NO.18
• CUCA • NOISE • PLANET
SPRING 2020
TOP 5 ART & DESIGN • PYE IDENTITY • YELLOW &INDIGO BORDER 1
Pye identity 2.0 by Lesha Galkin Here is a fresh update of P.Y.E Optics identity from 2018. Business cards, client cards, stickers, microfiber cloths, flags for store opening etc. Happy to be a part of amazing P.Y.E family, who always encourages us to do whatever we want to do in design.
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s a self-taught designer, there is probably more enjoyment in design for me than most, but trust me when I say there is entertainment value in breaking design standards. Whenever you feel like you’re stuck on a concept or design becomes boring to you, it’s a good time to try something crazy and see if it doesn’t have positive results. Whenever I’m stuck, I try asking things like, what would this site look like if it was retro? Then I start designing it that way. This could lead me to a color, typeface or even layout that works well and goes against what I would normally do. Because design is based so much on perspective, trying different things can inject life into an otherwise lackluster project. Just remember that if you’re not thrilled about a design, chances are others won’t be either.
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yellow and indigo border
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byun young geun
In every corner, nook and cranny of Byun Young Geun’s painterly illustrations, the Korean illustrator demonstrates a masterful command over the brush.
“When we first came across his evocative portfolio last year, we couldn’t help but gaze in awe at the softness of touches dabbed onto pages of textured watercolour paper. His control over the thin washes of paint are immediately evident to the viewer, which, in turn, allows Young Geun to suggest a movement so realistic, the convincing artworks often seem more evocative of photographs mid-movement rather than paintings.”
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A subtle duet, Young Geun visually retells his ongoing adventures in the ethereal landscape of Ladakh, India. Over the past six years, he’s journeyed to the sandy land many number of times, even completing a short residency in the mountains where he painted many of his watercolour paintings from life. With each visit, he was overcome with an intense emotion, “strange enough to make me feel afraid,” he says. And with this in mind, the intention of his zines is simple; to express these feelings through a series of immersive illustrations. “The story of the series is very simple,” Young Geun tells It’s Nice That. “It starts from one of the most noisy and confusing places in India and finishes at the peaceful place where things are slowly flowing.” The first zine of the series, the most silent zine that is drawn in the extremely loud land. The story may seem simple in its atmospheric documentations, tracking the illustrator’s journey from the urban to the wildly picturesque Kashmir region. But with each panel, Young Geun evokes a sense of tranquility through a microscopic attention to detail, distilling moments of serene contemplation in its delighted viewers. He adds, “In each zine, I wanted to depict the diversity of nature, the city and their feelings in detailed scenes.” Hoping to complete the project with a total of 200 beautifully illustrated pages, so far, Young Geun has finished 140 pages and four zines. Though its narrative is subtle in its exploration of place and memory, it never fails to compel through the magnetism of the composition. Unable to be categorised as either graphic.
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Cuca Berenguer
From an early age, Valencia-based illustrator Cuca Berenguer understood drawings as a valuable means of communication and expression of feeling. It’s something not lost in her current practice; one radiant with colour, irony and child-like wonder.
“My mother has an obsession with coloured pencils,” Cuca explains, “colour has been very present in my life since I was a child.” This familiar context to her work becomes apparent in her crude, juvenile but incredibly considered mark-making, skilfully resulting in beautiful images rife with a feeling of wonder and nostalgia.
Her practice, Cuca tells us “is a place where I feel safe and can have fun,” using everyday objects, colour and humour to “represent Recently, Cuca remarks, the colours and a parallel reality with a kind of emotional forms in her work have been influenced by touch.” The command of colour Cuca “old cereals and old food posters.” maintains within her visual style results in Feeling almost effortlessly joyful, the work the element produces is a becoming a “I TRY TO REPRODUCE IT IN SEVERAL TECHNIQUES discipline in character in AND CREATE VERY FUN AND INTERESTING CHANGES.” practise and
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NOISE by Evan M. Cohen • ANCIENT LIFE WAS ALL SILENCE Russolo states that “noise” first came into existence as the result of 19th century machines. Before this time the world was a quiet, if not silent, place. With the exception of storms, waterfalls, and tectonic activity, the noise that did punctuate this silence were not loud, prolonged, or varied. • EARLY SOUNDS He notes that the earliest “music” was very simplistic and was created with very simple instruments, and that many early civilizations considered the secrets of music sacred and reserved it for rites and rituals. The Greek musical theory was based on the tetrachord mathematics of Pythagoras, which did not allow for any harmonies. Developments and modifications to the Greek musical system were made during the Middle Ages, which led to music like Gregorian chant. Russolo notes that during this time sounds were still narrowly seen as “unfolding in time.
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• THE COMPLETE SOUND Instruments built by Russolo, photo published in his 1913 book The Art of Noises Russolo refers to the chord as the “complete sound,”the conception of various parts that make and are subordinate to the whole. He notes that chords developed gradually, first moving from the “consonant triad to the consistent and complicated dissonances that characterize contemporary music.” • MUSICAL NOISE Russolo compares the evolution of music to the multiplication of machinery, pointing out that our once desolate sound environment has become increasingly filled with the noise of machines, encouraging musicians to create a more complicated polyphony in order to provoke emotion and stir our sensibilities. He notes that music has been developing towards a more complicated polyphony by seeking greater variety in timbres and tone colors.
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Marine 2
1962
Flyby
Marine 4
1964
Flyby
Marine 9
1971
Orbiter
South Korean illustrator Bang Sangho takes us on a psychedelic journey to a new planet— submerging our eyes and mind into the imaginary depths of the neon sea and black holes. Craterheaded humans are ticking time bombs in this world, as their brains erupt like volcanoes and revealing their insides as star-filled galaxies. “There is an essential beauty in complicated places such as the universe, jungle and cell,” explains the artist. Inside out we are part of everything—the chaos and harmony of nature, and the universe.
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Trypophobics beware: the Korean illustrator’s work, including illustrations that merge his style with Rick & Morty’s for Adult Swim and large-scale animation work for Sogo in Hong Kong, is filled with holes that transports him to different worlds and realities. From the massive to the microscopic, illustrator Bang Sangho’s work is filled with otherworldly shapes, landscapes and life forms. Favouring dense layering of texturally rich characters and bluetinted bold colours, the Korean illustrator’s precisely drawn images are like pop surrealism for
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bang sangho
“I started drawing the planets out of curiosity for the unknown world, like the world of a fabric of a sweater observed through a microscope or a world beyond a space that’s too tiny or too enormous,”
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