YES & NO

For this week's theme on expressive type I chose an artwork I recently stumbled upon. This typographical sculpture was created by sculptor and conceptual artist Markus Raetz. His art is usually described as being about issues of reality and illusion. In this particular piece, from one angle it reads "YES" while from another it reads "NO". This sort of plays on how the use of the word "no" from people can sometimes mean "yes" and vice-versa. I find it ingenious how he contorted these words and letters to the point that they were perfectly opposite. The type is used in such a clever way that is clear and literally expresses what it is meant to.

Amanda

Hihi =D

So expressive type makes me think of graffiti ~

Colour and the style it's written usually gives people an idea of what the person was thinking while making it ~

-side note : took forever for me to figure out... / guess what it's saying

other graffiti I usually can't identify the whole word ~

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDunA-bakXc&feature=related

When I heard that the blog topic was expressive type, I thought about all the kinetic poetry I'd seen on youtube.  Kinetic poetry is poetry in motion!  It's really cool.  Usually there is a voiceover of the poem while typography is used as animation to support the spoken word.  Sometimes it can be very moving, more so than just hearing the words alone.

There are some really inspiring videos of kinetic poetry out there, but I chose a video that I hope we can all relate to.  Please tell me you have seen the movie Zoolander?  If not, get on it.  Even if it is the definition of a stupid movie, it has some of the best quotes known to man.  Winston Churchill is probably jealous.

Anyway, enjoy the video. I really think the motion of the type, as well as the variation of fonts, sizes, and colour help to portray the essence of what Derek is trying to say in this clip of the movie.

Good luck with completing your book covers, everyone!

Leanna.

Expressive Type

The jacket design for Tana French's novel In the Woods fuses text and imagery to great effect. The haunting beauty of the bare branches captures the dark atmosphere of this psychological thriller.

One Word Poems

Hey everyone. This week for expressive type I found some one word poems (or that's what we called them at my old school). So basically the one word poem is a single word displayed in a way to express the meaning of that word. I enjoy these when they're done in a really intelligent way like this insomnia piece. I love how the "i" is laying on the 'nsomnia" as if it's a person lying on a bed. Really clever.

As for this one I like how the piece it about balancing even though the "A" being upside down gives me the sense of unbalanced, in this case the opposite of what the main word means. This is another creative way to emphasize the meaning of the word.

Lastly, this one is just a fun one since the "o's" are popping like popcorn. Lots of fun!

A lot of one word poems are really interesting to look at and get you thinking about the one word that they're talking about. I encourage others to look at some some time.

Thanks guys!

Julie :)

Liquid Type in Motion by Ruslan Khasanov

Maybe you guys have seen this already, but regardless, I'm pretttty sure this man is a genius. Or at least I think he's pretty fantastic. Ruslan Khasanov.

He put together animated gifs/stop motion animations of painted/liquid/evaporating letterforms to create "liquid type in motion" that is lively, eerie, intriguing, and so so dynamic. I know I could go on about its worth as good design/art and how all of those glorious things are achieved, but I'm just going to forget about that and tell you, basically, I'm just really impressed.

From what I've read, Khasanov was at first just creating letterforms using this technique (painting onto a sink and allowing it to run down the drain/emerge with water), and then later created animations of the letters, like this. More here !

Tah-dah.

Nina.

the truth is written all over your face

Hi all. I thought I'd share these two typography portraits since they truly stand out from the rest.

The Bob Marley poster was created by Jason Yan in memory of the artist. The whole image is created from type and features lyrics from the artists' songs. The colourization and the font creates constant movement and direction in the piece. Upon first glimpse of the text "redemption songs", I can hear the melody playing in my head. The composition is extremely effective in the choice of facial expression as well as the selection of words that are enlarged creating a soulful and motivating atmosphere.

The Yoda poster by Olivia Truong is equally as effective. Rather than using black text, the shading and colour is embedded into the type which completely fits the subject matter, and is created with philosophical meaning within Yoda.

Please check this blog out

http://johngall.blogspot.com/2011_10_01_archive.html
if you need any inspiration or even process help please check this blog out its fabulous !!!

a little inspiration

I thought this was an interesting way to have a background in a collage while still leaving room for visible text, hope this helps someone (unfortunately it doesn't really work for my cover but I still think it's neat) if you want to look at more of this artist's covers check out http://www.dhaggar.com/

Ruff Collage

This is what I chose for Collage. I actually don't know who made this piece but it the choices of different  material is very interesting. I find that the choice in paper and material kind of builds the feel of the dog. In particularly the mouth area looks like what a dog whiskers and mouth feels like.  Plus the background  of the dog face seems to match what a the colourations suppose to be.




Tara.

Jeffy Hendrix

What I love about Jeff Henrickson's collage artwork is his ability to use a minimal number of materials to create the maximum effect for his audience.

At first glance of all his pieces you'll see one large and basic composition- fairly average- and looking as though they are edited old photographs. But after looking a bit deeper one can realize that the bicyclists are moving on top of a lake or a few german children out for lunch are actually giants.

Hendrickson sets himself apart from the chaos of the usual collage work you see out there. He plays with your head a bit and really makes you think with each minimalist piece.

This is something I would like to try for my book cover artwork- keep it simplistic and allow it to leave room for interoperation and thought.

bubble gum!!

i loveeee bubble gum art. i think this counts as a form of collage because it it made up of many different types of gum. I am looking into experimenting with this medium. I think it really adds "POP " side of these works of art.

Photo collage

One thing I absolutely love is photo collages. It's something I've tried before and an artist that I find exceptionally brilliant in this field is David Hockney. The tree pieces here are my favourites of his. He does a variety of different work however since this week is collage I thought I'd post these. In all three pieces theres a lot of thought that goes into each composition and how each photo is connected to the others. I love his use of different methods of capturing a scene.

In this one he captures pictures from a direct frontward angle, then rotates or overlaps images to create the overall composition.

In this piece he uses a similar way of capturing photos, the piece looks flat but still manages to have depth in it.

In this piece he manages to create a still life of a chair and forms it in a way that one would view it from many angles at once.

In each photo collage there would have to be much thought into how each photo would play a part in the overall composition, and I love the way this is seen in each of the final compostitons

Ryan :)

"New head"

(Collage)

Popular technique in the communication arts, collage allows illustrators to transfer concepts and ideas through the use of visual metaphors and analogies created out of materials with implied characteristics.

"News Head", a computer collage created by Craig Frazier, is printed in black and match yellow and brown on confetti Ninja to mix the paper's tone and bits of colour into the graphic illustration.

And I really like this collage because of the colour and design, this is really simple but has strong visual analogies.

Jonathan Darby

Hello all,
so I've decided to share some pieces by Jonathan Darby since our theme this week is "collage." Darby is known for his pieces involving political, social, and economic change. This piece entitled "Tacito"really caught my eye because the use of collage along with realistic rendering gave me a sense of brutality and decay. Personally I find that this piece and the rest of Darby's artwork, shy from the intricate (yet beautiful) collage work that many of you posted, but contain immense amount of power and emotion that transcends throughout Darby's work and highly represents the future of the subjects depicted in his artwork.

So I was looking through some pictures I took before and I came across this photograph that I took of something I saw in HK. I thought it would relate to collage fairly well :D
Hope you enjoy this ~ cause I sure did when I saw it! Food art <3

Wishlist Collages

I've been running a personal blog for roughly over one year now and one thing that has sort of become a tradition or "feature" are these collages. With the intention of creating an easily-accessible and easy to view wishlist for friends to draw gift ideas from, I opted for a collage look rather than posting each seperate photo or embedding links. I would then number each item and below write a brief description of the item and why I placed it in my wishlist. It's a thing that's kind of grown on me. I really enjoy cropping and arranging it all and it's really become a great way to catalogue all the things I love. I thought I would share this with you guys for this week's theme.

If you'd like to have a peek at the rest of my blog, have a go at it here. All these wishlists are under a label on the sidebar titled "wishlist".

- Amanda

For this weeks collage theme, I decided to share work done by an artist Charis Tsevis. He is a Greek artist and visual designer who creates interesting collages from objects related to the subject. I found these very interesting and cool to look at, at first glance it seems as if the picture is actually there, but the detail Tsevis puts into these collages, gives you full effect of who the person is and it creates a realistic image. The last work of his i posted is of Steve Jobs and the images used to create the manipulation of him is all different kinds of Apple products. I found this an amazing way to create artwork into some kind of a memorial. Check out his website for more pictures! http://www.tsevis.com/

- Jacklyn B

Collage done by an artist named Sheila. She based this image on the screenshots of Sybilla from the movie, Kingdom of Heaven. Her use of materials are the following: Pen, Marker, Pencil, Collage, Gold Leaf Paint. She did a beautiful job.

- Princess

Collage by Derek Gores

~ Derek Gores who is the artist behind these fantastic collages. He makes these works of art out of recycled magazines, newspaper and found material, molding pieces of paper on a blank canvas and strategically placing cutouts to form shapes and depth. He was born in New York and migrated to Melbourne, Florida where he consistently holds workshops on collage art as well as teaches variations of art classes. Derek has had clients such as ESPN, Lenny Kravitz, Lucasfilm, Kings of Leon, U2, NASCAR, Adidas, Madonna, Harley Davidson, 321 Agency, Van Halen, the National Football League, LiveNation, SEIU, Love Haight Apparel and JCPenny.

Nata DiBartolomeo

Randy Mora Collages

Randy Mora is a collage artist I came across on Tumblr. When I was browsing on his website (http://www.randymora.com/) I discovered he has art pieces that are commissioned:

The ‘Disputes’ of Drummond Inc. (Coal Company) (2011)

personal:

Magritte's Trap (2010)

and handmade:

Please Love Me... Once More (2007)

I found Randy Mora's work captivating because his collages have symbolic meaning in them. The visuals and creative use of shape and intentional space make the viewers aware that there is a deeper meaning to his work. I love the concepts of man and machine being combined, dismembering the body of a subject and using an unusual composition when placing the parts, and the artistically diary-esque style of the handmade collage. His experimentation of both digital and handmade collages involving surrealism are quite inspirational.

Flower Face

So this is the collage that I've chosen to post for this weeks blog. 

I liked this piece because its interesting to look at and yet has a sense of elegance to it. The sepia background is vintage-like and the bright colourful flowers add a dynamic to the image. The eye follows the curve-shape it creates as it flows out/in from the face.

Nostalgia

Hey Guys!
I found this lovely collage artist on Etsy for you all...
Her name is Michelle Caplan.  She uses found images and materials from everywhere..
Old photos, wrapping paper, notes, old books...anything!
I love that her work has a history...that every piece has been used before...yet, they can still come together to create something pretty lovely...
http://www.michellecaplan.com/