MONSTER CHILDREN
Monster children is an expansive beast , based on a culture of integrity and style , not money or fame . Where true originals are heavily praised and cash in latecomers are openly scorned. It’s the clothes ,the music ,the art, the attitude, the humour and the way of life those pioneers created and millions adopted . Because where would our generation be without people like spike jonze , Terry Richards , Gonz, Jason Lee or The Beastie Boys ? What are we ultimately looking for within the magazines pages is passion , truth ,the stripping away of bullshit and genuine uniqueness and individual qualities that lie within us all. Were romantic yet cinical , smart yet unsophisticated , stubborn yet super excitable. We’ve got a lust for life and a lazy ass . Monster children is an alternative magazine that is about trends music skate, surf , snow, movies basically any thing that’s new and exciting they are always changing and keeping there subjects fresh . I really like monster children because they are honest and funny and there subjects are interesting . Monster Childrens contributers consist of Campbell “The dumb half of monster children,responsible for the cutting and pasting within the magazine. Lucy “the glue that attempts to hold the monster children pieces together. Hollywood ,Joseph Allen and Woodward I would recommend that all of you go out and buy a copy of monster children I guarantee you won’t regret it.
Agents Of The Area
http://www.agentsofthearea.com
Andrew Pommier
http://www.andrewpommier.com
Artdump
http://www.theartdump.com
Bendpress
http://www.bendpress.com
Damien Aistrope
http://www.aistrope.com
Deus
http://www.deusexmachina.com.au
Evan Hecox
http://www.evanhecox.com
Eric Elms
http://www.ericadorn.com
Mark Pexna
http://www.markpenxa.com
Matt Irving
http://www.delphicollective.com
Modular
http://www.modularpeople.com
O'Meally
http://www.mikeomeally.com
The Quiet Life
http://www.thequietlife.com
Thomas Campbell
http://www.galaxia-platform.com
Zawada
http://www.zawada.com.au

Guns N Rose, Album cover Appetite for destruction. By Robert William

Guns N Roses: Appetite For Destruction

Cover designer: Robert Williams
Album: Appetite For Destruction
Artist: Guns N Roses
Record Label: Geffen Records

Although this great album has a very simple but iconic cover of the 5 band members skulls placed on a crucifix, it was the bands second option after the first cover proved to be to controversial. The original cover was created by artist and Juxtapoz magazine founder Robert Williams. The artwork titled ‘Appetite for Destruction’ depicted a robot rapist about to be punished by a metal avenger. After MTV refused to play any of their videos the band compromised and moved the offending cover to the inner sleeve. I guess with MTV being the big make or break stepping stone for most bands around the 80’s and early 90’s and especially with Headbangers Ball being one of the most popular shows on MTV during the heyday of Metal and Hard Rock, it could have potentially been career suicide for the band. But for me i still think the second cover is more iconic.

Robert Williams (b. March 2, 1943) is a well-known controversial painter and founder of Juxtapoz Art & Culture Magazine.
Juxtapoz Art & Culture Magazine is a magazine created in 1994 by a group of artists and collectors including Robert Williams , C.R. Stecyk, Greg Escalante and others to both help define and celebrate urban contemporary art....
Williams began as part of the trail-blazing Zap Collective
Zap Comix
A cartoonist is a person who specializes in drawing cartoons. Traditionally much of this work was, and still is, humorous, and is intended primarily for entertainment purposes....
Apocalypticism is a worldview based on the idea that civilization, as we know it, will soon come to a tumultuous end with some sort of global event, usually war....
, and film noir
Film noir

Williams' formal training in the arts began at Los Angeles City College
Los Angeles City College
Los Angeles City College, known as LACC, is a public community college in the Hollywood, Los Angeles, California section of Los Angeles, California....
and culminated at Chouinard Art Institute
Chouinard Art Institute
The Chouinard Art Institute was a professional art school founded in 1921 in Los Angeles, California, by Nelbert Murphy Chouinard .Born in Montevideo, Minnesota, Chouinard studied at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York, and in Munich, Germany....
.
http://sleevage.com/guns-n-roses-appetite-for-destruction/#comments
http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Robert_Williams_%28artist%29

Post2 – Shaun Tan – Australian Illustrator and award winning author

Bulb & Wingnut

Illustrations are for Shaun the main 'texts' in his books. It is a powerful way of expressing of feeling as well as ideas, partly because it is outside of verbal language, emotions can be hard to articulate in words. Words have a remarkable magnetic pull on our attention, and how we interpret images: in their absence, an image can often have more conceptual space around it, and invite a more lingering attention from a reader who might otherwise reach for the nearest convenient caption, and let that rule their imagination

Shaun Tan’s Illustrative books at least at first, seem like dark children’s fantasy, but are often aimed at both younger and older readers and are recognised as ‘highly imaginative’, ‘strikingly and original ’What is original is not the ideas themselves, not an illustration of the text, but something to react with it symbiotically.

The Arrival

The Arrival, a book which deals with the theme of migrant experience is a wordless graphic novel. The absence of any written description also plants the reader firmly in the shoes of an immigrant character. There is no guidance as to how the images might be interpreted, and the reader must search for meaning and seek familiarity in a world where such things are either scarce or concealed.

The Red Tree, which deal with subjects such as whimsy, depression and loneliness,

The Lost Thing has to do with a fable about the problems of adulthood, and the tension between dreams and reality.. The Lost Thing is currently being adapted as an animated short film.

The Red Tree The Lost Thing

The Rabbits, written by John Marsden, It was named Picture Book of the Year by the Children’s Book Council,, and perhaps his most widely circulated and discussed book.

It’s a story we should all be familiar with as an historical narrative, the European invasion of Australia and injustices perpetrated against the indigenous population. More universally, it’s the story of colonisation everywhere, about power, ignorance and environmental destruction.

The Rabbits

Tan’s books have been translated into multiple languages and have received book awards in several countries. Tan is also involved in other interesting projects, including murals, theatre productions and a children’s “Art Trail”

painting by Jeffery Smart The Lost Thing

There are hundreds of artist in the field of the” arts” that influences Shaun but I’ve noticed in particular in The Lost Thing, his parodies of famous paintings by artist like Edward Hopper and Jeffery Smart.

Thing- Parents

http://www.shauntan.net/books.html

Vans shoes keep there graphics funky fresh dishing up new designs almost on a daily basis it seems they are continually reinventing the wheel with there hip designs that cater to most age groups I have selected just some shoes from a vast fields of footwear as you can see the range is massive the colours vast . Some history on Vans footwear . Vans shoes was founded by Paul Van Doren with a simple idea to make shoes and sell them to the public with out a middle man. The first Vans old skool shoes had a diamond pattern in the sole across the entire bottom of the shoe. Vertical lines were then added later to make it stronger, a design which is now vans proprietary waffle sole. In 1976, skateboarders and skaters began wearing Vans shoes and asked to have different colors combined on them. In march 19, 1976, Vans came out with the first Era in red and blue vans authentic shoe. This shoe was designed by two professional skaters, Tony Alva and Stacy Peralta. That craze spread across the nation when Jeff Spicoli, a California surfer dude in the hit movie "Fast Times at Ridgemont High", wore a pair of Vans checkerboard slip ons. The Vans footwear collection now features over 60 styles ranging from classic deck shoes and slip-ons to high performance skateboard shoes, snowboard boots and sandals. They are distributed through over 190 company-owned retail stores and outlets as well as through a nationwide network of independent shoe, sporting goods and apparel stores.Vans continue to keep there designs fresh and in tune with trends.Ireally like Vans and like what they do with footwear they seem to stick clear of norms and break new ground so I solute them

KAMA SUTRA

http://www.kamasutra.com/

http://books.google.com.au/books?id=ftGdOPPHyOwC&pg=PA6&lpg=PA6&dq=designing+identity+kama+sutra&source=bl&ots=fonRH6dCts&sig=j75Ns2-K7D_5XIB5IxJinRhgy5E&hl=en&ei=11l6St_iJNmZkQWzg63_Ag&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2#v=onepage&q=&f=false

DESIGN IDENTITY – Graphic design as a business strategy, by Marc English

Inspired by the classic fourth century Indian text of lovemaking, The Kama Sutra Company offers a full line of products to nurture affection and intimacy. Their very first product, Kama Sutra’s Oil of Love, was created to bring people together and since that time, Kama Sutra has carefully extended this idea to an array of products.

Inspired by "The Kama Sutra", the most renowned book on the art of making love, The Kama Sutra Company has created products for over thirty five years that have initiated millions of lovers into the art of Making love Better.

When we started our company over thirty years ago in the midst of the turbulent 1960's, the youth of America was challenging 'the establishment' at every level on fundamental issues of government, society and relationships. It was the decade of flower power, free love and student protest. While the inspiration for our company's name came from the 4th century Indian text on lovemaking - the Kama Sutra of Vatsayayana - our purpose was thoroughly modern. Our very first product, Kama Sutra's Oil of Love, was created to bring people together and help heal the wounds that were tearing our world apart.

The original 1960s packaging with black and white nude photos, proved a bit 2 risqué for some distributors and retail outlets. An effort to move their identity upscale resulted in a rather sterile black and red packaging.

Kama Sutra’s president a former art student recognized the value the proper aesthetic would add-if they could interest a high-end sales representatives in carrying his line, this would open new distribution avenues in department stores, specialty gift shops, and boutiques. A twenty-year struggle would be ended.

Earlier identities became dated quickly, looking too much like the time period when designed. Chase pointedly drew inspiration from classic Indo-Persian art fro the logo. The cartouche refers to the lotus blossom symbol of compassion, art, fertility, knowledge and spirituality: lettering takes on the attributes of Sanskrit letterforms.

Client
Kama Sutra Company

Client Contact
Joe Bolstad, President

Design Firm
Margo Chase Design

Art Director
Margo Chase

Designers
Wendy Ferris Emery, Margo Chase, Anne Burdick

Illustrator
Jacquelyn Tough

Copywriter
Nina Dillon

Post 2 - Bob Staake, Illustrator. - Robyn Rand

The work of Bob Staake is simple, elegant, modern, crisp, precise and intense.

He creates complex combinations out of combining basic shapes such as rectangles and ellipses which he then refines into final illustrations. His work shows an intense use of graphic design principles and computer enhanced vector images, using shapes, blends, positive and negative space, highlights and shading.
The illustrations look simple enough to hold the attention of toddlers, and complicated enough to please the most sophisticated of adult viewers. His work is everywhere and has been for years, with images appearing in books, magazines, animations, greeting cards, advertising, newspapers, cereal boxes to CD-Rom games. One of his books, "The Red Lemon" - http://www.bobstaake.com/redlemon/ - has been named one of the 10 best illustrated books of 2006. Overall he has been author and illustrator of more then 42 books.

Some of the influences in his style are: A.M. Cassandre, Alex Steinweiss, J.P. Miller, Paul Rand, Herbert Leupin and Mary Blair. Of course there are more which are listed on his web site but these are the ones of which I could recognize the direct influence. He uses a canny combination of Russian Constructivism and Pop art, both of which I am a fan, and think they contain a strong element of design and placement as well as a lot of energy.

I chose to look, in particular, at a cover that he worked on for 'The New Yorker' titled 'Reflection' commemorating Barack Obama's election. This cover was chosen by Time as number 1 in their list of top 10 magazine covers of 2008. This is a little different to his usual style, beautifully rendered and stunning in his use of colour and placement like the others, but appears to be more realistic and representational. The black of the night representing the time when people are sleeping safe and sound in their homes, the eternal hope represented by the stars and the serenity and peace represented by the still and reflective water. It seems to say "everything's ok now".

Please use the link to check out his website, there is a lot of amazing pics, helpful links and he is more then happy to have a chat with any design student by email or on twitter.

http://www.bobstaake.com/

As one of my examples of similar work I have chosen A.M. Cassandre (the one that designed the Peignot and the Cassandre typeface, among others) as someone else who's work is similar, it is very similar but not so crisp and intense as Staakes. Cassandre's work is incredibly striking in it's clarity and individualism, he started designing in the 20's and stopped in the 60's, he worked mostly with posters.

The second person I chose is Herve Morvan (not Harvey Norman) seems to have been working in design and illustration in the early 1930's to the 1970's. His work is absolutely bright, colourful, positive, clear, sophisticated and timeless. It's the kind of work I just can't stop looking at.

Post 2. Repackaging - Ian Macleod Distillers - Chris Nowlan

Repackaging

Ian Macleod Distillers

Problem

Whisky volume sales are falling, due in large part to the diminishing appeal of the dominant blended Scotch category and a failure to attract younger drinkers.

Response

In order to attract a new generation to whisky drinking, Ian Macleod Distillers worked with design group Navyblue to create Smokehead, a new product with contemporary, bold packaging that would stand out from traditional whisky branding.

Result

Since its launch in 2006, Smokehead has gained worldwide distribution contracts and sales of the product have doubled from year one to year three.

Most of the other companies feature traditional packaging and labelling, using designs such as ‘heraldic’ crests and seals and hand-drawn Scottish scenes, with a big emphasis on product heritage and provenance. But the managing director Leonard Russell and commercial director Iain Weir realised that they needed to speak a different language to appeal to a younger audience. ‘You can argue that there’s an innate conservatism in the whisky market and we wanted to do something for more modern drinkers,’ says Weir. Taking the product premise and the Smokehead name, the designers created a whole brand identity for the whisky, giving it a style which simultaneously breaks the mould of whisky packaging, whilst retaining cues to heritage and provenance. While Smokehead’s styling is clearly contemporary, the designers used a traditional wooden block letterpress to create the packaging’s typography.

Other Examples

Unpackaged, an organic local grocery store in North London, used design to help its local customers to be more environmentally friendly by using less wasteful packaging when they buy their supplies.

Bibliography

http://www.designcouncil.org.uk/en/Case-Studies/All-Case-Studies/Ian-Macleod-Distillers/