Artist Spotlight: Bryan Patrick Todd

I really like Bryan Patrick Todd's colorful, typography-rich design work. To start with, his logo is really nice. The custom initial is really well done, and I love the bright color.

This mural he did for the outside of a store is really excellent. I love seeing design so big like this. The typefaces he chose give the whole design a very cheerful look.

I really like this album cover he did for a split EP album that two different artists collaborated on. There's continuity between the two different designs, but the two colors distinguish the artists as well.

The black and white inside cover is pretty cool, as well. I like the way he stylized the pictures of the musicians.

I like the detail of this type treatment Bryan did. It's Akidenz Grotesk (an early sans serif font) with lots of fun colors, shadows, and outlines. It has a very vintage feel to it, I think.

Do you like Bryan's work too? Is there one of his pieces you like best?

HT: Share Some Candy

Artist Spotlight: Brent Couchman

It's been awhile since I've done an Artist Spotlight post, but I still love the concept of highlighting the work of skilled artists and designers that I come across online. Today's artist spotlight is Brent Couchman. I really like the work he's done for Fossil as well as some of his other projects. He has a playful, vintage, easygoing style.

Here are some notebooks he designed for Fossil. I love the color scheme and the down to earth style. These are just so cool. I'd love to have a set myself. Besides the actual notebooks, I love the idea of designing for stationery and other products. It's one thing to design a brochure that a business prints, but it's a different and  (I think) very exciting thing to design something that is mass-produced for people to buy. I'd love to do that one day. Like Brent Couchman did with these notebooks.

One of my favorite things in Brent's portfolio is this logo he designed for a custom tote bag maker. It's laid back and homey, but elegant at the same time. The color scheme is funky, and I love the custom lettering. It's fancy, but the slightly irregular lines make it seem a little retro and a lot down to earth, which I really like.

I love some of the things in Brent's play category, too. His West Coast typography piece is really fun. It looks like he crafted the letters in paper and then photographed it: way cool. I love the idea of using handmade elements in design. I like the way the paper makes shadows on the background.

This typography piece is really nice, too. I love the way the letters fit together to make a real piece of art. This is more than just words typed out (although those can be lovely); it's a purposeful arrangement.

This is a different style but also very nice. The tiles remind me of a pegboard toy I had as a kid. I like the precision of the curves on the letter forms, as well as the gradient-like color scheme.

One last thing: this bike illustration is just so much fun. I love the way the bikes are seamlessly intertwined. And the white pattern on the textured tangerine colored background is a subtle but pleasing contrast.

Do you like Brent Couchman's work?

HT: Design Work Life

Artist Spotlight: Dominique Falla

What Dominique Falla does with typography and fibers/thread is amazing, and the most stunning thing to me is her Relax & Unwind piece:

This is just amazing. I wish I had the typographic skills, eye for color, and sheer patience to do something like this. The detail is obviously the most striking part, but I also love the way the type itself is excellently designed, and the way the rainbow gradually fades from one color to the other.

I also really like these three quilt squares Dominique did:

 

 

I love the way the delicate sewing makes an eye-catching, creative, layered look. These are so happy!

What do you think of Dominique's work?

Artist Spotlight: Ragnar Freyr

Ragnar Freyr is a graphic design from Iceland whose work I found through AisleOne. I like the way he has his site laid out. It has unlimited scrolling, so you scroll down to what you think is the end of his portfolio and then more things load! It's really fun.

His work is strong, too. Lots of his items are really good illustrations of clean, crisp design and good use of sans type. This magazine cover for FIT 2010 is nice. The typography is interesting: I'm not sure what style it would be classified as since it seems to be a mix of serif, sans serif, and typewriter/display. And of course I like magazine layouts in general, so it's fun for me to see what different people do with them.

I really like Ragnar's Christmas packaging for Yule. The color scheme is great, and both the design and the type have such a wonderfully modern, Scandinavian feel to them. I'd like to hang one of these on my tree. The typography is great, too—it kind of reminds me of Ikea.

His designs for Project Patterson are really fun. I love the yellow, and the folded newspaper presentation is really cool!

I like this Pyro poster, too. I like red and white together, and this red-orange shade is a favorite of mine. There's also something about simple sans serif type and white on a color that I really like.

Ragnar's logo for Createmake, a blog he runs, is great, too. I like the way he uses serif typography in a simple, minimal way. Usually I associate sans serif typefaces with minimalism, but it doesn't always have to be that way.

The CD packaging for Missa Pacis is very nice, too. I love the bright color scheme and the simple design, and it's always fun to look at different takes on album packaging since they're another one of my favorite print items.

But I think Ragnar's branding for Notknot might be my very favorite of his projects (which is why I saved it for last!). The type, the shapes, and the hand-printed, textured look are all wonderful.

Do you have a favorite of Ragnar Freyr's projects that I've featured? I hope you like his work as much as I do.

Artist Spotlight: Peter Crawley

Jalynn also forwarded me a link to one of Peter Crawley's projects. And wow. His work is just so cool! As I looked around his website, there were so many projects I liked. He does "stitched illustration" on paper, and I don't think I've seen anything else quite like it.

His audio-visual work is interesting, like this piece, Good Vibrations. From what I can tell, he takes the sound waves from songs and does a visual representation of it in embroidery. I never would have thought of this, but it looks really cool visually!

His UK map for Liberty is quite good, too. I like the way Peter uses lines in different ways in his work. The lines in the background give a nice, subtle texture.

 

Peter's illustration of a quote uses contrast really creatively. I don't necessarily like the quote, but the way he used type and contrast is excellent.

This CMYK illustration is the one Jalynn sent me. It looks cool from afar, but the closeup shows the detail of the layered threads. That must have taken a ton of patience!

The color wheel on Peter's site is cool, too. I like how a rainbow looks in thread.

My very favorite piece from Peter's portfolio is Lines and Lines. The subtle contrast is so interesting, and besides—it's an ampersand!

What do you think of Peter Crawley's "stitched illustrations?" Do you have a favorite?

Artist Spotlight: Jan Avendano

I found Jan Avendano's work through Design Work Life, and a few things in particular stuck out to me from her portfolio. I love her 1985 experimental typography. The colors are so fun, and I like the way the simple, sans serif typeface is paired with lots of detailed texture.

 

The way the stripes go in different directions and the grid background are also nice. You can actually buy a print of this design at In Print.

Another of Jan's projects that I thought was intriguing (and looks great) is her collection of "readings." What she does is reproduce the design of book covers using diagonal lines to represent images, and blocks of color to represent text. It really draws attention to the layout of book covers which can be harder to see in the midst of all the words and images that are usually there.

Isn't it interesting to look at book covers only in terms of where the text is? I looked up two of the actual cover designs for books Jan used for her project, and it was interesting to see how much "extra stuff" is added on top of the basic layouts. I think it's cool that Jan uses this project to examine different layouts.

I hope you like Jan's projects, too! What do you think?

Artist Spotlight: Alyssa Nassner

I found Alyssa Nassner's work through Karli Ingersoll's blog. I love her work! I like that her style is flexible: some of her work is very artsy, yet other pieces have a more simple, graphic look. It's good to be able to work in more than one look. But in my opinion, all of Alyssa's work has one thing in common—a happy, cheerful appearance.

I want to share some of my favorite things from Alyssa's portfolio today. This Work/Life illustration for Uppercase magazine is really cool. This is the kind of illustration style I really like: it's joyful, fun, but also organic, casual, and not stiff or stuffy.

The typography in the poster is also really nice. The "work/life" text has great hand-done type, and the font on the book spine mirrors it nicely.

Alyssa's album artwork for Cloudberry Records is also lots of fun. The colors are great and I love the way the typography looks like chalk.

The texture to this illustration is really nice. That's one element I love seeing in illustration work—it really adds another layer of interest to the design.

Alyssa has several daily outfits pieces on her website, which are so fun. I love the idea of recording what you wear, and Alyssa has done a great job making an art out of it! The style is very happy I think.

 

I like the combination of strong detail and a whimsical, easygoing look to these illustrations.

One thing I love seeing on design websites is photos of actual products. It's always fun to see how things look in print! Alyssa's paper goods are cool, and I like the presentation of the photos.

Like all of the work I've featured from Alyssa's site, these paper goods have a joyful, fun quality to them that I really like.

What do you think of Alyssa's work? I'd love it if you would join the conversation...feel free to leave a comment!

links:

alyssa nassner
small talk studio on etsy