ITAP - Jonny Griffiths - Design Heroes: Matt Pyke.

http://www.arch2o.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Hyundai-Vision-Hall5.jpeg (edited by me)

In the creative world you often hear about people who 'push the boundaries  and 'think outside the box', these people are the ones who 'break all the rules' and 'try not to be bound by one discipline'. Matt Pyke is no exception to this character profile. He is one of those people who let's nothing get in his way of success and he utilises anything and everything to help him progress. He spoke to Apple about the use of the Macintosh and how it helps him work from his attic in the northern town of Sheffield yet still uphold a robust and professional appearance to the outside world. He is a person to look up to and learn from certainly and I am glad Jonny chose Matt Pyke as his design hero.

With a list of clients like MTV, Apple, Hyundai, Coldplay, Chanel, Audi, Nissan, the V&A, Nike all projects of which were full of diversity yet had the unique stamp of Matt Pyke, I couldn't help but spend a good half an hour lost in his website. Universal Everything is the name of his company and he has recently launched Matt Pyke.com as a seperate entity, he said in an interview with 'It's Nice That'. 

"There’s more people now involved with Universal Everything. Other people are working on things, leading projects, but ultimately it’s still my baby. A lot of the work still stems from initial seed ideas I have, and I then tend to oversee the creative direction, help to push people further."

Some of my favourite pieces of his work are the work he did for Hyundai filmed here:

The beauty of the movement is captured beautifully and then represented by the digital work with such excellence, it's art. The idea behind this particular video, is 'Made By Humans' there are other works in the set that capture different elements of the creation of these Hyundai cars.

"What we tried to do is really emphasise the importance of the human and their role in the creation of things. Although a lot of what you see industrial and automated the important part is that the human spirit is in everything."

Matt Talks about the design process and how working on the computer is an essential part of that process. They transfer the video captured by dancers or tai chi masters and animate around the subjects so that only when the movement is applied, the play button is pressed, you can see what is actually going on. And in Matt's words "that's the thing that breathes the soul into the work".

ITAP - Jane Anderson - Design Hereos: Stefan Sagmeister & Kate Moross

Janes talk on Stefan Sagmeister & Kate Moross was one of those talks that you hear and it makes you want to do stuff. I couldn't help but get passionate in my note taking, i was inspired to get out there and make stuff with stuff just for the sake of it! I believe in those kind of talks/lectures because they have movement and action in them.

I think the reason for such a motivational talk was the two subjects  you cannot look at Sagmeister or Moross' work and not be inspired to 'do'. Their simple philosophies...

Personal work makes client work better.

- Sagmeister

"Make your own shit, just make shit."

- Moross 

...inspire you to get out there, forget about clients brief and projects and just do stuff for the fun of it, the reason you enjoy it in the first place.

Sagmeister's work is heaviy influenced by what he does in his private life. I watched his talk at one of the TED conferences and he talks solely about his personal work, his travels, his own self initiated projects and it's clear that he deems these things highly important. 

http://www.sagmeisterwalsh.com/images/made/images/u_work/Aizone-13_1800_1114_75.jpg

http://www.sagmeisterwalsh.com/images/made/images/u_work/Aizone10_1_1800_1114_75.jpg

These two images are from the "Art Direction & Design for Aizone, a luxury department store in the Middle East. Taking the vibrant nature of the brand and presenting it in campaigns that are printed in newspapers, magazines, and billboards throughout Lebanon."

http://kingydesignhistory2012.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/trying-comp1.jpg

These images are from his personal work entitled, "Things I Have Learnt In My Life So Far", you can clearly see the influence. Experimental and environmental typography is very striking and when doing the Aizone project they decided to do as much as they could in physical and not on computers for a 'next level' quality of image. Which brings me nicely onto Kate Moross who believes in 'making shit'.

Kate Moross' work has a very hands on feel to it also, she seems to have developed her style simply by making stuff, having a go and not discounting anything right from the beginning of here career.

http://a4.ec-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/7/561c23d7ff3628fb7161e810a85af9ad/l.jpg

http://payload85.cargocollective.com/1/7/237494/4015761/RIDEJOURNAL_800.jpg

These two pieces the first one from 2006 and the second from 2013 you can see how her style has progressed and improved but you can see where it has come from and how she has been on a journey. Much like Sagmeister, the work she has done in the begging (which I would imagine was in the early, fun stage of her career) has influenced her more professional work.

Both these designers are inspirational and I hold them very high up in my hero's list.

ITAP - Mark Murphy - Design Heroes: Saul Bass & David Carson.

Mark Murphy from Surely Creative Design and a visiting lecturer to our course gave us a very diverse and informative talk about two of his design heroes, Saul Bass, the American graphic designer and film maker and David Carson the American, graphic designer, art director and surfer.

SAUL BASS - This man had a very distinctive style. Using Limited colour palates  and hand made type in most of his film title work, but he was also a very prolific graphi designer, designing some amazing logos along with loads of other work.

Here you can see some of the iconic, simplistic logos, all of which were deigned in the 60s and early 70s. His use of white space and drawing with space is exceptional and what every logo designer wishes to achieve. Many of these logos are still in use today, not many of them have needed to be adapted and they are such timeless design pieces.

http://www.graphic-design.com/design-bookshelf/2012/saul_bass/Saul_Bass_Logos_t.jpg

In the talk Mark showed us many different examples of Bass' work I particularly liked the Lawry food packaging for it's timeless design, great use of colour and illustration and typography. These designs would fit right into the supermarket shelves of today and would out rank some of the competition still. That is the mark of great design in my opinion, weather it's still going to look good in 30/40/50 years!

(source: Mark Murphy's presentation slides)

DAVID CARSON - A rule breaker and experimenter, a mad scientist of design. Mark described this guy as 'a marmite designer' you love him or you hate him and at the time I disagreed. My stance was exactly the same as my stance on marmite,  I actually didn't mind his work. I din't love or hate it, it was just ok. I have to be in the mood for it to like and appreciate it. BUT as time has gone on, I have seen more of his work and had time to think about it and i have decided that I am not the biggest fan. In some cases i think his work is good, but i would never choose to design in the way he does. Unless i was requested to.

http://www.creativereview.co.uk/images/uploads/2010/12/lwl_black_swan_0.jpg

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgug7HQZlwHq9clK0NSO5LKoHBC_n4wK4gJzzjD285pCS99HzTyKEolCAAY4zjngH0EK16tBKxhDstzcSYw65ask0MdHvMwZmeyZVf3rFeTONW18OLcpLMYau7uchEuHQl49ON_CrK-ib8h/s400/mastercard_david_carson.jpg

I do like this cover image he produced for Little White Lies and I do appreciate his style somewhat. I think in this context it works really well, I also like his use of hand written type in his master card work but a feel that both of these images I like are not typically 'David Carson', they have elements of his style but they're far from signature pieces.

These magazine covers and ads are more what you would think of immediately when someone says David Carson.

http://mabsoota.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/4590744095_a8c360d082_o.jpeg?w=900

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnbVw5zsIyjI0H9ce3QEYTeaX2hm-uGWpYibmzd8p4YA5qDZsHks7rQf8LCvhY1cUR92VOfmsquRUvNQC-iNtQQbFOAIfFw9n_1deBV6ncygmHMBZ4XUQonxp7SVXDtDlRV0LDOQJ7Ca3g/s400/casron%2527s+work+3.png

One thing I cannot bypass is the amazing ability to break the rules of design and come out with innovative and exciting work that forces you to engage with it, 1 - because it's genious and 2 - cause it's slightly different and difficult to read. I have to hand it to him.