Marian Bantjes (born 1963) is a Canadian designer, artist, illustrator, typographer and writer. She is most famously known for her custom lettering and highly detailed, decorative style.
Her career in visual communication began when she worked as a book typesetter from 1984-1994 for Hartley Marks. She became well known as a graphic designer from 1994-2003, when she was a partner and senior designer at Digitopolis in Vancouver.
Her international success; however, came later when she left her firm and started working with custom type ornaments. She described herself as a graphic artist, and her work is personal, ornamental and obsessive.
I personally prefer simple design and don’t normally gravitate to design that is super ornate, but I do find Bantjes work very interesting and I like reading about her thought process behind each piece.
I’ve included some work I came across her site which resonated more with me.
In the image down below, Bantjes pairs old photographs from the 50s with excerpts from romance novels. I the vintage look it has. Underneath, we see an example of custom type, and I like the way that the type isn’t very distracting or busy even though there is a lot of detail. Finally, I like the typography she created out of flowers, especially when she pairs the image with some of her writing. I think her work becomes more powerful after reading her artist statements for each piece which she includes on her site.
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marian_Bantjes
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