Table of contents for April 2020 in Computer Arts

There’s no editorial theme to this issue, but going through the pages a loose subject presents itself: how different we all are in our approach to projects, clients and careers, even when we’re (pretty much) all united in trying to achieve excellence, success and the respect of our contemporaries. You can see it over on our Discuss article (page 28) where we asked readers, ‘How many ideas should you present to a client?’. The responses were all considered and all varied. One fed back from experience, another aimed to confound the client’s expectations. One approach was strictly templated, while another was fluid, taking the lead from the client. Reading the feature on game-changing moments (page 44) for some of our favourite creatives, it comes up again. It’s a fascinating article…

ILLUSTRATION FOR WE RISE, LA happyloverstown.eu Italian illustrator Jonathan Calugi has created a poster for a LA-based mental health project We Rise. Jonathan was commissioned by project director Yosi Sergant, and was briefed to create an image that represented how the idea of community can help people’s personalities shine through and create solid connections with one another, while also underscoring the overarching themes of mental health awareness. “The problem with reflecting this type of problem is that it doesn’t have a face,” says Jonathan. “Anyone could lose themselves inside their head.” As such, his image takes the form of a full profile of a person’s head, but made up of a number of different figures carefully balanced to create a whole. “The people inside this head are a sort of…

Stephan Hammes Creative director and designer stephanhammes.com “‘Three ideas’ is what I used to do in agencyland with eager account people, to show that the client was getting their money’s worth. Annoyingly, clients often thought they could mix-and-match, so I’ve changed my approach as an independent. The body of my presentations still has three parts, but they’re differently structured: only one concept in response to the brief, but two ideas for the execution – a clear recommendation and a strong alternative. One should be able to agree on the solution first and give the client then a binary choice of the implementation. If you can’t agree on the concept you either misunderstood the brief or the client didn’t mean what they briefed. So you don’t need to discuss the execution.…

For those born near or after the millennium, it might be hard to imagine, but in the 1980s and 1990s the excitement of buying music was often as much about the artwork as the songs themselves. And album covers of the era still evoke a strong emotional response in many older fans. Some of the most beloved record art of that time was produced by British designer Vaughan Oliver, who worked for the cult label 4AD across two decades, crafting a distinctive visual aesthetic for bands like The Pixies, Cocteau Twins, The Breeders and This Mortal Coil. His work was inspired, among other things, by the surrealism of Salvador Dali, punk’s cut-and-paste approach, and religious and sexual iconography. Deliberately chaotic and confusing, these collage-based creations summoned an air of mystique…

“I can’t deny my excitement, the feeling of creating something so significant to celebrate 20 years” There’s no more pivotal moment in my career than reaching a 20-year milestone in this industry. It all happened so fast. Seriously. Twenty years isn’t that long, considering that you’ve been doing, in some capacity, the same thing your entire life. How everything fell into place over the years was truly natural, from starting out with a weird name called “Serial Cut™” – which came about almost by accident–to asking for help and miraculously getting my first intern. I never really planned my career. The only thing I remember is that I wanted to have my own studio by age 30 (and this came to fruition well before this self-imposed deadline). However, I always…

“The light bulb went off and I realised that I could actually have a career as a creative” There have been two pivotal moments in my career. I had the first in my freshman year of college when my roommate showed me Photoshop and Illustrator for the first time. Up until that point, I had zero clue on what my future career would be. Creativity was always a part of me, but I didn’t think it was possible to make a career out of it. As a first-generation immigrant, my parents painted a picture for me that made it seem like I only had two career choices available in life: become either a doctor or lawyer. Both sounded like terrible choices that didn’t fit my personality. I started learning the…

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Emily Gosling’s fascinating article on the relationship between sleep and creativity gave us plenty of scope for a very different kind of cover treatment this month. Yet as is so often the way, plenty of false trails were followed before we found an execution that we all liked. In fact, it’s fair to say that the art department found themselves entangled in a nightmare of sub-Jungian psychobabble, ricochetting between REM flow patterns, narcoleptic-inducing ‘sleep’ metaphors and downright baffling tarrot-card symbolism before arriving at the decidedly meditative cover you hold in your hands. The key that turned in the lock? A fond recollection of Studio Mut’s branding for the city of Trieste’s summer festival, covered back in issue 290’s Studio Profile. The radical minimalism of these posters encouraged us to try…

wearecollins.com US agency Collins created the campaign for San Francisco’s Exploratorium museum’s exhibition Self, Made. The show explored the idea of identity and Collins, which has worked in an ongoing capacity with the Exploratorium, created a campaign inspired by “the complex confluence of unseen forces [such as experiences, emotions, environments, DNA, teachers, music] that combine to create the self,” says the agency. It developed a collaged series of portraits: “A visual metaphor for the idea that identity is never fixed, but an ever-changing mash-up of overlapping influences, constantly in flux,” says the agency. Various persona images were created by combining portraiture with elements from different cultures, the natural world and more abstract elements. “We wanted to tackle this complicated subject in a way that was representational without being stereotypical; universal…

Success means different things to different people. Doing work that we love. Making a difference. Financial security. Balancing a career with family. Fame and fortune. All of the above. For many of us, it’s about what career success can bring into our lives that becomes the driving force. Freedom to choose how to live and work, and finding career fulfilment, are arguably key goals for today’s creatives. Yet navigating the path to success isn’t easy. We often don’t appreciate how far we’ve come, let alone understand how we got there. Rising to the challenge of a tricky client brief, pushing your creativity to new heights, taking the freelance leap, starting a business… these are the moments in our career that can make or break us. Throughout life we may also…

“Stagnation is my greatest fear. What keeps me going is the excitement of something new” What defines me the most is persistency. I like to continuously challenge myself, by experimenting and setting up goals and never giving up on them. But when it comes to jobs, I never lasted more than a few months on any of them. I quit my first job after just 10 months. On my second one, after around seven months. On my last job I handed in my notice just a couple of days after the end of my probation period. Don’t get me wrong – I enjoyed working at all those studios. I had some awesome colleagues and I loved the projects that I worked on. It was that the routine was killing me…

“Very few women make it to creative leadership positions; even fewer found their own agencies” The most pivotal moment of my career so far was launching my new creative agency &Walsh. On the launch day I was overwhelmed with emotion: elation that it was finally happening after a lifetime of dreaming of my own studio, exhaustion from the non-stop work that brought me to that point, and an anxiety about what would come next. I was also overwhelmed with gratitude for the privileged position I found myself in. Very few women make it to creative leadership positions and even fewer found their own creative agencies. The lack of representation in leadership and the pay gap for women and non-binary people has been a focus of mine through our non-profit initiative…

KATI FORNER DESIGN Founded in 2015, Kati Forner Design is a creative studio that specialises in branding, print collateral, packaging and interactive design. Based in Los Angeles, it believes design has the power to tell stories, deepen engagement, transform brands and grow business, and prides itself on the success of its clients. katiforner.com KATI FORNER Kati is an award-winning creative director with experience in a plethora of design disciplines. “I’M LUCKY ENOUGH TO BE AT A PLACE WHERE I ONLY TAKE ON THE PROJECTS THAT RESONATE WITH US” Based in Los Angeles and specialising in branding, print collateral, packaging and interactive design, Kati Forner Design is known for its minimalist, thoughtfully elegant work for beauty, fashion and lifestyle brands. It was founded five years ago by Kati Forner, after she’d…

pendo.ca “In a time when chocolate has been interpreted in all sorts of unusual ways, our client’s objective was to return to simple and pure ingredients with a focus on the art and craft of chocolate-making,” says Peter Ladd, creative director and co-founder of studio Pendo of its work with the dark chocolate range Thomas Haas Blak. The agency was brought in to design the identity and packaging for the brand, which focuses on using simple ingredients and bold flavours through its “super premium line” of bars, truffles and cakes. “To align the brand with the product vision, the same convictions were applied,” says Peter. The designs use the geometric sans-serif font Euclid by foundry Swiss Typefaces, which is printed in gold foiling on black soft-touch stock for the packaging.…

Twenty-one per cent of the UK population reported a disability in 2017/18. That’s more than 13 million people. To cater for disabled people, shops on the high-street provide entrances with level access to ensure wheelchair users can enter their buildings. Train stations give announcements both through visual and audio updates on screens and through tannoy systems. Television programmes are broadcast with the option of subtitles and audio descriptions. And yet, whether consciously or not, many websites, print publications, illustrations, blog posts, posters, email campaigns, adverts – even entire typefaces – have been designed in a way that makes them inaccessible to potentially millions of disabled users. I don’t believe that those of us who work in the design industry simply don’t care about disabled people. We all know that placing…

“It made me realise the importance of bringing people together and the impact that can have” Last April I had the opportunity to speak on stage at OFFF Festival in Barcelona, which was a bit of a career dream for me. I remember being on the flight out to Barcelona when imposter syndrome kicked in big time. I was looking at the final line-up of speakers and realised that all these people are headliners in the creative industry. They all had bags of experience, had worked on big and incredible projects and I’m nowhere near that level… who the hell is going to come and listen to me! Fortunately, I managed to fight the imposter syndrome quite quickly and just thought, “Fuck it, just be yourself and enjoy every moment…

“I needed to make a leap and push myself to make more creative work” Back in 2009 the advertising agency Mother offered to host an exhibition of my work in the reception space of its London office. I’d organised exhibitions of my work in ad agencies previously – usually small displays for the creative departments – but this one was much larger in scale. The entrance space was huge: a double-height ceiling and a large open area that felt more like an industrial warehouse than an ad-agency office. I went to look at the space and realised I needed help to put on a good exhibition. It was a great opportunity and I wanted to make a big impression. I spoke to my friend Michael Marriott about collaborating on a…

French graphic designer, illustrator and motion artist Guillaume Castagné – known professionally as Guillaumit – loves a creative challenge. He’s worked on diverse projects for clients including Orange, Sony and the Pompidou Centre, and is more than happy to dive into a subject he knows nothing about, and come out the other side the master of a new medium. Guillaumit’s work can be recognised through his use of geometric shapes, vibrant block colours and humorous characters, which he uses to tell stories that walk the line between poignant and ridiculous. Here he shares insights into his career so far, from creating a new type of carnival to taking on the world as one half of music-design duo Gangpol & Mit. How would you describe your style? I usually work with…

HAZEL P MASON Freelance artist Hazel graduated from the University of Cumbria University with a degree in illustration, and was the winner of our New Talent 2019 cover competition. hazelpmason.co.uk Colour treatment in illustration is a personal affair, and no two illustrations should be treated the same. Colour, if used correctly, can pull some strong visual punches that will take an illustration from bland to bold. I’m going to talk through a few tips and tricks I use regularly and give an insight on how bold colour can be used to create maximum impact in an illustration. COMPLEMENTARY COLOURS These colours are the ones directly opposite each other on the colour wheel – for example, orange and blue. However, using these direct combinations can result in slightly garish and unconsidered…

GET EXPERIENCE FIRST The more experience you can get under your belt before you launch your own studio, the better, says Kati. “I’m happy I started my own studio after a decade of working at studios large and small. Working at these different studio types gave me insight into different processes and structures. I learned what works and doesn’t work for me, then took those learnings to my own studio.” BE PREPARED TO WORK Only launch your own studio if you’re prepared to work, says Kati. “Although running my own studio is more fulfilling than working at a large agency, it’s more than double the work,” she says. “I’m not sure I realised this when I made the leap.” SHOW YOUR WORK IN THE BEST LIGHT Getting your work professionally…