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Copyright © 2020 Cameron Swanson All rights reserved. No part of this book may not be reproduced in any form, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission of the publisher, except as provided by United States of America copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, at “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the address below. Cameron Swanson Author & Designer Printed by Blurb, Inc., in the United States of America. First printing edition 2020. Blurb 600 California Street, 11th Floor San Francisco, CA 94108
Table of Contents Illustration . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Kate Greenaway . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 John Alcorn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Gerald Scarfe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Ken Sugimori . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Hirohiko Araki . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Printmaking . . . . . . . . . . 24
Albrecht Dürer . Alphonse Mucha William Morris . Katsushi Hosukai
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Painting . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 Nicola Samori . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 John Rocco . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Photography . . . . . . . . . . 46 Storm Thorgerson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 Taylor Gray . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Digital . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
April Greiman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 Mike Kus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 Ken Wong . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
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A Note on the Book This book was created to showcase the various artists that have had a major influence on my life as a designer. This book divides the artist into specific categories based on the medium that they used that I found particularly inspiring. I recognize that as designers we need to be flexible and literate in a variety of media, but I wanted to showcase these artists’ work that is specific to one medium. When focusing on one medium per artist it allows us to see the finer details that are specific to the artist and compare their work to other artists that work in the same medium.
Written and designed by Cameron Swanson
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1 Illustrations
s I didn’t have much interest in outdoor activities when I was younger, so I looked for hobbies that suited my taste. My interests fell towards reading books, playing video games, and drawing. It doesn’t take much to start teaching yourself to draw. All that is need is some paper, a pencil and the will power to keep trying.
ate Greenaway Kate Greenaway was an English Victorian illustrator who studied at several different art school’s in London. She struggled with the formal education she was receiving because during her time women were still restricted to night classes and the courses were limiting. Greenaway’s work didn’t stop because of this though. She found herself working freelance making greeting card which were growing in popularity from 1840 to 1860 when the market exploded. Her cards were popular and sold well which opened her career opportunities up a little more. Greenaway also went on to illustrate children’s books. Her first and most notable book was Under the Window, which was a collection of children’s verses and illustrations. Her ability to draw the human form was well developed from her time in higher education, but much of England, German, and the United States found interest in the elegant outfits on the people she drew. Her outfits and style made waves in society and people started to dress like her illustrations. Greenaway illustrated for over 150 books after that with her boom in popularity.
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I never had any books that were illustrated by Kate Greenaway but her influence on the world hung on that I saw pieces of art like hers in my grandparents’ house. Greenaway’s illustrations give me a nostalgic feeling of visiting my grandparents. The illustration of watercolor over thin ink lines was and still appeals to me. The soft muted colors in her work give the pieces an aged and beautiful look. The ink lines work and details in her illustrations show her interest in observing the human form in everyday environments. Greenaway’s illustrations range from full framed environments to small images that bleed into the background of the page with no clear boundary. I am always drawn to those illustrations that bleed out of the background or stretch out of the frame of the canvas. Those illustrations add to the understanding that books are an opening to another world and the viewer is seeing the author’s world.
John Alcorn John Alcorn was an illustrator in the 1960’s who started a career in advertisement working with Esquire magazine, Push Pin Studios, and CBS TV. At Push Pin Studios, Alcorn was able to work with designers like Milton Glaser, Seymour Chwast, Reynold Ruffins, and Edward Sorel. John’s work with CBS TV also allowed him to work along Lou Dorfsman. Alorn’s career in advertising at a studio or doing in house work was short lived, but his career didn’t stop there. After having worked along so many other influential artists, Alcorn had enough credibility to make his way into freelance work. Alcorn took up what work came his way and suited where he was in life. He started creating illustrations for books. He worked with renowned publishing houses like Simon & Schuster, Pantheon Books and Random House to name a few. While working freelance for them he created book covers, jackets, editorials, posters and advertisements. John was also asked to join a collection of international graphic designers to create illustrations for The Beatles Illustrated Lyrics. John Alcorn’s work is bright and inviting and intricately designed through the Art Nouveau style. His psychedelic illustrations that incorporated characters, typography and scenes brought a playful life to his works. His contribution to the art of the 1970s touched his wide array of work. He changed the look of advertising, book design, and branding making his name notable to art and societal history.
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I listen to a lot of classic rock artists such as Pink Floyd thanks to my dad. He fostered my love for classic rock from a young age and eventually when I was older, we watched Pink Floyd The Wall together. By that point, I had all the songs and lyrics for The Wall memorized. I was interested in seeing how someone had create a full-length movie visualizing all of the songs I knew and grew up listening too. Gerald Scarfe is an English surrealist Cartoonist and Illustrator who started his career in London. Scarfe was asthmatic and bed ridden as a child so he found hobbies that worked with his physical limitation. His start of drawing a young age took him to the University of the Arts in London and the Newham College of Further Education. Scarfe created the short-animated film A Long DrawnOut Trip for the BBC about his time in Los Angeles. He was sent to look at a new animation invention but ended up turning this trip into the short film that caught the eye of the Pink Floyd band. Scarfe created the mashup of famous landmarks, products, and people that represented America in the 1970’s and overlayed it with popular psychedelic music of the time. The trippy short was the exact kind of visualization that could properly represent the music of Pink Floyd. Scarfe was commissioned by the band to create artwork for their tour programs, short clips of their live concerts for music videos and eventually a movie adaption of The Wall.
The moody blue and navy colors of the background allows the figure to meld into the background like it is desperately trying to pull itself out.
The slow shifting of the leaf into a tumbling man mimics how leaf gently falls in the breeze.
The Wall album was released in 1979. The album depicted the life of Roger Waters the song writer for Pink Floyd. Scarfe’s abilities with creating surrealist art lent itself well with the psychedelic music of Pink Floyd. Scarfe’s illustrative works were incorporated in the live action filming and short animations that pop in and out of the movie to enhance the artistic story telling in the album The Wall. This poster’s blending of colors and melding of the face of the figure with the background shows his ability to control the paint while letting go. The sharp words that cut through the background makes for a great juxtaposition and brings more control into this otherwise chaotic poster. This artistic poster portrays the very traumatic and gruesome story that is to come. As I watched the movie, I was taken in by his illustrative work that flowed so well with the live action movie. Scarfe’s use of varying line width and density gives a beauty and elegance the caricatures he creates. His illustrative work in the movie shifts between using thick and then lines or implied lines to hold his characters together. His use of variance in his lines allows him to freely morph his characters as most artistic do in the surrealist style.
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The Trial is one of my favorite songs in The Wall because of how visual the lyrics are. In the song, Pink is being put on trial by himself and goes through his idealization of the people that made him who he is. Pink is visited by the imagined personality of his schoolmaster, his wife, and his mother. Roger Water’s slight variation in his voice beautifully distinguishes six different characters in the solo. He sings through the roles of the prosecutor, the schoolmaster, himself, the wife, the mother, and the judge, and how they all affected his life. The Trial is Pink’s climactic story of making the decision to either keep himself held inside his mental wall or set himself free from the prison he created. The imagery in The Wall depicts grotesque characters, sexual imagery, and gore in the surrealist style that Scarfe was originally commissioned for. The psychedelic illustrations explain the much larger story that Roger was trying to tell about how he felt and his mental health in the movie. The dream like illustrations he created of the movie were visually captivating and beautiful.
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After college Scarfe started his career in advertising which was short lived due to his dislike of the profession. He then switched to working for newspaper and magazine printer. He created satirical caricatures of political figures for Private Eye, The Daily Sketch, and Daily Mail to name a few. He worked primarily with watercolor over ink since the medium is very commonly used for illustration work. The contrast between the colors and lines can also easily be replicated and printed for then new magazines. Gerald’s caricatures in his work are lively and grotesque. His use of thick and thin lines makes the exaggerated characters appear elegant while allowing Scarfe to go the extreme with the features he chooses to highlight in his illustrations.
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Scarfe still works for news magazines today making political cartoons of relevant events like the Trump presidency and Brexit. The dream like exaggeration of the characters that Scarfe coveys with his illustrations are a testament to his command of the surrealist style. His surrealist style creates the thought-provoking imagery needed to make a proper satirical political cartoon, and his striking imagery begs viewers to look at it in depth to find all the hints of information and talk about what the piece is trying to convey to the audience. The creepy art that Scarfe has produced left me shocked to find out that he also worked with Disney to create the concept art of the Hercules movie. I would never have imagined that Scarfe would make art for something as family friendly as a Disney movie. But in looking at characters like Hades and the Fates Scarfe’s style becomes more noticeable. His style is a great modern interpretation of the thin waisted elegant figures on Greek vases and pottery. Gerald Scarfe’s illustrations are uniquely his. He has proved that he is able to incorporate his illustration style into several forms of media. He has been able to translate his skills with ink and paper into the modern era. He has learned to adapt his honed skills to the career areas he finds interest in.
Ken Sugimori Ken Sugimori is the illustrator, designer, and director for the Pokémon franchise. He started off his work by getting in touch with the magazine Game Freak. He then started created games and started his hit franchise Pokémon in 1996. He is now the official Art director for the Pokémon Company. Sugimori’s early work with Pokémon started by drawing beta Pokémon that were incorporated into the game. Since game graphics were so limited at this time a lot of the amazing art work went towards the packaging design, the branding and advertising. The game boxes for the Pokémon games showed Sugimori’s imaged illustrations of Pokémon in the game. His illustrations were then used to make a manga adaption of the first game a year later. Sugimori’s art style has evolved over time, much like the Pokémon in his game. The characters were created with a classic light watercolor over uniform ink lines. The main character illustrations for his earlier games were very ridged and bulky. Now Sugimori has loosened up and changed how he illustrates his characters. His new character illustrations are playful and fun with more natural poses and body definition. The colors Sugimori uses are more varied and saturated giving each character their own flavor.
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  I knew that growing up a lot of my early work resembled his, because I used a lot of his art to teach myself how to draw. Looking back on that art now, I do cringe a little bit but I’m also slightly proud because that was the art the pushed me forward. Sugimori’s art taught me that learning to evolve and change is an important step in finding a final form, one I can be proud of.
Hirohiko Araki In recent years, I started to idolize the work of Hirohiko Araki. Araki is a Japanese manga artist and fashion designer. He started drawing manga at a young age behind his parents back and secretly entering it into contests. He relentlessly worked to get his manga out in the public eye with few successful stories. He didn’t get a lot of attention until 1987 when his series JoJo’s Bizarre Adventures came out. The story recieved a lot of attention due to shock value and beautifully designed characters. The story of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventures follows the bloodline of the Joestar family. Currently Araki has created 8 parts and changed the main drive of the story one time. The first 2 parts focus on the family learning a breathing technique that gives them the strength to fight vampires. The subsequent 6 parts remove the vampires and breathing techniques for a power called a Stand. Stands are a manifestation of a person’s spirit that Araki likes to name after popular classic rock artists, songs, or albums. His new illustration style for characters in these parts also helps the change in the story. The early manga, parts 1 through 3 of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventures, overly exaggerates body proportions and muscular features of the characters. I stayed with this series not because I was in love with the art, but the story. When his style changed to the newer more elegant and slender characters, I became visually captivated by the illustrations and the story. I appreciated that Araki made the character proportions slightly more accurate in the newer parts of the manga.
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Araki’s new style was developed through looking at Greek art and Vogue photography. His characters sport new over the top fashion and mimic vogue poses that is seen in the popular magazines. Araki’s beautiful illustrations in his manga got an animated adaption and opened up doors for Araki to incorporate his unique character style into other works. Araki has been able to branch out and incorporate his characters and illustrative style in collaborations with Cell journal, SPUR magazine, the Musée du Louvre, Gucci and the 2020 Olympics. Araki’s work with Gucci incorporated his fictional characters from JoJo’s Bizzare Adventures as models for the new clothing design and fashion that Gucci had to show case. Araki’s ability to bring his characters and styles into outside jobs also allowed him to be apart of the creation process for Official 2020 Paralympics poster art. I admire how Araki’s devotion to his style of illustration and determination to make it as manga artist brought him into the international limelight. His illustrations attention to detail, bold design choices and adaption from outside influences is extremely admirable.
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Printmaking
g I haven’t done this much with printmaking, but it has always peaked my interest. First, I have found it to be an interesting medium because of the artists that I have seen specialize in it. Secondly, I’ve found it more appealing because printmaking is one of the rarer mediums that allow artists
to make several copies of their work without the use of technology. I know that print making needs a strong basic understanding of illustrations and layering. In learning to layer images, any printmaker can create intricate prints with several different colors and intricate details.
Albrecht Dürer
Albrecht Dürer is a famous German printmaker, painter, and theorist from the German Renaissance era in the 1500’s. I was first introduced to Dürer’s work in my freshman year of college in my 2-D art class. The class focused a lot on looking at his prints seeing what he could accomplish with his refined mark making techniques in a one-color print.
Prints Dürer’s woodcuts and prints were fascinating to me because of his incredible attention to detail. The first work of Dürer’s that we looked at in class was The Rhinoceros. The Rhinoceros was a piece that excellently shows off Dürer’s abilities and also has an interesting history to it. Dürer’s The Rhinoceros was Europe’s first “scientific” depiction of a rhino. It was not really an accurate depiction though, because Dürer’s print was bases off a brief description and sketch of a rhino. Dürer had actually never gotten to see a real rhino in his life, so he constructed a beautiful depiction of a sturdy creature with horns that was covered from head to toe in armor like skin. His use of line and hatching gave The Rhinoceros depth, weight, and the 3-dimensional form of a real living creature. Even though Dürer’s depiction of a rhino was not accurate, his ability to spread a print of his work by making multiple copies made it the reason why we know about it today. His creation of this mythical beast captivated Europe. Dürer was able to realistically rend The Rhinoceros so well that his print felt real and believable to all of Europe at that point in time.
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Biblical Prints
Dürer’s work also focused around biblical subject matter. Since I grew up Catholic, I probably knew a lot of Dürer’s works without knowing that they were made by him. Dürer’s religious prints focus on some of the more gruesome parts of the Bible. The biblical imagery in the text of the Bible is usually amplified in the more gruesome areas for grabbing the viewers attention. Dürer’s mark making work in his prints can draw a viewer in by showing lots of details in even the smallest areas of the work.
Dürer’s biblical apocalypse prints are very interesting because of the how much I don’t know about that part of the bible. Dürer’s print The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse stands out because that was one of the few parts I had learned about while growing up. Dürer depiction of the Four Horsemen of the apocalypse also helped influence a little of history. Previously people believe that it was supposed to be Christ himself with the four horses, but during the Reformation it started to be depicted as four separate men on their own horses.
The four horsemen of Death, Famine, War, and Conquest are depicted by other artist with their separate colors of white, red, black, and pale as described in the Bible. Dürer only using prints with one color made his distinction of the four horsemen with his detailed work.
Dürer’s work was able to withstand the test of time because of his attention to detail and religious subject matter. Dürer’s religious pieces had one of the biggest impacts on my life and were probably introduced to me without the mention of his name.
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Illustrations Albrecht Dürer is known for working in other mediums such as illustrations with ink and pencil and painting with oils and watercolors. Dürer’s ability to create such intricate work in prints with one color comes from his ability to illustrate in ink and pencil. Works like Praying Hands shows how Dürer’s ability to illustrate is so important to his prints. The ink on blue paper shows Dürer’s control in his mark making to convey the lights and darks in the hands.
Albrecht Dürer’s works Young Hare and Wing of a European Roller are visual studies of nature. These pieces, unlike The Rhinoceros, were actually realistic depictions of the animals. Dürer’s understanding of German realism allowed him to make proper studies real life. These paintings were so carefully crafted that the layering of colors and fine details of the brush strokes can be viewed as hairs that could be touched. Young Hare is a full body painting that used lines to suggest a ground and shadow that would be cast by the hare. Since only line is being used to represent the shadow it focuses the attention of the piece to the detail in the colors and texture of the hare.
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Painting Albrecht Dürer’s oil paints were realist renderings of biblical imagery, like his prints, but in full color. The realism and humanistic subject matter of the pieces were always intriguing. His piece, The Feast of the Rosary, shows his skill, understanding, and control of oil paint. The subtle blending where an implied line is formed by the conversion of two color was something I looked at a lot. The technique Dürer’s used to do this is called sfumato; something I see that relates back to what I enjoyed in the illustrations of Kate Greenaway and other children’s book artists.
Alphonse Mucha Alphonse Mucha is a Czech painter, illustrator, and graphic designer. Mucha’s printed posters are iconic in Art Nouveau movement for their distinct depiction of the style and ornate designs. Mucha moved to Paris to study at the Académie Julian and Académie Colarossi in 1889. After his studies Mucha found work designing magazines and printing posters for theaters.
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JOB Mucha’s posters very extravagant with a fo-
cus on women with beautiful hair that curls and follows around them. Mucha’s famous commercial poster for the JOB cigarette company depicts a woman with red flowing hair smoking a cigarette. The poster is framed by an intricate ornate design that the open sits inside of with part of her dress flowing over the frame at the bottom. The background is a dark purple with a green pattern that is covered by the smoke from the cigarette and the JOB letters. Mucha’s switching of forced perspective by changing when the frame overlaps the image and when the image over laps the frame is very interesting to look at. I find a lot of art that shifts the perspective of what the view is forced to see very engaging.
Mucha’s other works also show his
incredible skill with making ornate elements that don’t take over the image but enhance it. Mucha’s art always has a flowing element like hair or floral patterns that are used to either frame the subject of the work or add the environment that the work is in. Mucha’s pieces are great examples of how the proper placement of line work lead the viewers eyes to the subject of a piece with so much movement going on around it.
William Morris
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William Morris went to Oxford University’s Exeter College and graduated in 1856 and started an apprenticeship with George Edmund Street, a Neo-Gothic architect. Studying with Street, Morris focused on architectural drawing and later in 1861, Morris started Morris & Co. Morris & Co. focused on bringing artistic designs to house franchising and decorative art.
Morris’ work shifted quickly from making paintings to designing textiles and wallpapers for houses. Morris’ prints for intricate textiles that could fit together and repeated carry a lot of visual information. Morris’ patterns incorporate flowing floral patterns that hold intricate line work and detail that nicely blend into a large solid background or can be
focused in more to a look at the finer line work. I saw a lot of floral patterns like Morris’ in my grandparents’ home and my home while growing up, but I don’t think they were exactly his patterns. The floral fabrics and patterns on the walls of homes I grew up in give me nostalgia, so seeing Morris’ work brings back that feeling.
Morris’ work in making prints that can be applied to fabrics and titles can helped bring design into an everyday home. The inclusion of the Neo-Gothic style pushed artistic design into modern homes and the eyes of everyone.
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Katsushika Hokusai Katsushika Hokusai is a Japanese painter and printmaker from the Edo period. By the age of 14 he started working on wood-cut blocks and entered work in the studio of Katsukawa Shunshō by the age of 18. Hokusai was kicked out of the studio and upon so changed his subject matter to landscape and daily life in Japan prints. Hokusai’s change in focus brought him to creating illustrations, manga, and block prints. Hokusai’s illustrative and manga work drove him to create art manuals and drawing lessons that simplified the process for learning purposes. Hokusai later create his more famous collection Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji. Hokusai was at the height of his career and in his early 70’s when creating this collection of prints. Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji depicts the mountain in different angles, weather conditions, and seasons. Though his collection states that there are 36 prints in the collection 10 of the images were actually added after it was published. The pieces focus on the life and landscape happening around Mount Fuji with the mountain in the background of the prints. Hokusai’s over lapping of colors in the prints to create full color landscapes with simple details on the landscape. The human figures in the prints hold more detail in their clothing, patterns, and skin. I think that Hokusai’s ability to overlap so many colors in one print to make these full images is incredible and visually compelling.
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Painting
Painting, like illustration, has been a medium I could work in since I was little. I didn’t do much with painting in my youth because I struggled with learning to control watercolors, acrylics and oil paints. It hasn’t been until
I start taking classes on painting and receiving formal training that I have learned to control these mediums. After taking these classes I have found artist that have created paintings that are similar to mine or that I admire.
Nicola Samori Nicola Samori is an Italian painter and sculptor who studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna. His contemporary work involves recreating the 16th and 17th century European art style of chiaroscuro. He brings his subjects to the foreground the bright colors and fades them into the deep dark backgrounds that they are set in on. Samori also draws attention to his work by scrapping, tearing, and slashing the canvas. This destruction of the canvas adds the to his dark tortured subject matter, but also brings a new physical aspect for the viewer to think about. Samori chose to model a lot of his work by studying Christian saint and martyr stories. He found that his interest in the saints drew him to Saint Lucia, or Lucy, the patron saint of blind. Samori’s subjects are tortured figures that very commonly have damaged eyes, a warped face, or no face at all. The way that Samori disfigures the faces while leaving the rest of the body intact gives the viewer a resting place for the viewers eyes from the gore in his images. Samori also uses the sfumato technique which was popular in that 16th and 17th century style that subtly blends the subject with the background without hindering the subject’s ability to pop out of the background on the canvas.
Samori’s works interest me because his gory subject matter and realistic depictions of the human body interest me. His work above has no given title. I found the realism in the arms and chest to be very beautifully painted. Samori obscures the face by vaguely painting how he might sculpt this person’s face if he was to make a bust of them. The cloth that the subject is holding blends into the dark background. Samori’s work is an interesting recreation of an older style in the modern time with a slight twist but enough of the old style to reference it.
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John Rocco John Rocco is an artist, I like many people, probably knew about before we actually knew who he was. Rocco started his educational career at the Rhode Island School of Design and finished his education at the New York City School of Visual Arts. Rocco then started his work in the entertainment industry working in both the US and abroad. His first notable work was at DreamWorks as the pre-production art director for the film Shrek. He then moved on to design attractions for Walt Disney’s Imagineering’s in person rides with Disney’s Epcot and virtual reality park with DisneyQuest. Rocco was also able to work alongside Robert Abel for several museum projects. Rocco now seems to more heavily focused on his work with Disney Hyperion creating his own books and making cover art.
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Percy Jackson Rocco’s first work that made an impression on me was his cover art for the Percy Jackson series. Originally, I never knew what the series was even about. A couple of friends recommended it to me but that wasn’t enough to get me to read it. I was honestly drawn into reading the series because the covers for the series were so interesting to me. All the covers of the Percy Jackson series follow the same formula for the layout. The title is set in a large designed typeface at the top of the cover with the author’s name, Rick Riordan, at the bottom. In the background of the cover, is an intricately painted scene from the story or an image that holds several hints as to what is going to happen in the book. The fact that Rocco chooses to follow the same formula for each book makes it easy to pick the series out on a self, but he also gives each book a primary color to distinguish it from the other books in the series. The painted background images that were designed by Rocco always have one character in the center or a few spread out characters. Rocco paints his characters with little detail to facial features. I always liked that Rocco chose to leave his characters more obscured and only focused on the major imagery like hair color, clothes, and important objects. Since Rocco left the characters more abstract, he was able to focus a lot of his detail in environment and action that was around this character. The build up of these background images by Rocco brings the reader into the middle of the story without having to read a since work. Rocco paints his scenes with dramatic contrast in his light and darks.
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Photograph
hy I have always been able to work with photography as an art medium, but I haven’t done much with seeking out time to take pictures of things I see. Since I have started working with computers I started to get interested in making art with photography. The photography art that draws my
attention are images that have been enhanced to covey the meaning the artist wanted to show the viewer. I believe that enhancing a photos colors, adding new imagery, and combining several pictures to convey a message are fascinating.
Storm T horgers o Storm Thorgerson is an English graphic designer and music video director who has created several works specific to classic rock artists. Thorgerson attended the University of Leicester where he studied English and Philosophy and later attended the Royal College of Art where he got his Masters in Film and Television. In 1968, Thorgerson founded the design group Hipgnosis with Aubrey Powell. Thorgerson’s connections to the popular band Pink Floyd gave him and the group a great means to get their name out. Thorgerson attended high school with several of Pink Floyd’s band members so he took up designing covers for them.
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Thorgerson’s work with Pink Floyd shows his imaginative talent by taking photographs of real-life event and re-imagining the scene. Most of Thorgerson’s work for Pink Floyd uses surrealist techniques to create dream like images that convey the psychedelic music of the band. Thorgerson’s covers for the band incorporate a person or an imagined scene for the narrative songs of Pink Floyd.
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Dark Side of the Moon is one of Thorgerson’s most well know album designs. He along with the other designers at Hipgnosis wanted to meet the bands expectation of a unique album cover. Hipgnosis gave seven designs for the band to choose from and all four members of Pink Floyd chose Thorgerson’s picture of a prism refracting light into color. The band had decided that Thorgerson photograph meet three of the band’s top needs in a new album cover. The photograph represented the bands key use of stage lights, represented the albums lyrics, and the request for a simple and bold design. Having worked with a band creating album covers for so long Thorgerson had created quite a reputation in the music scene for his design skills. Thorgerson started to expand his designs to other bands and created a legacy in classic rock album covers.
Classic Rock
Other bands that Thorgerson had worked with included ACDC, Audioslave, Bad Company, Black Sabbath, Def Leppard, Foreigner, Kansas, Led Zeppelin, The Moody Blues, The Offspring, The Police, Queen, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Styx, and Yes to name a few. For these bands, most of Thorgerson’s work followed the same technique of using the surrealism style with the realism of photography. On a few of his other albums Thorgerson also tried to open up some of his design portfolio by opting for so heavily typographic solutions like the Bad Company album. Other than a few other instances of branching out, most of Thorgerson’s most well-known works stay in the bounds of his photography and combining images to create realistically surreal albums. Thorgerson’s body of works shows that he knew what he was doing when it came to utilizing photography to visualize his dream like album covers. Thorgerson made sure to capture minute details that enhanced what the overall album cover said about the collection of songs it was attached to.
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Taylor Gray Taylor Gray is a photographer and videographer who has tied his love of nature into his work. Gray studies marketing at Oregon State University so he can further his career with his photography, videography, and travel. Currently, Gray has collaborated with companies such as Outside Magazine, the BBC, Backpacker Magazine, Nikon USA, Columbia Sportswear, Burton, and Adobe. Gray focuses on large landscape photographs that are taken in his travels with either on the ground or high, aerial shots. Gray’s work with photography caught my eye when I was searching for the Apple Mojave background. I wasn’t able to find the actual artist that took the photo, instead I found an article about Gray who found the same site that the photo was taken at and recreated it. From that point on I was sold on Gray’s work. Looking over his portfolio website I was draw to the vibrant colors in his nature photo section. The desert photos that Gray took drew me in because they consist of plant life on desolate hills of sand. Gray makes sure that his photographs incorporate that beautiful sand, and the vast sky over the desert. Another part of Gray’s work that interested me was his dedication to take stunning photos in the desert during all times of the day. His various photos capture desert images of pink sand from the setting sun and light blue sand from the dark night skies.
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Digital
Before my college career, creating art in the digital environment wasn’t available to me. I never had my own computer to work on, so I watched several youtubers who did digital art. I was captivated by people who made
timelapse process videos and digital artists who created work for videogames. Now that I’ve had the time and the ability to create digital art I’ve started to expand on my design skills with digital tools.
April Greiman April Greiman is a graphic designer who is famous for being the first designer to fully embrace computer technology in her work. Greiman had a comfortable background with technology when growing up since her father was an early computer programmer. Greiman studied at the Kansas City Art Institute and after doing so became a freelance designer and worked at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Later in 1976 she moved to Los Angeles and created her design studio, April Greiman, Inc., where she established her use of blending technology, science, word and image with color and space. In 1982 she became the head of the design department at the California Institute of the Arts. April Greiman, Inc. lasted until 2004 and she started her current design consultancy Made in Space.
  April Greiman got her first Macintosh computer and plunged into integrating technology in her work. Greiman argued with contemporary designers who stated that the digitalization would ruin the integrity of type by pixelating it, but Greiman argued that any pixelization should be seen as part of the digital art. She understood that each medium of art had its own quirks and that artists should embraced them. On top of fighting for the integrity of digital art, Greiman also successfully changed the department of graphic design at Cal Arts to the department of Visual Communications. The shifting of the name from graphic design to visual communication lead to a better understanding of how designers influenced the world by being able to visually communicate information.
Greiman’s most notable works include her and Jayme Odgers’ posters for the California Institute of the Arts, her advertisements for the China Club Restaurant and Lounge, and her posters for the 1982 and 1984 Olympics. Greiman embraced the New Wave style of the 1980’s, which drew inspiration from the Swiss style. The punk, postmodernist movement drew upon psychedelic imagery that broke borders. Her work utilizes photography for realism and the power of digital editing to incorporate dynamic type, geometric shapes, and vibrant colors that gave context to the posters meaning. Graphic designer is too limiting of a title for Greiman. She prefers to see herself as a “transmedia artist”.
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Mike Kus Mike Kus a UK designer who specializes in illustration, photography, graphic design, branding, and web design. Kus has worked with worldwide clients, since most of his work involves the designing of websites. His work has gotten him notoriety in magazines and regular speaking engagements at design and tech conferences.   I found Kus to be an influential artist who combines his skills with illustration into the digital environment well. Kus’ illustrations consist of flat images in solid colors that utilize
drop shadows in the digital environment to create the illusion of dept. When not using illustrations that he created, Kus uses photography to bring in images for branding that would benefit from real images or to show his branding work. His specialty in website design drives me as a graphic designer that studies computer scientist as well. Kus’ websites are clean cut designs that are intuitive for users to follow and come to live with the interactivity of web.
Ken Wong Ken Wong is an Australian game designer and artist who has made it into the public eye with his award-winning mobile game. He is currently an independent game developer. While working at USTWO Games he was the lead designer and artist for the game Monument Valley.
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M
  Monument Valley is an illusionary game
that draws players in with its premise of perspective images. Wong’s design within the mobile game has fairly simplistic color gradients and shapes that are meant to be explored by the user to unlock new perspectives of the levels. The visual puzzles are mind bending but easy to navigate due to Wong’s clean user experience design. The game uses simple point and click mechanics to guide the main characters through the
clean geometric optical illusion maps. The free-floating levels give a vastness to the game environment and work well with letting the player view the whole level. Intractable parts of the game are highlighted to stand out as intractable parts of the game to introduce new mechanics to the game play. I think that this game that Wong worked on successfully integrated the design of levels as the primary premise to the game.
Monument Valley
Credits
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John Alcorn Hirohiko Araki Albrecht DĂźrer Taylor Gray Kate Greenaway April Greiman Katsushika Hokusai Mike Kus
William Morris Alphonse Mucha John Rocco Nicola Samori Gerald Scarfe Ken Sugimori Storm Thorgerson Ken Wong 63
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A Note on the Type The text in this book is Bodoni URW set at 12 point type with 14 point leading. The impeccable legibility of this typeface and contrasting thicks and thins of the lines perfectly suited all my pages.
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