Key words of what I am interested in:
Japanese culture, third culture kids, British slang, Japanese tubes and British tubes, porn, sex, Japanese porn drawings from Edo Period, music, translating, cats, memes, films, cinematography, editing videos, babies, family, parenting, sweet foods, my life, living abroad, living alone, loneliness, hookup culture, identity,
Categories I'm interested in:
Graphic Design, Typography
“I know my mum’s handwriting like the back of my hand. I grew up reading her handwriting on notes, letters, birthday cards, and anything else a parent might give to their kids,” says Morten Halvorsen, creator of Write With Parkinson’s. This is, of course, alongside the other reason that children usually learn their mother’s handwriting too: “I was mostly a good kid, but I probably tried to mimic it as well to get out of things at school, please don’t tell my old teacher – or my mother!”
This knowledge Morten has of his mother’s handwriting gained a poignancy after she was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, a symptom of which is a change in handwriting.
This motivated him to create a usable typeface based on it, immortalising the letters as they continue to change. “I spent about a week hand tracing every letter and turning it into a font,” he tells It’s Nice That. “The typeface is now fully usable if you are English or Norwegian speaking.”
What did the artist want to communicate? His love for his mother, Parkinson's disease awareness, how much handwriting has an identity of the person who has it
What did the artist achieve through the artwork? Creating an original font. Spread awareness of Parkinson's disease. Offer a service for other people as well.
What materials did he use and what process did he take? Traced his mother's handwriting.
Ilustration,
Studio Anorak is known for its magazines for kids, Dot and Anorak, and its latest publication brings their distinctive effervescence to a new cause – celebrating the positives of an ADHD brain.
“It was our plan from the start to commission neurodiverse artists so they had a direct affinity with the project,” explains Anorak founder Cathy Olmedillas on finding the right contributors. “We knew of some artists who were ADHD ambassadors, such as Andy J Pizza and Elise Gravel, so they were our first port of call. Then, we did a callout on our social media channels for ADHD artists and word got out quickly.” In the end, Cathy and her team had 100 or so to choose from, and selected a dozen who represented a mixture of aesthetics, and slightly more mature style than she commissions for Anorak and Dot.
What did the artist want to communicate? Stories and experiences of living with ADHD. Information on ADHD. ADHD is not a disadvantage.
What did the artist achieve through the artwork? Spread awareness of ADHD and in a positive manner. Give perspective to people who do not have ADHD.
What materials did he use and what process did he take? Collaboration with other artists. Using their stories and their artwork and combining it together.
Product Design,
Back for its fifth year, Ikea’s Sagoskatt range of soft toys is designed to bring the freedom and joy of young children’s imaginations to the masses. Kids can submit their drawings and if they’re one of six lucky winners (of a whopping 87,000 submissions) Ikea makes those exact drawings come to life in three dimensional, squishy form.
What did the artist want to communicate? Cute designs of children??
What did the artist achieve through the artwork? Effectively use children's imagination and originality and transform it into a product.
What materials did he use and what process did he take? Collecting artwork from children.
Advertisement (So many ways to though), Typography, Poster
Agency Leo Burnett London worked with designer David Schwen, once known for creating Type Sandwiches, to create posters that neglect to show food, nor even mention McDonald’s.
The newIconic Stacks campaign for the fast food chain by agency Leo Burnett London with designer David Schwen plays on the ubiquity of its menu and visual identity to recreate some of its most popular items (Sausage and Egg McMuffin, Big Mac and Filet-O-Fish) in purely typographic form, making for a bravely minimal set of posters.
“Of course, the finished output looks incredibly simple. But as often is the case with simplicity, a lot of thought was put into reaching that point,” Leo Burnett London creative director Andrew Long tells It’s Nice That. “Our ambition was to use only words and typography to create something that wasn’t really an ad at all, it’s the viewers’ relationship with those words that creates the link back to the brand. When people have such a strong relationship with a particular product or company, sometimes the best approach is to let them remember that for themselves rather than tell them what we think.”
What did the artist want to communicate? McDonald's menu.
What did the artist achieve through the artwork? Using simple but bold colour and font to advertise the menu of McDonald's.
What materials did he use and what process did he take? Using the strong identity and brand of McDonald's and using simple type to emphasise the brand.
Branding, Film
The beauty retailer’s campaign by BETC enlists the director and photographer Nadine Ijewere to tell an inclusive and atypical tale of beauty.
The brief to Lindstroem from creative director Florence Bellisson’s team at BETC was to find “a modern way to talk about beauty” with a coming of age story. The agency wanted the director to bring his distinct visual world to the campaign film, and worked with him to develop the chapters and characters, making sure they had “depth, realness and relatability”.
“It was always very interesting that it wasn’t just a typical advertising story of the happy, picture perfect life. We wanted real characters, we wanted to tell the ups and downs of any life, struggles, doubts, moments of joy; intimate, joyful, hard and soft.”
To accompany the film, Nadine Ijewere has photographed a diverse cast for a series of prints that advertise Sephora’s departments (perfume, make-up, skin care, etc.) and show different types of beauty, regardless of age, gender, physique or style. Each is accompanied by a statement, envisioned as confidence-building mantras to be repeated in the mirror. “We hope that it will create room for self-expression, showing the variety of authentic and powerful beauties that make up today's world,” says BETC’s Rémi Babinet. “This campaign shows a new vision of women: more natural, more ‘real’, relatable, aspirational. It has a real message about self-identity and self-building, all without imposing standards to adhere to. If the audience takes that away, we will have achieved our goal.”
What did the artist want to communicate? Realistic mindset of beauty throughout young people and hope.
What did the artist achieve through the artwork? Able to give perspective to viewer and to beautifully show beauty over the years and how makeup has to do with it.
What materials did he use and what process did he take? Asking for stories of experience from sisters and family.
Zine,
Human emotion runs wild throughout the work of Sarah Böttcher. By looking to her immediate surroundings, the German illustrator is able to effortlessly pluck her inspirations – whether it’s relationships, social conditions or the certain ways in which we interact with one another – and transform them into a bundle of joyous and anecdotal illustrations. “I always try to find something beautiful or at least humorous in situations that at first seem tragic or awkward,” Sarah tells It’s Nice That.
One of her most recent works is an orange-infused zine titled Watching Porn, Thinking of You. Based on the concept of desire – the moment of “desiring someone so much that it feels like you’ll never feel anything else again” – its pages are completely and unashamedly relatable. We’ve all been there – you know, that moment when you can’t stop thinking about that certain someone. But it’s also one of those emotions that is inadvertently polarising. “From observing them, examining them in your mind, trying to find out every little detail about them, to trying to consume them entirely; [this zine is] about this unique and intense feeling of unrequited or unknown love, which is extremely beautiful and unbearably unsatisfying,” explains Sarah.
What did the artist want to communicate? Illustrate the experiences of unrequited love.
What did the artist achieve through the artwork? Narrate a personal and emotional story with visuals.
What materials did he use and what process did he take?
Book Making,
“What I find super exciting about graphic design is that on the one hand it still carries the utopian baggage that came with modernism, with its belief in emancipation and common values,” he tells It’s Nice That. “On the other hand the job itself can be superficial, or banal, driven by local and logistical demands.”
“What really drew me in back then was the typographic aspect, the way the shape of a word changes its meaning. That changed during my studies though, when I started to be more interested in the visual and editorial aspects of design.”
One reason for this approach is Jan’s subject matter, which in itself deals with variation and contradictions, ultimately leading his chosen methods and styles to do just this. “This duality of design I was talking about is likely one of those, the contrast between how something like sexuality is depicted in films and magazines and what we actually experience in our daily lives for instance played a large role in my graduation project.”
What did the artist want to communicate? How type changes how the word is portrayed. The portrayal of sexuality in films and magazines.
What did the artist achieve through the artwork? Show a story with visuals and type and photos all combined together. balancing the common sense and the individuality and style of the creator.
What materials did he use and what process did he take?
Logo,
Emily Oberman points out the hidden weapons in the logo and how the unhinged protagonist is channeled through typography.
Harley’s overall graphic language is designed to convey the character herself: “silly, optimistic, strong, confident, funny, sassy, and more than a little crazy,” says Oberman. Some aspects of this come through the Birds of Prey logo, which uses a bold, blocky type (an altered version of Smart Sans) with weapons hidden amidst the letters. These represent the other members of the Birds of Prey and their personalities – Huntress, Black Canary, Cassandra and Officer Montoya.
“The weapons kind of presented themselves in a few of the letterforms and when we saw how great they could be, Laura (Berglund of Pentagram) did an amazing job of finding more and more ways to sneak things in,” she continues. “Of course they had to relate to each character. My favourites are the brass knuckle E and the dagger hidden in the S.” The neon colours were inspired by the “copious and detailed mood boards” that Cathy Yan created for the whole film.
“The typeface is meant to be Harley, that’s the idea,” she continues. “We heard her voice and tried to have her come through it. It’s meant to seem hurried, scrawled, off-kilter (yet optimistic) like handwriting that fell into a vat of Gotham’s most toxic acid. The icons are just Harley’s doodles. They spring from her giddy, crazy head. Some are plot points, some are just things she likes.”
What did the artist want to communicate? The characters of the films.
What did the artist achieve through the artwork? To show the personalities of the characters.
What materials did he use and what process did he take? scribbling.
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