for over a decade and in this time he has worked on a lot of major projects and made himself very well known in the industry.  He originally came from southern California and now lives in Fullerton. He studied at the California Institute of the Arts and graduated in 1996 with a BFA in Design. He runs his own private practice as well as working for agencies. His field of work consists of Identity, Type and entertainment design. His work has been seen all over the world and he has also written articles in many big design magazines on Typography and Type history.

Holms designed the logo for hit T.V series ‘The Sopranos’. Simply substituting the ‘r’ for the gun made it an iconic piece in the world of design and culture. This has since been used in many other similar logo’s and has been parodied by another Hit show ‘Family Guy’. Such a simple change has made such an impact on the world of television as I would expect that most people who watch t.v/ Film will have seen this logo or something else buy him.

Another massive part of Holms’ archive consists of entertainment media or film posters. He has designed posters for such films as ‘Where the Wild Things Are’, ‘Enemy of the State’, ‘Lost in Translation’, ‘The Time Travellers Wife’ and many others. He was also the main designer for the film posters of ‘The watchmen and from my point of view being given the opportunity to design the film posters for one of the best and probably most famous Graphic Novels of our time would be a huge honour. The artwork in the watchmen graphic novel is breathtaking as it is and it’s a huge responsibility.

In fact when Holms was going over the original artwork he noticed a massive problem with the original Comic Con version of the logo. Someone had Squished the C so that it would fit inside the border which made it appear much smaller than the other letters and also unbalanced the whole image. However I find that if you look at the original for too long then it starts to look normal and when you look at the new version the C looks oversized, however it is not and it does work better on the whole.

It is reported that Holmes and his team were determined to make the posters and the new logo look as authentic as possible in order to stay faithful to the comic and they were not going to change it at all but after a lot of talking they decided it just looked too wrong. In the end they rebuilt the whole logo from scratch using Illustrator.

Corey Holms is probably one of the most influential graphic designers of our time and for upcoming graphic designers such as myself he is a big inspiration.