Create

a magazine for creatives

Featured Photographer Mary Claire Stewart The art of double exposures and travel photography.

FEATURED ART: Ariele Alasko -woodworkHot type of 2015 Top Web Design trends thus far Top selling art of 2016

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the

MAG

About

Create is a magazine created by creatives, for creatives.

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We are a monthly magazine dedicated to the arts of Photography, Graphic Design, Web Design, and Studio Art. We have news, trends, resources, tips, and much, much more.

We strive to provide a variety of opinions and art. We will not sway towards one trend and away from another. We have a variety of readers so we will give a variety of viewpoints.

S T N E T

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PHOTOGRAPHY p. 4 // Featured Photographer p. 6 // News:: Taking Picture with our eyes! p. 7 // Trending

GRAPHIC DESIGN p. 8 // Featured Designer p. 10 // Hot Type

WEB DESIGN

FEATURED ARTIST Ariele Alasko

woodworker // p.12

p. 16 // Featured Designer p. 18 // Web Trends p. 19 // News

STUDIO ART p.20 // Featured Artist p. 22 // Top Selling Art of 2015

FEATURED PHOTOGRAPHER

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Mary Claire Stewart Mary Claire Stewart is the owner of Mary Claire Photo + Video, LLC. She is an Atlanta-based photographer and videographer.

Mary Claire a visual storyteller; she captures moments.

She loves sunsests, warm weather, kitties, coffee shops & deep conversations, early morning runs, and golden afternoon light.

We will be showing some travel photos from her trip to Israel, as well as some of her best double exposures.

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S W E N

D E R E G G I R T K N I L B A S A! T R N E E M T A A C P S G N N E U L S T M C A A S CONT Source: PetaPixel

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e’re getting closer to being able to take pictures with cameras built directly into contact lenses.

Samsung has been granted a patent in South Korea for a smart contact lens that projects images directly into the wearer’s eyeball… and which has a built-in camera that’s controlled by blinking.

SamMobile reports that the patent filing comes on the heels of a new “Gear Blink” trademark application that was filed by Samsung in both South Korea and the United States. It’s currently unknown whether these trademark and patent filings refer to the same thing.

The new patent application shows that Samsung has been developing a contact lens with a tiny display, a camera, an antenna, and several sensors. It needs to be paired with an external device (e.g. a smartphone) for processing the content.

Samsung says the smart contact lenses can provide better image quality than off-eye solutions such as Google Glass. Like Google Glass, however, these contact lenses will undoubtedly come under intense scrutiny over its privacy eroding implications — they’re essentially hard-to-detect cameras that can be taken and used anywhere a person goes and on anything a person can see.

Samsung isn’t alone in this endeavor: Google also patented smart contact lenses with built-in cameras back in April 2014. Also, Samsung has been apparently winding down its standalone camera business around the world, so perhaps the company is focusing instead on pioneering entirely new ways to take pictures.

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hotography and design go hand-inhand. Designers often double as photographers, and it’s vital to have a good eye for photography when incorporating it into design work. Who better to consult about what’s new in the world of photography than someone who sees the latest stock photography every day? I spoke with Stocksy CEO and co-founder Brianna Wettlaufer about the current state of photography. Here, she shares photography trends she’s seen so far in 2016, as well as what we can expect for the rest of the year and beyond.

What new photography trends are you seeing so far in 2016?

As we all continue absorbing amazing photography in our everyday lives through social media, this awareness continues to drive sophistication and understanding of what makes an amazing photograph. We’re moving away from the tired compositions of muted adventure photography in exchange for moments that bring deeper connection with community, genuine people, use of color (or balanced color palettes and intriguing pastels) and a resurgence of film.

What older trends are still going strong?

Light as an artistic element continues to be experimented with and get our attention with geometric shadows, sun rays, and triangles or cascading lines from a window blind. We expected to reach tired states with double exposures, and the overdone gimmick of silhouettes paired with landscapes, but there’s more to it, like layering colors and light leak effects.

What did you see a lot of last year that has faded since then?

We’re over a few trends: pictures from behind of people’s backs in front of landscapes, honey being drizzled on food, wood plank backgrounds and we’d be happy to take a little hiatus from smoke bombs.

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FEATURED DESIGNER

SEAN

PieHvb Foodtruck

P

ieHvb is a fictional restaurant & foodtruck started by two former astronauts who had a mirage while on the moon that they saw a pie off in the distance. PieHvb’s main point of sale is their hand-pies made “for the wonderers and wanderers” as well as a variety of their seasoning mixes which can be used for baking by those who are adventurous enough to make their own pies.

PieHvb is stark, sleek, refined, and unique. It’s branding is heavily inspired by geometry, space, crystals, and a sense of curiosity. PieHvb offers an exquisite experience to eat gourmet food with a twist, based on its own interpretation of select dishes. It is higher-end than most fast food establishments but not unafforaable, which can be seen throughout the packaging design.

Almost every aspect of the packaging is centered around the unique shape/form of the pies. Through extensive user testing and revisions, we found that it made sense to design a custom dieline for the take-out bags that would be a hybrid of a McDonalds paper bag, a slim burrito bag, and a more high-end fashion clothing store bag. The scored edges on the final dieline make it easy to hold, easy to pop open, and easy to shut closed. The seasoning mix packaging is also heavily influenced by the form of the hand-pies. It implements a perforated tear opening on the top to help further echo the form's shape, as well as a flattened base if it is going to be sold on a shelf rather than on hung on a rack. Both packaging solutions have a sense of weightlessness through their verticality and tapered edges that compliment the imagery that is paired with them throughout the branding system.

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O’CONNOR

Sean is a graphic designer & typographer with a focus in lettering and branding. He enjoys making cool things and working with his hands. He also likes dogs, Mexican food, and snowboarding, in no particular order.

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ranch Line Restaurant is a neighborhood rotisserie & wood fire grill located inside the

historic Arsenal on the Charles. Referencing it’s historic military building and the savory culinary

experience it offers, Branch Line adds a touch of gourmet sophistication through its signature chicken cooked in a Rotisol rotisserie from France and royalty-inspired menus and identity system.

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1. PANTON In a short timespan, Bulgaria’s Fontfabric has grown from a one-man effort into a productive group venture. Their popular success has been impressive this past year, with Panton their most successful new design. The burly sans-serif explores no less than FIVE well-known typographic phenomena within one typeface: The squarish sans basic shape with straight sides, plus the lack of spurs where curves meet stems, plus rounded corners, plus exaggerated ink traps in fat uppercase characters (like M and N in MAGNETIC, above) plus a huge collection of icons. An eclectic yet happy exercise, resulting in a large family characterized by broad usability and excellent performance in print and web design.

2. MIRADOR Since he joined MyFonts in 2012, Berlin-based designer René Bieder has made our list of the year’s favorite fonts every single year — this is his fourth time in a row. It’s all the more remarkable because with Mirador he left his comfort zone of sturdy, low-contrast grotesques and slabs to make something more unusual and mature. His novel choice of genre — a highly contrasted serif family — resulted in a classy typeface of lavishly wide proportions. Suited for headlines as well as short body text, this new family was the year’s most successful of its kind. Its “Latin” (i.e. triangular) serifs make for a striking impression, especially in the heavier styles — the wedge shape is repeated in other details like the ear on the ‘g’ and the terminal on the ‘y’ — in this regard, Mirador might pass as an unrestrained descendant of Aldo Novarese’s ITC Fenice™ type family. Ten finely graded weights plus tasty italics with cursive forms encourage a wide range of applications. Get your hands on the free Demo version and test-drive two weights (with a reduced character set).

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he year has also been quite remarkable for new fonts. Here is our yearly overview of most popular releases. As usual we have waited until the very last moment to put the finishing touches to this list, giving the faces released during the last months of the year a fair chance to make the cut. Unlike most other Best-of-the-Year lists, this one is based on sales. Not simply the total sales volume across the year, as that would give the oldest font families an unfair advantage. We’ve looked at average sales over the year and during the successful introduction period; we made sure popular genres are fairly represented; we included no more than one font family from each foundry.

There you go: a type hit parade like no other. Thanks for helping us put it together.

3.. INDIE Indie from Lián Types was one of 2015’s most original script families. Based on a well-known pointed-brush style, it offers some features that few scripts have. To designer Maximiliano Sproviero — a long-time fan of sign painting and hand lettering — brush scripts have become the epitome of urban hipster culture, representing the cult of the Now. He created Indie from his own hand-lettering. Besides its basic style, Indie offers a couple more versions to create sophisticated headlines and logos: Indie Shade and Indie Inline are stand-alone variations, while Indie Shade Solo offers the possibility to create shadow effects in a second color. All share the exact same glyph sets and metrics for carefree layering. For a more casual look, activate the contextual and the decorative ligatures. A very fine toolkit indeed.

4. SANT’ELIA SCRIPT Many foundries today present a “clean” version of a family or type suite, then revisit their design a few months later making 1. PANTON a textured version. Designer Ryan Martinson of Yellow Design Studio did it differently this time: he launched his complete Sant’Elia Script family in one big bang, offering a huge family of clean and weathered varieties at a remarkably low price.

He produced his robust and modern script in six weights, from Line (hairline) to Black, then gave each weight the “rough” treatment at which he is a master — offering three different distress levels that can be mixed for customization. An alternate version with more contrast and angled strokes was added for some nervous energy. The family has quite a collection of OpenType features, including a set of swash forms and alternates, ligatures, old style numerals, and more. The result is a 44-style family that allows for a high degree of stylistic control. Try Sant’Elia Rough Line, Line Two and Line Three for free!

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riele Alasko is a full-time woodworker and sculptor living in Brooklyn, NY. Originally from California, she attended Pratt institute in BK and has a BFA in sculpture. Ariele started working with wood and building furniture for her own apartment shortly after she graduated in 2009, and it swiftly grew from a fun hobby taking place in her small living room, to a full time job in her 900 sq ft studio.

After she graduated, she worked for a few artists and began piecing together basic furniture to use in her own home, using mostly hand tools. Everything she made was constructed from trial and error, figuring it out on her own. In 2011 she had the opportunity to design and build the restaurant il vecchio in California, which took her seven months of intense, hands-on labor and construction (this was the beginning of her blog). The restaurant build-out started with a ten day, cross country road trip in a sixteen foot U-haul, collecting materials along the way. It was in CA that she first began to use patterns to construct table tops, building over thirty tables with different intricate designs. When she returned to Brooklyn she continued building tables in her home, five feet away from her couch in a small and confined area of her apartment.

In 2012, she began getting commissions, and decided it was time to finally rent a studio. She worked in her Brooklyn studio for 3 years, and then rented a huge warehouse space in Queens where she now uses approx 900 sq ft of it as her own working space.

A few years ago she discovered a great love for carving spoons, and now spends most of her time carving away in walnut, sycamore, cherry, maple, etc.

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ARIELE ALASKO

For her large patterned work, her material of choice is plaster lath, small strips of wood that come from the old walls of hundred-year-old buildings here in Brooklyn. Fairly available due to the constant gutting of these old brownstones, she collects the materials, cleans it, and uses the woods natural coloration and patina to create intricate patterns in her work, without the use of any stains. Each piece takes days or even weeks to complete, as every strip of wood is cut individually to attain a perfect fit, making sure the resulting panel or table top is level, smooth, and without any gaps.

If you have any inclination toward working with your hands, getting a bit dirty, making order out of chaos, your gut reaction to seeing Ariele Alasko’s work might be one of regret that you didn’t think of it first. Just as soon as this envy creeps in, however, the feeling dissipates into genuine admiration for the thoughtful creations that Ariele crafts with her own two hands, guided by her distinct design aesthetics and the considered desires of her clients. Ariele lives in Brooklyn, New York, where she fills her days with sawdust, making beautiful, practical things out of wood—from cheeseboards to tables to complex wall hangings.

After only a few years of making objects of nature, Ariele’s style has become easily identifiable, since her handiwork is largely distinguished by geometric patterns fashioned out of lath—and for those who aren’t familiar with timber terms, imagine long, thin strips of wood in varying shades, much like what is used to make a lattice. The use of this humble material reflects the humility with which Ariele fashions these meticulous pieces, making things—not for her own pride and glory—but to be used, celebrated upon and shared by their fortunate owners.

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You’ve mentioned in the past that your favorite thing to make is your lath tables, because it means that you’re “building something that people gather around, celebrate on and are constantly using.” How do you see your work as being an integral part of bringing people together?

When I was studying sculpture in college, I was constantly having inner battles with the non-functionality of my art. It was perhaps a sign that the match was not made in heaven, sculpture and I, but I continued to struggle with the relationship my entire college career. My mind was always leaning toward making things that would fit in my own home, not in a gallery setting. The moment I pinpointed the problem, I never looked back. It all came down to function. I was happiest the day I built a standing cabinet for my kitchen and filled it with things that needed somewhere to go. My answer—that cabinet hinted at—was furniture.

And furniture could still be sculpture. It didn’t all fall into place as quickly as that, but that was one moment when I realized that I wanted to build things that people will use and everybody needs. When I build furniture for people, tables specifically, I can picture the breakfasts, the dinners, the gatherings they will have around this piece. Most often, a new table is an immediate excuse for a celebratory party, so even right away the table is already doing its part. I love the idea that people can really love a piece of furniture, and it’s made even better when that person has a hand in the design process. Every table I build is a specific pattern chosen by that person through a series of sketches and correspondences. In building a table for someone, I’m bringing something into their homes and lives that they will use every single day. That, to me, is so rewarding.

What is the significance of being able to eat from, chop food on, work at, sleep under, decorate with, etc. things that you have made yourself? And how much does the anticipated end experience of the piece shape the way you make it?

There’s an inherent pride that goes into living with something you build yourself. It’s in our nature to want to fix, build, beautify and assemble our surroundings. We’ve grown so far away from the time when every item we used, and our homes themselves, were something we had to make. As I build a table, it’s simply a lesser version of building a cabin from the trees I felled with the axe I forged. Even though I have power tools, I still had to go out searching for the wood and drag it back. When I’m surrounded by all the things I’ve made in my home, I feel accomplished. I feel like I went outside the normal routine of purchasing-made-easy, and instead, I foraged for materials and worked hard to create whatever it is I need. Obviously I buy plenty of furniture as well (mostly from junk stores) but even then it’s like a hunt: I go out to the areas where I know I’ll have the best shot of finding something, and sometimes you get it, sometimes you don’t.

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As someone who clearly appreciates handmade things and surrounds yourself with meaningful objects, what is something you truly treasure in your home or studio, and why?

Everything in our house has been found or made, for the most part. Our area of Brooklyn was a crazy place for street finds the first five years we lived here, and I would find some treasure on the street at least once a week, ranging from antique oak desk chairs to vintage metal filing cabinets. There are so many pieces we have found over the years that we love even more because we broke our backs hauling them home 20 blocks.

We really had to work for it. But perhaps my favorite things in the house are the three metal lamps that my boyfriend and I built together. They are adjustable with bolts and nuts, and are built from found metal that we drilled and cut ourselves. I love them because they are a perfect collaboration between the two of us that we don’t often have time for—using his knowledge of kinetics and functionality, and my love for physically putting things together. I’m especially proud of them because each component of the lamps was intended to serve a different purpose before we turned them into lighting, which seems to be a recurring theme in all my work.

Round Prism Wall Panel // $1,250 // This one-of-a-kind wall panel is built without the use of any stains. Each color is found naturally in the plaster lath, and every strip of wood is hand cut to fit perfectly. This pattern is one of the most complicated and time consuming I’ve built, due to the many angles and interior-fitting pieces. It is trimmed in a thick leather, and comes with a hanging bracket on the back. This panel was built using plaster lath that came from a beautiful old house in Buffalo, NY. Measures 24.5” across and 1” thick.

Deep Walnut Serving Spoon // $225 // This large walnut serving spoon features dark, rich tones, with a beautiful light spot in the scoop. Carved with a deep bowl and sturdy handle perfect for all kitchen needs, from cooking to serving. The scoop is carved with a lightly textured inside to enhance the handmade quality made by the carving knife. Carved loop on the handle gives you the option for hanging so your one-of-a-kind spoon can always be on display. Sanded smooth and polished with beeswax and mineral oil. Measures approx. 13” long and just over 3” wide.

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