Nine_Designers Robbie Hancock
Gavin Strange Bristol
Bristol based Gavin Strange is an illustrator, prop maker and art figure maker. His art figures, which are often 3D representations of his illustrations, are very contemporary, simple and brightly coloured. Similar to Mighty Jazz, Gavin has inspired me to explore the realms of 3D and start to think about my illustrations as possible sculptures instead of flat drawings.
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Edward Cheverton Bristol
Born and bred Bristolian illustrator and art figure Edward Cheverton is a personal friend of mine who I had met whilst interning for Anorak Magazine in the summer. His style is very colourful, fun, contemporary and borderline childlike (in a good way). He also creates art figures from his illustrations, which again encourages me to think past the paper and screen whilst designing / illustrating.
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Owen Gildersleeve Bristol
Owen’s work on paper-cut design has been inspiring me for a long time, he works with laser cut paper and card to create stunningly beautiful compositions with an effect which can only be achieved using his methods. He also creates stunning short films using the same method. Owen inspires me to consider different ways of designing, most people would re-create the same piece Owen created using vector shapes in illustrator, but using the cut out paper is was really gives his work its charming touch.
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Jullien Brothers London
Jean Jullien, one half of the London based Jullien brothers, is one of my all-time favourite illustrators, and when paired up with his musician and animator brother Nicolas, they create amazing things. Their work consists of brightly coloured [mostly hand made] animations, film sets and installations which have a lovely hand-made quality to them.
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Hattie Newman London
London based Hattie Newman is a prop and installation designer who works mostly using paper and card to create stunningly intricate sculptures which are then photographed to be printed. Similar to Edward Cheverton’s work, there is almost no other way to recreate Hattie’s work without actually building the sculptures, which encourages me to get my hands dirty and building!
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Daniel Frost Manchester
Daniel Frost thrives through the simplicity of his work, both in composition and colour. His work draws inspiration from the strangeness of everyday life, in which he illustrates small worlds and characters. His work makes me consider the effectiveness of simplicity as I often get bogged down in the details of my own work, but Daniel creates beautiful illustrations simply by stripping everything back.
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Mighty Jaxx Singapore
Singapore based studio Mighty Jaxx are on a mission to turn extraordinary ideas into reality. Mighty Jaxx collaborate with internationally renowned artists and designers to create to create interesting, highly collectable art figures (often colourful alien-like characters). I love how they can take an artists vision, and create it into a real 3D object we could hold, as designers we often only think about design as being flat on a page or screen and rarely consider the possibility of 3D.
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The Makerie Studio NYC
New York studio The Makerie Studio are most famous for their advertising work (mostly in fashion) using handmade 3D installations as the setting for the campaign. The compositions are made up from a variety of materials such as cut card/paper, plastic sculptures, and taxidermy (and so on). Like many of the artists spoken about here, this studio inspires me to step away from the computer and experiment with using the physical work in my designs.
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Arushi Kathuria Mumbai
Arushi Kathuria, a Mumbai born and raised illustrator, has become well-known in the graphics and animation world thanks to her MTV idents which feature her unique, brightly coloured, handmade animations, in the quirky style of the MTV brand. Her work inspires me to experiment more with hand rendered animation as I have only used digital animation.
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