October 29th, 2012 by Mat Dolphin
Here at MDHQ we’re always on the look out for new stuff to inspire us. When we find something we think might inspire others we shove it out to twitter and spread the love to one and all. Recently we came across the work of Timothy J. Reynolds and were instantly captivated by his style and work. Timothy is an exhibit designer and illustrator based in Milwaukee, WI. Born and raised in the south and originally from Winston-Salem, he picked up the random nickname Turnis when he was a kid and it just stuck. He went to school for architecture, worked in a design firm or two, and then his quit his job and sold everything he owned and left. Wow!
We got in touch with Timothy to ask him if he’d be interested in getting involved with our Ten Questions series. He said YES, so check out his replies…
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Posted in Art, Design, Illustration, Ten Questions, Things We Like | No Comments »
August 15th, 2012 by Mat Dolphin
From his home in Norway, Magnus Voll Mathiassen produces some stunning design and illustration work for a wide range of clients. It’s difficult to describe his style, as he brings a completely new and different approach to each project. In 2009 he parted ways with Grandpeople, the studio he co-founded, and set up shop under his own name. Since then his work has effortlessly crossed the boundaries from hard-edged graphic illustrations to experimental typography treatments to loosely sketched drawing styles to abstract, organic watercolour. Always different and always brilliant, he has collaborated with the likes of Nike, Intel, Microsoft, Sony, Varoom Magazine and Adidas as well as a number of personal projects and exhibitions.
We got in touch with Magnus to ask him if he’d be interested in getting involved with our Ten Questions series. He swiftly obliged and here’s what he had to say…
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July 10th, 2012 by Mat Dolphin
It’s been a long time since the last installment in our regular Ten Questions series. Too long. With this in mind, we got in touch with the brilliant Sam Green and asked him if he fancied getting involved.
Thankfully, he was up for it.
Sam is a London-based illustrator who creates stunning, abstract, dreamlike images. Since graduating from Central St. Martins, his work has attracted a client-list which includes 55DSL, Big Chill Festival, Dazed & Confused, The New York Times, Nokia, The Times and Wallpaper* amongst others. We love what he’s doing and can’t wait to see what he’s up to next.
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April 18th, 2012 by Mat Dolphin
Like practically every designer working in the UK in the past 30 years, Creative Review magazine has played a huge role in our development as designers. For many people it’s their first peek into the elusive inner workings of ‘the industry’ and has always been a brilliant source of news, well written opinion and information. This was especially true before the internet changed the way we consume information, but even now, getting hold of a new printed copy is as much of a thrill as it was back when we first discovered it. That’s not to say CR haven’t moved with the times, their blog is a lively platform for debate and one of the best in the business for design news and gossip. Their new iPad app (unveiled this week!) is as stonking as we knew it would be. In our opinion, they’re the best, most useful and most established industry magazine around. Over the last few years, we’ve become friendly with the CR crew and thought it would a good idea to get them involved with our Ten Questions series.
Editor Patrick Burgoyne was kind enough to take the time to give us his answers. Covering a range of topics from bilge tanks to idiotic maths teachers, here’s what he has to say…
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Posted in Design, General, Magazines, Ten Questions, Things We Like | 2 Comments »
March 21st, 2012 by Mat Dolphin
What Jonathan Zawada does is difficult to define as his work blurs the lines between design, art and illustration. The one thing we’re sure of is he’s a uniquely talented guy and we’re big fans of his. Alongside a number of exhibitions showing his personal work, he has been commissioned by clients such as The New York Times, The Type Directors Club, Nike, Sixpack and Commonwealth Stacks.
Based in Los Angeles by way of Sydney, he works in a way which creates wildly varied and always visually stunning results. Effortlessly moving between commercial client work and experimental personal projects, Jonathan seems to approach each piece from a completely different perspective resulting in a body of work which is both amazing to look at and truly original (the latter of which is a rare thing to see these days).
Mr. Zawada kindly agreed to take the hot seat and answer our Ten Questions. Here’s what he had to say…
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February 22nd, 2012 by Mat Dolphin
This is the 25th post in our Ten Questions series and as it’s a bit of a milestone we thought we’d do something special. Since we started the series, we’ve spoken to some of our favourite designers, illustrators, writers, artists and creative directors. This time, after months of talking to her agent and countless emails, we’ve finally managed to pin down a response from a uniquely talented individual who can turn her hand to all of these disciplines and many more. A true visionary and all round creative renaissance woman, ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce Abigail Dixon. Writing, illustrating, art directing and overseeing production of her own independently published books, she has forged a unique, distinctive style that is gaining a huge amount of attention within the creative industries. Expect big things from this one, you heard it here first…
See below for what happened when Abigail was kind enough to take some time out of her day to answer our Ten Questions.
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Posted in Art, Books, Design, Illustration, Ten Questions, Things We Like | 4 Comments »
February 1st, 2012 by Mat Dolphin
Jon Burgerman is a multidisciplinarian artist and illustrator who has created a unique, distinctive style of his own. Often working on a large scale, his loose, colourful creations are instantly recognisable and have graced all manner of client commissions, personal work and solo gallery shows around the world. Alongside drawing on stuff he lectures at a number of universities and produces lots of lovely things for you lucky people to spend your money on in his excellent shop – in need of an laptop sleeve, pillow or pair of socks? Get them all and much, much more at Burgerplex.
Mr. Burgerman kindly agreed to be the first Ten Questions participant of 2012 and we’re very happy to get him involved in the series. Read on for plenty of random ramblings, beautiful doodles and a glimpse inside the mans mind – it’s an interesting place to be.
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November 24th, 2011 by Mat Dolphin
Born and based in Illinois, Chad Wys is a ‘visual conceptual artist, designer and writer’. His work covers a number of mediums including digital manipulation, painting, sculpture and mixed media, and his interest is largely focused around the deconstruction and appropriation of pre-existing images and objects. His work explores ways of finding a new meaning within the art he finds by altering and playing with what’s already there. After coming across his work on sites such as Ffffound and Behance, we got in touch with Chad to see if he’d be interested in answering our Ten Questions. Luckily for us, he was.
Read on for an insight into the thought process, concepts and inspirations that go into Chad’s work.
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November 17th, 2011 by Mat Dolphin
Simon Birch is and artist based in Hong Kong. Working mainly in large-scale, figurative oil paintings, his recent direction has included installation and film. Past exhibitions have been held throughout the world including at London’s Haunch of Venison Gallery and Tokyo Museum of Contemporary Art. With more recent shows in Hong Kong, such as ‘Laughing With A Mouth Full Of Blood’ and a large-scale collaborative exhibition entitled Hope & Glory. Filling the 20,000 square feet of ArtisTree Exhibition Space in Beijing’s Taikoo Place, the installation took the viewer through a metaphysical world, or ‘conceptual circus’ and saw Birch working alongside a broad range of collaborators including artist Stanley Wong, photographer Wing Shya, British music producer James Lavelle, filmmaker Eric Hu, designer Douglas Young, architect Paul Kember, actor Daniel Wu and Beijing-based artist Cang Xin. Birch’s work explores the concept of ‘universal ideas of transition, the ambiguous moment between an initiation and a conclusion, the unobtainable now and the future, inevitably crashing towards us’.
His work has been featured and reviewed in many international publications, including Artforum, The Guardian, The International Herald Tribune, Time Out and the New York Times. He was kind enough to take some time out and get involved with our Ten Questions series.
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Posted in Art, Exhibition, General, Ten Questions, Things We Like | 4 Comments »
September 20th, 2011 by Mat Dolphin
In 1991, after being told by his tutors at Chelsea College of Art and Design that he ‘wasn’t good enough’ to become an artist, John Dowling realised he needed a change of direction. When someone encouraged him to pursue Graphic Design, he went for it although does admit to not knowing exactly what it was at the time. In the years since then he’s learnt in no uncertain terms what it means to be a graphic designer and has honed his skills at some of the most prestigious agencies around.
Starting his employment at the now defunct Area (a studio established by two former designers from Peter Saville Associates) John went on to stints at the almighty Pentagram, SEA and Frost before setting up Dowling Duncan alongside his former Pentagram colleague Rob Duncan. They’ve used their wealth of experience to produce a great body of work for clients such as AIGA, Apple, The British Museum, Google, John Lewis, Microsoft, The Serpentine Gallery… This list goes on.
John kindly agreed to get involved with our regular Ten Questions series. Here’s what he had to say…
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Posted in Branding & Identity, Design, Design Agencies, Exhibition, Ten Questions, Things We Like | 1 Comment »
September 14th, 2011 by Mat Dolphin
A retreat to Japan in an attempt to escape London for a while was the starting point for John Paul Thurlow’s best known work. Whilst drawing the contents of his room he came across a travel sized copy of British Elle and recreated the cover as a pencil drawing (amending the title to read ‘Hell’ as an expression of his mood). From that point on John Paul has made it his mission to ‘recreate cover art for every great magazine and record’ he owns. The meticulously intricate drawings are far from perfect reproductions – they are filled with his own additional scrawlings, notes, thoughts, feelings and scribbles to make them a one of a kind piece of art based on a mass produced piece of media.
John Paul was kind enough to take the time out to answer our Ten Questions.
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August 17th, 2011 by Mat Dolphin
We noticed the other day that our Ten Questions series has had a rather severe shortage of photographers. While the majority of focus on the blog has been on graphic design, our influences and inspirations come from far and wide. Photography is one of those areas and we plan to showcase plenty more of it on the blog in the future. Will Robson-Scott is a photographer who came to my attention some time ago with his series showing the London grime movement. Shining a light on the more outsider or marginalised subcultures has become a bit of a theme in his work, the most recent example of this being his Ego Bombing series, showing graffiti writers going about their business in and around London. The series eventually became the basis for Crack and Shine, a book produced in collaboration with publisher Fred Forsyth, TopSafe and Vans. The success of Crack and Shine enabled the collaboration to continue in the shape of Crack and Shine International, where Robson-Scott travelled to various major cities around the world to document some of the most well known graffiti writers in their natural habitat.
Will was kind enough to take some time to answer our Ten Questions.
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August 10th, 2011 by Mat Dolphin
We first became aware of the work of Liam Brazier through the image bookmarking site Ffffound. His illustrations of Star Wars characters and superheroes in a distinctive, skewed style caught our attention = simple, stylish and refreshingly original. We checked out his portfolio and saw a wide range of varying styles and techniques in both static and moving image for clients such as Dazed & Confused, Creative Review, Design Week, Glastonbury, the Museum of London and Virgin TV. So, we thought we’d get in touch to see if Liam would be interested in answering our Ten Questions. He kindly obliged and gave us the following insight into the life of an illustrator – although please, don’t call him that.
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Posted in Exhibition, General, Illustration, Ten Questions, Things We Like | No Comments »
June 9th, 2011 by Mat Dolphin
Seeing the logo you designed emblazoned down the side of a 747? The commemorative stamps you designed becoming collectors items? Garnering every award going whilst picking up a host of new clients along the way? These are the kind of things most designers would eat their own MacBook to have acheived. Johnson Banks are an agency that has ticked the above, and much more, off their to-do list. Virgin Atlantic, The Royal Mail, The BFI, Blackpool Pleasure Beach, Yell.com, More Th>n and countless other companies, government organisations, universities and charities have been queueing up for re-brands and design work from them. At the helm of the operation is Michael Johnson. Amazing designer, guitar obsessive, brilliant writer, regular contributor to Creative Review & Design Week and very down to earth, nice guy.
His excellent Thought For The Week Blog is also a must read for anyone with a passing interest in what happens behind the scenes in one of the UKs most respected agencies. Michael kindly agreed to take time out answer our Ten Questions.
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Posted in Advertising, Branding & Identity, Design, Design Agencies, Logo Design, Ten Questions, Things We Like | No Comments »
April 28th, 2011 by Mat Dolphin
Brighton-based designer Kyle Bean is two things: 1. A conceptual, passionate and dedicated creative who has made a name for himself with thoughtful and beautifully crafted work for a number of high profile clients. 2. A really nice, down to earth bloke.
Since graduating from Brighton University in 2009 Kyle has gone on to complete freelance projects for Wallpaper*, The Financial Times, New York Times Magazine, Selfridges, Liberty, Diesel and Hermes. Whilst his work covers a range of disciplines and styles, his most recognisable projects involve 3D objects crafted from paper, cardboard, wood and… eggshells. With a great body of client work and personal projects under his belt, we thought we’d ask Kyle to answer our Ten Questions.
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April 21st, 2011 by Mat Dolphin
For the latest installment of our Ten Questions series we got in touch with Cornwall based Ben The Illustrator. For over a decade Ben’s unique views of the world have been wrapped around cars, stretched along shop walls, solved problems, covered magazines, advertised fruit juice, satisfied clients, accompanied orchestras, adorned underwear and welcomed you at airports. Having worked with the likes of BBC, Cadbury’s, Girl Scouts of USA, Michelin, Honda and Land Rover amongst others, Ben has helped make the world look a better place. He likes to keep busy too. If you haven’t already seen he’s dreamt up a new way to market himself with bensseasonalbillboard.com, and recently oragnised www.therenmenproject.co.uk.
Ben kindly took time out of his busy day to answer our Ten Questions.
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Posted in Illustration, Ten Questions, Things We Like | No Comments »
March 29th, 2011 by Mat Dolphin
Shoreditch based design and branding agency SomeOne are passionate about what they do. A quick nose around their brand new (pardon the pun) website is proof that they actually care deeply about their work. ‘Launching, re-launching and protecting brands’ is at the heart of their work and they’ve been doing plenty of it. Along with sterling work for Sky Sports, O2, Betfair and New Look, SomeOne have re-created the iconic crest for The Royal Opera House, designed the sports pictograms for the London 2012 Olympics and most recently, created new branding for Eurostar. A huge project which covered practilcally everything including the advertising, print work, pictograms, moving image, a new typeface, signage – even a series of 3D sculptures!
Suffice to say, they know what they’re doing. Simon Manchipp is the creative director and co-founder of SomeOne – he was generous enough to take the time out to get involved in our Ten Questions series.
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Posted in Advertising, Branding & Identity, Design, Design Agencies, Logo Design, Ten Questions, Typography | 2 Comments »
March 16th, 2011 by Mat Dolphin
An Aberdeenshire fish farm is not necessarily the typical breeding ground you’d expect for developing young creative talent, but the flora and fauna surrounding Johanna Basford in her early years had a lasting impact on her work. Her intricate and beautiful illustration style is organic and free-flowing, and she uses the highly futuristic medium of pen and paper — with Photoshop coming to the rescue to remove any tea stains. We’re big fans of her work and it seems we’re not alone — clients such as DKNY, Channel 4, H&M, Creative Review, Heals, The Tate Modern, The Body Shop and Johnson & Johnson have formed an orderly queue to commission her work. And no doubt you know already know about her love affair with Starbucks?
Johanna put the fineliner down for two minutes to answer our Ten Questions.
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Posted in Illustration, Ten Questions, Things We Like, Typography | 9 Comments »
February 22nd, 2011 by Mat Dolphin
For the latest installment of our Ten Questions series we got in touch with Barcelona based Alex Trochut. An illustrator and designer who’s elaborate ‘more is more’ style has gained him a huge amount of attention and a great client list. Having worked with the likes of Adidas, MTV, Coca-Cola, British Airways, The Guardian, Converse and Nike amongst others, Alex has created a look of his own, fusing beautiful typography with fluid, intricate illustrations. His work has gained him a great reputation in the design industry and a number of imitators have emerged in his wake – none of whom can keep up with his constantly evolving style. With numerous personal projects and a recent foray into collaborative 3D sculptural work, Alex certainly keeps himself busy.
He was generous enough to take some time out to tackle our questions. See below to read what he had to say and check out some of his work.
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Posted in Design, Illustration, Ten Questions, Typography | No Comments »
January 25th, 2011 by Mat Dolphin
Believe in™ is an Exeter based design and art direction studio. Since the studio was established in 1996, they’ve created some beautiful identities, branding, print, digital work, illustration packaging and art direction. The creative brain behind the operation is Blair Thomson – self proclaimed ‘Design obsessive. Rock bloke. Food freak. Creative Director…’
As well as the above, Blair is very nice bloke and agreed to take time out to take the hot seat and
answer our Ten Questions.
Keep reading…
Posted in Branding & Identity, Design Agencies, General, Ten Questions | 8 Comments »