Secret Still

Designer Mikey Burton rounds out design week with a solid portfolio of seriously unserious work. Great use of type, great use of color, and most of all a good eye for overall effect. I’m sorry to tell most of you in school for design degrees out there, but the latter talent is innate, not taught. You got it or you don’t. Mikey’s got it, and he’s making good use of it. Dude even did the identity for 20×200. I’ve got a couple of those cards attached to prints that I bought from 20×200, so I’ve now got work by some of my favorite artists, and one of my new favorite designers. Score.

Mikey Burton

Today’s designer spotlight is another type master, but this time the focus is more on hand-drawn type. Comparable to the prolific work of Andy Smith (previously mentioned), the work of Jon Contino specializes in amazingly well-crafted, hand-drawn letterforms. I haven’t drawn any type for a few months now, but one look through Contino’s portfolio and I got flooded with ideas. There are even a couple of tricks I’m going to swipe for future tattoos. If I’m willing to afix it permanently to my skin, it must be great.

Jon Contino

Some damn fine type work. That’s really all it takes to catch my design eye. Don’t fuck that up and you’re homefree.

Dreamers Ink Aesthetics

LA-born, Bay Area transplant Richard Perez caught my finely tuned internet eye recently with his colorful posters, clean type work and clever branding. That’s three adjectives that begin with “c”, and I’ve got like 30 more in the chamber ready to fly. You’d all do good to remember that if you ever decide you want to get into an adjective battle with me. I got an 800 verbal on my SAT way back when, and then I fell asleep during the math part. I was more than a little hungover. Why bother to tell you all this rather than talk about Perez’s work? Because it’s good enough that you can see for yourself; my adjectives are unnecessary.

Richard Perez

The hand drawn type of Andy Smith is the stuff that my dry dreams are made of. Yes, dry. C’mon, I’m not that into type. No one should be that into type. But even if you are one of those type obsessed crazies, Smith has a veritable cornucopia of typographic pornography to spend some alone time with.  No more sweatily reading McSweeney’s in the Barnes and Noble, now you can get your oddball type fix online. Make sure to pay special attention to his shop section to see the amazing screenprinted mini-books he’s created. Those are the Perfect 10 of type porn. I think I’ve gone too far with this already.

Andy Smith

If there was ever someone in the art/design world to model yourself after it would be Australian Timba Smits. Dude has slap-your-mouth-good work in practically every medium, runs a gallery, does art direction for some great clients, and publishes Wooden Toy Quarterly. I’m pretty sure the man never sleeps. But his cokehead-like diligence has piled him up one hell of a portfolio, which you should devote the next 20 minutes to browsing. And when you’re done with that you can start trying to juggle thirty projects like he does. Just follow his lead.

Timba Smits

I had Jessica Hische’s website open all morning yesterday, and due to day job conflicts I didn’t post anything about it. Of course, Drawn! posted about her while I was being lazy. It’s a dog eat dog internet out there, and it looks like I got eaten on this one. I’m well aware how that sounds. Regardless of me being a day late and several dollars short, Jessica Hische has a wonderful, cut-out illustration style and a supreme mastery of typography. I kind of want to bathe in her fonts. I’m well aware how that sounds.

Jessica Hische

David Pache has compiled a great visual list of some of the top brand identity designers in the world today. But instead of showcasing their various works, he just displays their own logos. The best way to judge a design firm is by the design they do for themselves? If you’re looking for inspiration, or just an interesting comparison of styles, then this will probably give you a good half hour’s worth of viewing pleasure.

100 Brands of Interest

Let’s keep things light this morning. Why don’t you enjoy some colorful, playful, just-plain-full illustration and type from Ana Benaroya. Lady’s got some sweet gig posters for damn sure. Break your eyes off a piece of that.

Ana Benaroya

I lived in Florida for a couple of years when I was younger, down Miami way, and the only thing that I can remember about it is that drivers would swerve to try and hit pedestrians and people would pay me a lot of money to remove reptiles, amphibians, spiders and scorpions from their outdoor trashcans. Overall it’s not a bad memory, but it’s not great either. That’s fine. There are a lot of people who aren’t me that love Florida. I’m a little more fond of America’s schlong since coming across the illustration work of Mark Malazarte. Dude lives in Tampa, but is originally from the Philippines, and is part of the Calavera Comics crew. That’s a talented group of misfits and rebels if ever I’ve seen one, which I have, like all the time. Mark’s illustration work dazzles my eyes because of his tight type control and color palettes, especially when throwing down with his illustrative counterweight Alexis Ziritt. Since Mark’s website isn’t up and running, yet I’m just gonna throw you into his Flickr stream. Sink or swim, bitches.

Mark Malazarte