Lonely Owl: Visual Research Folder

I have always loved typography and am always interested in different ways that people use type within their practice. One of my favourite books is Hand Job by Micheal Perry, which is a book full of the work of artists who use type within their work, and I always look to this book to see all the different ways in which illustrators are working.

It was in this book that I discovered the work of Ed Brogna. His work is very clean with simple lines and shapes, and he has a great use of colour and space. I would assume that his work is mainly created on Illustrator due to the fluidity of the lines, and how clean it all looks. Although I haven’t used Illustrator before I do appreciate his use of block colour which is something that I have used within this project rather than having scanned backgrounds of patterns. I feel this allows the type to breathe and be appreciated for what is rather than being swamped by a busy background.

Another artist I discovered in Hand Job was Sagemeister. The work featured in the book was AIGA, in which a knife had been used to cut into a human body to create the type. I found his work quite intense but very inspiring as I had never seen anything like this before, and I feel it was very original.

I really like the work of Saul Bass. I love his use of colour and very simple lines, and also he use of negative space, which is something I want to try and use more in my work in the future. He can create really interesting images by just using a few lines and colour, which I think is a really hard thing to do, but he does it perfectly in my opinion.

I’ve been aware of David Carson as an artist who uses a lot of type in his work for quite a few years. I always used to think he work was too boring and simple, but the older I’ve got the more I have come to appreciate what he can create just with a few words. He can create so many different feelings just by the colours he uses and the placement of his type and images, which is why I now find him so inspiring as an artist.