Collected here are some of my
favourite designers, photographers,
artists and styles.
please click on the RED title of the one you wish to view.
ENJOY!
EMPATHY: Genis Carreras
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SWISSAIR
AIRLINE GRAPHIC DESIGN
Simplicity and Clarity.
With the emphasis on clean lines, elegant typography coupled with original design, the graphic design solutions that have been created over the years for the world's airlines are simply beautiful.
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BLUE black and white
"... represents both the sky and the sea, and is associated with open spaces, freedom, intuition, imagination, expansiveness, inspiration, and sensitivity. Blue also represents meanings of depth, trust, loyalty, sincerity, wisdom, confidence, stability, faith, heaven, and intelligence."
[text : http://www.bourncreative.com/meaning-of-the-color-blue/ ]
BLUE >
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VERTIGO, movie poster 1958, Saul Bass
RED black and white
Love
Passion
Desire
Heat
Sensitivity
Romance
Joy
Strength
Leadership
Courage
Vigor
Willpower
Rage
Anger
Danger
Malice
Action
Vibrance
Radiance
Determination
Authority
Striking
Energetic
Luck [China]
Purity [India]
Action
Speed
Confident
Beautiful [Russia]
RED >
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TOMORROW AWARDS 2014, titles / opening
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GEOMETRIX, 2014
RUPERT VANDERVELL
"Born and based in London, my photographic style is highly representative of my personality. I have always been obsessed with clean lines and the geometrical appearance of things. Through the lens I find people captivating and my work explores our relationship with the world and how we interact with our environment."
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Irgendwo Anders by the Swiss photographer Radek Brunecky.
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US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION
A visual sampler
"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal."
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"A smattering of home furnishings invade a bare white studio space, as a model gets dressed in this makeshift boudoir. She wears a blue strapless wired brassiere with a white petticoat by Iris. Her light pink lipstick further underscores the femininity of this image. The John Rawlings photograph, which appeared in the February 15, 1948, Vogue, recalls an era when getting dressed was a more elegant affair altogether."
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CLIFFORD COFFIN; Vogue, 1951
CLIFFORD COFFIN
"That he is so little-known outside the fashion world has much to do with his own ambivalent attitude towards self-promotion. He felt too that he never ‘fitted in ‘– ‘He was a weird, wild man,’ wrote Vogue model Wilhemina. ‘He used to throw the editors down the staircase’ and added that ‘He should have lived in the sixties. He was witty, bitchy and for the dull fifties shockingly so.’ When he achieved what he wanted, financially and artistically, he slipped effortlessly from view, leaving his work in the offices of Vogue London and New York. He oversaw no exhibitions of his work nor produced, like many of his colleagues, books of his vintage photographs. Only one print has ever appeared at auction. His lifestyle also hastened an early retirement. As his workload escalated (at one point, for his advertised work, he was one of the world’s highest-paid photographers), his health disintegrated and he suffered bouts of alcoholism and drug addiction. But his professionalism behind the lens has never been disputed: ‘He taught all who worked with him a lesson in dedication,’ wrote Vogue in 1966. ‘Nothing was too much trouble. In his search for what he wanted he reduced his models to tears, fashion editors to desperation and himself to complete exhaustion. From the rubble of emotion emerged a perfect cool picture.’
His New York studio was destroyed by fire in the mid-sixties and nothing could be salvaged, so all that remains is his collection with Vogue which, after nearly fifty years in its archives in London and New York, deserves re-evaluation once more.
He died in Pasadena, California, in 1972 aged 58."
Full text:
The National Portrait Gallery, London.
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HORST P HORST
HORST P HORST
"Horst would set his models under artificial lights, against plain or geometric backgrounds, with fastidious precision. This evolved into a more ornamental approach, setting him apart from Vogue's other principal photographers of the 1930s - Edward Steichen and Cecil Beaton - and ultimately becoming his unmistakeable style. The arrangement of the furnishings, fabrics and lighting within his compositions create atmospheric silhouettes, giving rise to an enigmatic ambience."
Full text:
The Hamilton's Gallery, London.
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JACQUES HENRI LARTIGE
JACQUES HENRI LARTIGUE
- "Jacques Henri Lartigue is 69 years old in 1963 when he first presents a selection of his many photographs taken throughout his life in New York’s MoMa. That same year there is a photo spread of his work in the famous Life Magazine issue which commemorates the death of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, and which is publicized worldwide. To his great surprise, Lartigue becomes, overnight, one of the renowned photographers of the twentieth century.
Jacques learns about photography from his father as early as the year 1900. Henri Lartigue rewards Jacques’s enthusiasm by buying him his first camera when he is 8 years old. Thus begins the endless coverage of his childhood, including automobile outings, family holidays and especially his older brother Maurice’s (nicknamed Zissou) inventions."
Full text:
Donation Jacques Henri Lartigue
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LADY AGNEW OF LOCHNAW, 1893
JOHN SINGER SARGENT
"He was schooled as a French artist, heavily influenced by the Impressionist movement, the Spanish Master Velazquez, the Dutch Master Frans Hals, and his teacher Carolus-Duran . He was the darling of Paris until the scandal of his Madame X painting at the 1884 Salon.
Discouraged at the rejection, even considered leaving art at the age of 28, he left Paris and settled (if that word could ever be used for him) in England where he reached the height of his fame. To be painted by Sargent was to be painted by the best."
Full text:
The John Singer Sargent Virtual Gallery.
http://jssgallery.org/Biography/Biography.htm
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SPHERIC
NAUM GABO
"Constructive sculptor and painter. Born in Briansk in Russia, named Naum Pevsner; younger brother of the sculptor Antoine Pevsner. Entered Munich University in 1910, studying first medicine, then the natural sciences; also attended art history lectures by Wölfflin. Transferred in 1912 to an engineering school in Munich. Met Kandinsky and in 1913-14 joined his brother Antoine (then a painter) in Paris. After the outbreak of war moved first to Copenhagen, then Oslo; began to make constructions in 1915 under the name Naum Gabo. 1917-22 in Moscow with Pevsner, Tatlin, Kandinsky and Malevich; wrote and issued jointly with Pevsner in 1920 a Realistic Manifesto proclaiming the tenets of pure Constructivism. Lived 1922-32 in Berlin in contact with the artists of the de Stijl group and the Bauhaus. First one-man exhibition with Pevsner at the Galerie Percier, Paris, 1924. With Pevsner, designed the set and costumes for Diaghilev's ballet La Chatte 1926. 1932-5 in Paris, a member of Abstraction-Creation; 1935-46 in England, first in London, then from 1939 at Carbis Bay in Cornwall. Edited Circle jointly with J.L. Martin and Ben Nicholson in 1937..... "
Full text: The Tate
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OLIVIA PARKER, 1984, Weighing the Planets
OLIVIA PARKER
"For thirty five years I have made pictures that come out of the still life genre: the comfort of the table with food or a vase of flowers and the despair of the vanitas and memento mori with their reminders that life and death are inseparable. The images retain the formal shell of the expected, but have elements of the unexpected.
Still life has sometimes been spoken of as a small art form, insignificant compared to the grand traditions of portrait, religious, and history painting or 20th century statements tendered as huge abstract and/or expressionist canvases, not to mention the exotic or the all too terribly real transfixed in the camera’s eye. Yet still life remains. Sometimes it is a vehicle for learning, but I suggest that its persistence has to do with its proximity to the most basic concerns of human life: food; shelter; sex and accompanying life and growth; and death. Also, the simplicity of content in a still life allows for endless expressive experimentation within a form which remains close to universal human experience. The images in this exhibition have a specific reference: 17th century Dutch, Flemish and Spanish painting, light against a dark ground. To begin with the pictures remain photographic, light and lense shape them. Many have a sharply photographic foreground with the background dissolving into darkness pierced withm windows of glowing light.
Some of the objects are the expected, although one might not anticipate finding a human brain in what looks like a canning jar. Instead of collected objects ‘The collector’, an animal that sticks small shells, sponges and more to its shell, is on the ledge. Then there is motion that you will see here and there. The rest is for each viewer to find."
Full text: Olivia Parker Photographs
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Robert Frank, London, 1952
ROBERT FRANK
“My photographs are not planned or composed in advance, and I do not anticipate that the onlooker will share my viewpoint. However, I feel that if my photograph leaves an image on his mind, something has been accomplished.”
Robert Frank
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BERT HARDY: Off duty Usherette, 1954
BERT HARDY
Born in London to a working-class family in May 1913, Hardy was the eldest of seven children.
After leaving school at the age of 14, he got a job as a messenger, which saw him collecting and delivering film and prints for West End chemists.
Bitten by the photography bug, he bought his first camera for 50p from a pawn shop and had his first big break when he snapped King George V and Queen Mary passing by in a carriage down Blackfriars Road. The enterprising youngster printed off 200 postcards and sold them to friends and neighbours.
Following his work as a laboratory assistant for a photographic agency, he was hired as a staff photographer at the Picture Post in the 1940s. There, he used his trusted Leica to capture the slums of London and Glasgow (including the gritty Gorbals neighbourhood), as well as assignments during World War Two and Korea.
He died in 1995 aged 82 leaving behind some of the most iconic images of the 20th Century.
More on Hardy at:
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SYD MEAD; concept art Blade Runner, 1980
SYD MEAD
"With transportation design as his first love, Syd Mead seldom misses an opportunity to provide his unique blend of futurism and believability to those projects consisting of a vehicle that travels from “A” to ‘B”. Whether it be designing solar powered unicycles, show cars, luxury yachts, cruise ships, the interiors of private 747’s, or interplanetary spacecraft, each receives the same attention to detail within a perfectly designed scenario. This combination has become a Syd Mead trademark and has been seen in everything from concept cars for Ford Motor Company to futuristic “Hypervans” which have been the subject of his latest full color illustrations.
Full text: sydmead.com
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RALPH McQUARRIE; Star Wars concept art, 1975
RALPH McQUARRIE
"I just did my best to depict what I thought the film should look like, I really liked the idea. I didn't think the film would ever get made. My impression was it was too expensive. There wouldn't be enough of an audience. It's just too complicated. But George knew a lot of things that I didn't know."
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PARIS, Rue du Pot de Fer, 1914, Autochrome process
EARLY COLOUR PHOTOGRAPHS
"In 1909 the millionaire French banker and philanthropist Albert Kahn embarked on an ambitious project to create a colour photographic record of, and for, the peoples of the world. As an idealist and an internationalist, Kahn believed that he could use the new autochrome process, the world's first user-friendly, true-colour photographic system, to promote cross-cultural peace and understanding."
Collected here are just a few images from Khan's project, together with many others who were also experimenting with color at that time.
For me I just fell in love with all of them as soon as I saw them. Fantastic, you can feel the period, smell the atmosphere and almost reach out and walk down that street with people long since gone.
More on Albert Khan:
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HANS MAULI; Autumn Leaves, San Francisco
HANS MAULI
Born near Aarau, Switzerland in 1937, Hans Mauli worked in Aarau, Copenhagen, London, Paris and New York as a graphic designer and art director. While working for Herb Lubalin in New York in 1968, he designed the font that was created exclusively for use in the World Trade Center's signage. From 1971 to 1991 he worked as a professional photographer in Paris. Since moving to the US in 1991 he has turned to fine art photography. One of his prints, Window Dressing, Copenhagen 1960, was acquired by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in 1997.
More on Mauli:
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EDWARD BURTYNSKY;
EDWARD BURTYNSKY
"TAILINGS: Burtynsky's skill as a photographic colourist is evident in most of his work, but perhaps most strikingly in a group of photographs of nickel tailings near Sudbury, Ontario. Juxtaposing pulsating orange against a glossy black background, he extracts spectacular images from a landscape that many might consider unphotogenic. The startling colours are those we see when lava flows from an erupting volcano, which is perhaps why we immediately associate this image with natural disaster. In actual fact, the intense reds and oranges are caused by the oxidation of the iron that is left behind in the process of separating nickel and other metals from the ore."
More on Burtynsky:
http://www.edwardburtynsky.com/site_contents/Photographs/introPhotographs.html
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