Glen Birchall
His name is Glen Birchall, and he’s a London based graphic designer. And his website designs are the tits. I love me a fresh grid in the morning.
{ Monthly Archives }
October 2010
Brock Davis
You know all that cool shit you see on the internet, and you think, “What a great idea! And it’s so simple! I must be mentally retarded to not think up stuff like that!” Brock Davis made that shit. 9 out of 10 images in your internet cool file are his. Seriously, it’s like scrolling through a fountain of inspiration over there. OMGZol Brock Davis FTFWz!
p.s. I’ve mentioned him before (over here), in case you were questioning my foresight in the cool department.
Jeffrey Docherty
I tend to shy away from cliches for the most part. Usually because they don’t contain a lot of swearing, and swears are a large part of my mystique. Powerhouse is not a word I use regularly, this may in fact be the first time, but powerhouse indeed is Jeffrey Docherty. Design, illustration, type — the man can do it all, and better than you probably can in your dreams. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was better looking than me. Some people are just better. If we can learn to deal with that, then we can probably end world hunger and reality television all at the same time. Lead us there, Jeffrey.
Dawn Dudek
A conversation between myself and Dawn Dudek would go like this:
Me: Duuuuuude
Her: It’s Dudek
Me: Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuude
Her: Dudek
Me: DUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUDE
Her: Fuck off
I know that her work is inspired by the cinematographic brilliance of some of the best movies ever made, but when I look at them I can only see their inherent illusion. The movies that is. The way she breaks up the composition into frames takes all those moments in film that have “meant something” to me, and reminds me that they aren’t real, sapping them of their power. That’s a good thing. I’ve got my own fake life to live, and it’s tough enough without parts of other fake lives trying to impress some meaning upon it.
Megan Scheminske
In what may be on of the coolest forms of abstract expressionism I’ve ever seen, Megan Scheminske lets Google Maps do all the heavy lifting. She paints specific locations as viewed from Google Maps “map” mode. Without the frame of reference of the map itself, the images are revealed as near abstract constructs. She’s making me think about the efficiency of maps in their simplification, the relationship of the map to the real objects/locations it represents, and the abstract nature of all information when considered outside of its context. Also, like with all good maps, the simplistic images have a very soothing quality, as though the world really is just a few lines, the space small enough to traverse in seconds, and everything else is just background. It’s really an amazing project, all things considered, and definitely an instance of “damn I wish I’d thought of that.” I’m thinking about it anyway, and that’s good enough.
Urban Influence
It’s hard to be taken seriously as a writer/bringer of things pretty when I don’t really want to be serious. I want to talk about naps and blowjobs, and how I need both in that order. And you know what, internet? I will talk about it. And if you don’t like it you can report me to HR for sexual harassment (pronounced in the pretentiously British way). Maybe I feel like writing the word boner several times like a Tourette sufferer celebrating. Boner boner boner boner boner. And I’ll do it as often as I want. Just like Urban Influence does whatever they want when they’re designing. Ah, see, I brought it back around; made it all make sense. I am the Samuel Langhorne Clemens of the art/design blog world. Which is about the same as being the J.R.R. Tolkien of the dogfood bag copy writing world. “Low in the sky was the great, fiery sun as the free-range chicken rode forth from the small, organic farm, across the misty mountains to combine itself with the finest of golden wheats and hardiest of brown rices.” That’s enough post-modernism for today. Click the link, take the ride.
Veronica Stark
Gonna throw some design at you today, because Fridays and rain mix to bum me out. Nothing picks me back up like some quality design work, especially when I’ve got my own projects to work on. No, I’m kidding; I don’t actually have emotions, but I was trying to be relatable. Isn’t this how people talk? Blah blah my dog, blah blah total bummer, blah pants. You don’t pay me to talk though, you pay me to find things to look at, so look at Veronica Stark’s work. It falls into the ever-growing pile of work that I’m labeling “considered.” That’s my new verbiage, coming soon to your area code, and it means that the designer actually took the time to think about what they were designing for. You’d be surprised how often that doesn’t happen, or maybe how often the considering has no subtlety. Veronica’s work is considered, beautiful, and as subtle as a ninja’s ghost. Blah blah Obama-care.
Laura Taylor
Dear Laura Taylor,
Why does your name sound so damn familiar? I was thinking that before I even found out that you were from Georgia originally, but that little tidbit just makes it more likely that we’ve met. Have we met? I doubt it. I tend not to forget things. Maybe you knew some friends of my friends or something. I mean, Athens was its own little insular community, but when you combine that with the people we all knew in Atlanta, shit, that’s pretty much everyone in North Georgia. Exponential relationships just work that way. Well look, we might have never met, but I like your photography anyway, and we’re living some parallels in that we both came to California from Georgia. And we both clearly love our friends. You show it by photographing them, and I show it by telling them that I had sex with their mothers. I think it’s a gender thing. Your photos are rich and well composed and certainly engaging, but really what I noticed most was that you love the things you’re seeing. Passion for something is rare, and the drive to pursue it above all else even more so, but you seem to have found that the trick is to run right at it with your arms open, laughing. Works for me.
p.s. Please stop shooting your friend Amanda as she is very attractive and I have a girlfriend that I love very much. Life is hard enough as it is.
Regards,
Brad