Month: April 2021

Canadian Design Today Blog Post: Bruce Mau

For this last blog post, I found Bruce Mau’s work very beautiful and clean. Born in Ontario, Mau is a designer, innovator, and educator who won an AIGA Gold medal in 2007 and co-founded the Massive Change Network with his wife Bisi Williams in Chicago. I was drawn to the minimalistic compositions he creates, often using typography as the main attraction of his work. As a student with a background in illustration, I always think that more is better and have been trying to learn how to scale back to what is only necessary to convey the idea. For Mau’s work, I admire how there is nothing unnecessary at all in his designs. The bold type paired with the use of colour, lines, or slight gradients reads very nicely and is so appealing to the eyes without feeling bare.

I was also amazed to see Mau’s other work in installations and architecture! His work continues in the same cleanliness as his graphic design work. In some installations, he plays with repetition and covers every plane in the room to create an incredibly immersive effect.

Works Cited:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Mau

https://www.brucemaudesign.com/work

 https://brucemaustudio.com

Psychedelic Design Hero Blog Post: Marijke Koger

Despite the lack of information on this artist online, I chose Marijke Koger as my psychedelic art hero. A multi-talented artist from Holland, Koger’s beautiful mural work, album covers, and painted instruments all hold a special delicateness in balance with its psychedelic flair. Her complex compositions are always well balanced with an abundance of colours and textures that somehow work harmoniously. I was drawn to how she portrayed women in her paintings, beautiful but with a certain strength in their pose and eyes. There is a calming sense from the figures that help balance out the complex backgrounds and settings in these pieces of artwork.

Another aspect of Koger’s work I enjoy is the natural backgrounds and flora she paints. The psychedelic style typically has a very loose and nature-based feel- so the use of flowers and greenery in her work plays off the theme beautifully. Even her design work for The Fool’s album cover features a calming and serene landscape to balance out the psychedelic text and photography used in the foreground.

Works Cited

https://marijkekogerart.com/marijkeKoger/psychedlic-Paintings-about.php

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/marijke-koger-dunhams-psy_n_1671660

https://www.widewalls.ch/magazine/psychedelic-art

Advertising Art Director Blog Post: Eiko Ishioka

While researching this blog post, the stunning and bold work of Eiko Ishioka jumped out at me. She was once known as Japan’s best Art director, and after seeing some images of her accomplishments- it is easy to see why. Ishioka is most famous for her costume design work, but she had started in the advertising industry with graphic design.

A true master of the arts, Ishioka won a Grammy award for the “best recording package” for Miles Davis’s album Tutu in 1987, and an Academy Award and two Tony awards for her costume design work in varying films and plays. Her costume and design work is bold and startling, sometimes featuring hints of her heritage but always with a modern spin.

Ishioka’s varying skills create a powerful combination as she pairs her elaborate costume work with photography and typography to produce posters like the “Can West Wear East?” poster from 1979. As an internationally recognized designer, she was still designing costumes up to 2012 when she died of pancreatic cancer.

Works Cited:

https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2017/7/12/eiko-ishioka-japans-rebel-artist-and-art-director

Crafting A New Way: An Inspiring Design Story

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eiko_Ishioka