Sky Nash. 'New'

Think back to the books you read as a child and the stories with in them. Did you ever see a female firefighter?  Or a girl in pink and a boy in blue?

This illustrated book is from my last project in my second year of university. I used it to start a conversation about what you don't read in children's books. The first illustration comments on the fact that you never see a man cooking in a book and I hope that the second one speaks for itself. 
Preview the whole book and more on my portfolio.

Review by sky | twitter

Jean Tran. 'New'

Jean Tran is a graphic designer in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  Her work is drawn from making connections based on everyday life.

This book is titled YO! It is a personal piece that explores and deals with an uncomfortable situation.. being asked out by a stranger.  Typography and negative space is used in this book to create a narrative that highlights the intrusiveness of this man and the invasion of her comfort zone.

Her portfolio can be found here.

Review by sky | twitter

Erica Mcewan. 'New'

Erica is a Freelance Art Director and Motionographer for the screen. Her showreel work shows great design and flare, this can be viewed on her site here. She has worked with some fantastic clients such as Google, Island Records and Diet Coke. You can see some storyboards of some of her work below which are opening titles for live sessions and interviews of Paul Wellar and Ladyhawke for channel 4. You can visit her site here and also follow her on twitter.

Review by hayley akins | twitter

Claire Anderson. 'New'

Claire Anderson is someone I know personally, she is a serious monochromist who works with books. She is studying a degree in Book Arts and Design at the London College of Communication.

This piece is titled What Are You Looking For? It is from an alternative book structure project from the middle of this year.
“A book is a sequence of spaces. If it is to be argued that a book has to be a sequence of pages inside a container, and if a container is a physical entity, then, as well as covers, a container can also be a computer monitor, a box, a room, the Internet.” The quote is from her site.
This project came about from analysing eBay and the form of the book. From this research six hand rendered illustrations came about.  They explore the concept of the self and I think that they are truely beautiful.

Her work can be found on here.

Review by sky | twitter

16 Degree's. 'New'

16 degrees are a group of creatives who have joined forces together and collaborated with the theme of ‘quirky sayings’ to create fantastic limited edition handmade items such as t-shirts, bags and prints. As they are limited edition unfortunately the case is that once they’re gone, they’re gone! All of the items have been screen-printed with our very own fair hands and all profits made from the sales of the handmade items will go to our local charity. So do something good today & grab yourself a fantastic limited edition item at www.16degrees.net.

Review by Chris Smyth | Twitter

 

John Malta. 'New'

Meet John Malta, he's a natural story teller. He is based in New York where he is studying at the School of Visual Arts. With his work he transforms his past memories and daily life into colourful illustrations. His illustrations are quirky, funny and weird all at the same time.
He also curates the bi-annual zine titled "Universal Slime" that features a whole range of other artists who tell stories.

His portfolio can be found here and his blog here.

Review by sky | twitter

Margarita Louca. 'NEW'

Margarita Louca is a video-maker, but there's a little more to it than that.

As well as coming up with concepts for her productions; she art-directs, directs and works on post be that editing, grading or all of the above. Clearly defining Margarita Louca - and equally the work she produces is not a straight forward task. "I'm one of those people that gets labelled as different things. I think it's because I'm more interested in collaborating with people, than the medium that I work in necessarily".

The first video I saw by Margarita was 'Wymmin's Final' featuring a heady mix of desserts, jewellery and ill-feeling. Which is difficult to define - to the extent that you should just watch it. (see below)

Immediately transpose this with the music promo she produced for indie-ers 'Sky Larkin' and their track 'Still Windmills' and you'll understand that Margarita's work can go to very different places visually, not to mention the languid pace and subtle use of colour grading. On working with Sky Larkin - "they were really great about trusting me to do something incredibly simple and pared down. I just wanted the sentiment of the video to work with the lyrics, without it being cheap or throwaway".

As for future work, there's some interesting pieces on the way. First-up an audio-visual colloboration with Laura-Mary Carter of duo 'Blood Red Shoes' in the works. As well as finshing off some proposals for a few joint projects with different photographers, artists and musicians. "Basically FUN, more FUN please".

Visit Margarita's website and more of her videos can be watched on her Vimeo page.

Review by: Joel Somerfield | Twitter

 

Emma Dupille. 'New'

A nice piece of typographic design here from Emma Dupille. Emma is a freelance graphic designer based in London and has spent the past few years working for a selection of top design studios. Her love of typography is reflected through her work for print, editorial, brand and web, resulting in clean and effective design with strong attention to detail and confident layout, which is demonstrated well in this piece.

Emma describes this piece, 'Knock-On' magazine that was created for a publication that looks at worldwide issues: "This edition highlights the effects of climate change and features an article about large scale deforestation within the Amazon rainforest. Both the article and identity of the magazine are typographically lead, manipulating characters and experimenting with legibility to reflect the content of the publication." Neat idea.

More of Emma's work can be seen here.

Review by: Tim Smith | Twitter

Mike Kus. 'New'

Mike Kus is a graphic/web designer and illustrator. He has pure talent and his work has real high standards. Sometimes the work that designers create can't be explained, as the work speaks for itself, and I think his work and his portfolio does just that.  I really recommend having a look through Mike's portfolio, it is a mix of real refreshing and outstanding work.

This poster was designed for The Future of Web Design in London 2009 called "Graphic Design: The Forgotten Web Standard" and it was given away for free, for which I am totally jealous. 

His portfolio is here and he's on twitter here.

Review by sky | twitter

We Are Boxhead. 'New'

Met the genius behind the Boxhead studio some time last year at a conference own as the 'Everything Conference' and have been a fan of his work ever since.

We are not quite sure what this piece is all about, but what we do know is that we like it. Their folio includes an impressive body of type driven print, interactive and motion graphics and is well worth a look through. You can purchase this limited edition print and view their entire body of work here and follow them on twiiter.

Review by Chris Smyth | Twitter

 

Faye Moorhouse.

Faye Moorhouse is an unusual illustrator. She has a really weird style that can not be quite described completely without expressing how strange her work is. She is a 3rd Year illustration student at UCA Maidstone. The themes that appear a lot in her work range from the mundane, every day objects, old people and to the more serious side of serial killers.

This drawing is from a book in progress  titled ‘The Cat Ladies of Czechoslovakia.’

Her portfolio can be seen here.

Review by sky | twitter

Kelly Angood.

Kelly Angood is a set / prop designer and illustrator, she does especially fantastic work for fashion and music shoots, she created an Architecture inspired paper sculpture for Simon Ekrelius' 2010 London Fashion Week . Kelly also makes fully funtioning replica objects such as cameras and typewriters. 

You can see more of her work here and follow her on twitter.

Review by hayley akins | twitter

 

Madi.

Madi is a mixed media illustrator with a speciality in children's book illustrations.  She has a first class honours degree in illustration from the Arts Institute at Bournemouth.

Her portfolio is a mix of really exciting and imaginative collages and drawings.  The work she creates is aimed at children, which you can see from her playful characters and the imaginative worlds they live in.

This piece is a spread from her book "I'm a little bit scared of…"  Which is a book that explores children's fears in a cute and lively manner.

Her portfolio is here and she is also on twitter here.

Review by sky | twitter

Christopher Rivera.

There is something “exoterically” inviting about Christopher’s work that I believe is worth exploring. In his most recent pieces Christopher ponders on the idea of human interactions and how these are perceived in different types of encounters, physical and non-physical. It almost seems that Rivera draws inspiration from dissecting sadistic encounters. He has created an intense jet balance feel to his art by juxtaposing aggressive imagery with geometric shapes. Christopher uses graphite pencil over canvas and black acrylic paint over wood, from where he attains great depths of shadows, grays, blacks and whites. Another key part of Rivera’s art proposal is the use of text; he almost guides the spectator into a deeper questioning of it and invites us to look into the obvious circumstances of the portrayed encounter.   

Christopher is currently a graduate student at Hunter College in New York City; you can see more of his work here.

Reviewed by: Maria | twitter

 

Tom Moglu.

Tom Moglu makes fascinating collages. He makes one a day, in various shapes. I find that each one looks quite flowing but with a strange air of order and precision.

These were made from February 11th to the 18th. That week they were made purely by chance, by rolling a dice and letting that decide how each was constructed. They are really interesting and I could look at these all day long. 

He can be found here and on tumblr here.

Review by sky | twitter

Susie Hogarth.

Susie Hogarth is a London based illuatrator and writer.

For want of a way to describe Susie's work, I can do no better than her own.

"I create hyper-coloured or monochrome slices of ladies (and, to a lesser extent, gents) popping frowns, poses and occasionally flashes, made using ink, pencil, blood, sweat and photoshop."

A self professed love of pop-culture lead her down a path whereby her illustration and writing came together in the publication 'Hogarth's Very Large Handbook of Celebrity' published by Zidane Press.

A more recent direction for Susie's work is animation, using a hand-drawn style akin to her illustration work, she creates a strangely melancholic sequence of imagery. The outcome was used as a stage backdrop in the self penned play ‘Bedrooms, Dens and Other Forms of Magic.’ You can view one such animation here.

For more of her work have a good look at Susie's website and she's also to be found on twitter, (Be kind she's new). Susie is currently working on a new book of illustrated stories.

Review by: Joel Somerfield | Twitter

 

Jamie Mills.

Jamie Mills is a Cheltenham based illustrator. He is influenced by nature and patterns. Looking through his portfolio there seems to be a lot of mountains in his work, which is quite intriguing. 

This drawing was done for Sandra Dieckmann's  If I Was You project.  The mix of colour with black and white drawings makes this look really striking yet with a real feeling of calm.

There is more work here and he's on twitter here.

Review by sky | twitter

Hector Madera González.

I saw Madera’s work when visiting Brooklyn College MFA Open Studios in New York City and felt highly intrigued by it. Hector experiments with very practical materials; his selection is particularly relevant to this day and age. He reuses all kinds of paper sources— posters, flyers, magazines, newspaper pages, phone bills, receipts and such— to construct quilt like canvases that he then intervenes with, even more. “I see myself as a DJ, an arbiter; however instead of selecting, mixing, and playing music I collect particular objects from the ‘everyday life’ that has an association with actuality. Some of them are strategically altered with doodles, colored tape, and acrylic and then mixed and remixed to create a sort of random diary that at the end becomes my support.” Madera described.

I find Hector’s mixed-media art proposal indirectly raises the question of sustainability, economy and culture, all at once. However, what is beautiful about it is that the final product remains intriguing and visually open-ended to the spectator. “There are no ultimate meanings involved, but the mixture of all these sources creates an ironic and often contradictory interpretation of the high and lows of the everyday life.” Madera explained. There is something extremely interesting, time appropriate and visually appealing about Madera’s work that it’s worth checking out.

More of Hector Madera’s work can be seen here.

Reviewed by: Maria | twitter

David Muehlfeld.

Sometimes it's simply the projects that you don't completly understand that really catch your attention and this one certainly has. This beautifully composed type based publication is from Amerstam based designer David Muehlfeld who sent in his folio a while ago. Check out his impressive folio and free free to get inspired for free!

As I don't like posting work without some kind of 'context' here's how David described this piece:

'For my graduation project in university I chose the topic "utopic". Let's test my limits and try the impossible! In the written part of the diploma I was searching for "Utopia" in literature and Graphic Design. "Utopia" is a vision how to change the present and the approaches were evolving during the centuries as well, so the title "Variable Vision" seemed fine to me. Designing this book was fast and easy, working just with the keyword "variation".'

Review by Chris Smyth | Twitter

Tanya Kingston.

Tanya Kingston takes photos and makes books. She is studying at the London College of Communication for a degree in Book Arts and Design. Her work is quite hands on work as apposed to digital work. She takes a lot of really intriguing black and white photographs, as she finds them more interesting than colour ones.

These photos are from the darkroom, they not need any explanations as I just simply love them.

There is more work to see here.

Review by sky | twitter