From paper sculpture, detailed draughtsmanship, papercut, and plasticine modelling, they have been keeping it exciting with a spectrum of different ideas, we can’t wait to see what they have in store for us next. They tell us more about their studio and the project, and give us a glimpse of the backstage process.

The studio began in 1998 in Verona, the romantic city of Romeo and Juliet. In recent years we have worked with both large and small clients, for local agencies and major international companies.

Our approach to design is always the same: designing a logo, an advertising page, a wall or directing a commercial offers the same opportunity to deal with a problem. With time we have become quite good at solving problems. 

Mixing complexity, order and fatigue is our formula for beauty. Always, in addition to the commissioned work, we spend plenty of energy in research and testing. Visual art, typography, graphic design, illustration, animation, film direction and music. We like contamination between creative disciplines and diversity in general.

We don’t like to do the same thing twice and prefer to go beyond what we are already able to do. It is tiring but satisfying. 

We started collaborating with IL – Intelligence In Lifestile Magazine, supplement of Il Sole 24 Ore. Under the creative direction of Mr. Francesco Franchi, each month we develop the title typography for the brand new column “Remo Contro” written by the italian philosopher Remo Bodei. 

© Happycentro, 2012

By applying, cutting away, and using negative space, he produces large murals on walls and windows. His work has been gaining a lot of interest from cafe and bar spaces, so keep your eyes peeled for his tape drawings around town!

In his own words, Benjamin describes what he does, “I use black (and sometimes white) electrical tape to create large-scale drawings on walls and windows. My work is often slightly cryptic and sinister, with hints of narrative that is never fully explained”.

“I use the strips of tape to create line drawings, often cutting the tape to different thicknesses to create built-up and detailed images.”

© Benjamin Murphy, 2012

My name is Pete Fecteau and I’m an artist and designer. My fascination with Rubik’s Cubes started in 2008 when I decided to learn how to solve one. It was super addictive once I memorized the algorithms and, within a year, I was solving them in less than a minute.

It never occurred to me to use them for art until it came to me in a dream, literally. I came up with the idea to make one of the world’s largest Rubik’s Cube mosaics as my entry into the ArtPrize competition. I knew it was entirely possible and I used my skills as a designer to create a digital version of the mosaic and then a system for me to navigate and track each cube as I build the mosaic by hand.

The Rubik’s cube has a very limited color palette and I wanted to use 5 of the 6 colors to translate the work of Martin Luther King Jr. into a dynamic, analogous visual. I started by composing the image in black and white and then separated the grey scale into 9 solids.

Those 9 greys were then swapped with the 5 cube colors and the gradients between them. The process was and is a true test of color theory. Once I had the cubes, which was the hardest part of the whole process, the construction was simple. 4,242 Rubik’s Cubes, 5 colors, 1 subject.

I’m too cheap to buy or rent studio space. I’ve always borrowed space. Now that I’m in San Francisco, studio space is even more out of the question. I’m planning another mosaic for 2013 which will be twice as big and will probably rent out storage space in a self-storage facility.

I prefer bleak, featureless spaces because there’s so much to focus on. Any kind of distraction is a huge risk. I don’t listen to music or eat/drink while I’m working. I also prefer to work alone. I guess that makes me an art hermit, huh?

© Pete Fecteau, 2011

“I take a pretty light-hearted approach to making illustrations. I am not a very serious person— I think it’s important to have fun with whatever I’m working on. I love using colour, texture, and patterns to make pictures that appeal to the eyes. I work almost exclusively with traditional media, usually some combination of gouache, acrylic, inks, and collaged tissue paper.”

“Today I am inspired by funny animals, kids’ game shows, and the relationship between the bizarre/fantastical and everyday life.”

© Kaley McKean, 2011

His sense of experimentation into his process in a natural and personal way definitely makes him one to watch if you’re interested in following the development of an artist’s personal style.

“So, basically, I love pattern, shape, color and form. These are the key ingredients to my work. With my glass work, mostly, it is instinctual, I’ll have a basic idea and let loose, letting the shapes work with each other. I’ll paint on a splodge of paint then etch into it and repeat on the other side. I love working with thick glass as it gives a lovely offset feel, like a screen print, especially if the sun shines through. 

With my illustrations, I’ll work with a Pentel GFKP, and use tracing paper/layout paper to work with the layers. Then, images will be scanned in and fiddled with. A lot of my inspiration comes from outsider art, folk art and artists such as Paul Klee and Joan Miro.”

© Ben Phe, 2011.

I’m a Brooklyn-based artist/architect who splits my time between my emerging art profession, ‘Vigilism‘ and my design practice, ‘Freeform+Deform‘.

I have always had a fascination for creating visual narratives, architecturally-inspired futuristic dystopias, and urban-mapping strategies. From the outset, this work has been characterized by exploring the relevant potential for a variety of digital media, when combined with traditional methods of representation, in the field of architectural visualization. As a result, my illustrations which are typically outputted digitally, possess a textured and painterly quality.

My process includes combining hand-drawn sketches with photos I’ve taken of industrial textures and deteriorated paper surfaces with 3D models both designed by me and ones I’ve downloaded from the internet. There is also a constant interplay between the digital and analog in my work as I often print out digital images, sketch over them by hand, scan them back in so they can be modeled in a 3D software or retraced digitally, and then finally I degrade the integrity of the sharp digital lines thru inaccurately ‘vectorizing’ the image in Illustrator and layering on textures in Photoshop.

© Vigilism, 2011.

“I’m interested in mid-century abstract art (William Scott, Ben Nicholson) and Franco/Belge clear line comic artists (Yves Chaland, Hergé). These are my two main visual influences.

I also draw inspiration from walking around the town where I live in Normandy, France, which is full of beautiful old buildings. I’m interested in history and I enjoy old objects and images as  they all have their own stories, and that touching or seeing these old objects I’ll make a direct connection with the past.” 

“I enjoy drawing musicians too, as I love the sound of acoustic instruments, especially old ones. I can play a few instruments but one day I hope to learn the clarinet, my favorite sound!”

“My illustrations always start with a rough drawing on cheap copy paper, to which I then add layers of tracing paper, neatening up the lines as I trace over. This gets scanned and traced into Photoshop, although until very recently I used vectors, but now I find painting directly into PS more fun. As I go along I scan textures, found or homemade which I place in PS over an element in my illustration and the cut to size.”  

“I spent a long time just working in black and white because I didn’t feel confident choosing colours, but it’s getting easier with practice. I notice colours more now when I’m out walking, and if I see an interesting combination of colours I remember them and note them down for later. If ever I feel really lost choosing my colour palettes, I sometimes look at a book by one of my favorite painters, like Edward Hopper or Juan Gris for inspiration.”   

© Andrew Lyons, 2011.

“I work in different techniques, ink on paper, silkscreen prints and acrylic colour.  Computer-generated illustrations have been an easy method for me while travelling, still my love for real silkscreen prints is stronger. In my Berlin neighbourhood I am regularly seen at the silkscreen workshop ‘shining’ and loving mixing colours and creating my images.”

© Monika Aichele, 2011.

I love the lighting at the beginning, the black and white, and the little giggle it gave me when it started to descend into madness. Gareth definitely achieved something dreamy. He tells us more.

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

Felix Fables— ‘Wonderful World’.

Directed by Gareth Roberts.

Makeup by Amanda O’Shaughnessy.

“I’m an illustrator and director living in London, I’ve been working as a freelance illustrator since leaving higher education over a year ago and have now started working in moving image and direction over the past few months. I believe that coming from my illustration background (I studied Graphic Design and Illustration at university) it’s helped me find my aesthetic within film, my love for surreal, dark, folktale and folk art-based imagery has slowly bled into my moving image work.” 

“Using my drawing skills plays a key role in my planning and making processes. I draw out my ideas a lot to help me decide on the storyboards as well as make up, costume and set designs. Which I also send out to whoever I’m working with or alongside for inspiration or direction.

I love to keep a handmade element to my work and prefer to try to keep that honest element of ‘real’ in the final pieces as best as I can. There is always that last hurdle where you do have to do a bit of post and editing on the macs but sometimes it’s just unavoidable.”  

“I’m a great fan of collaboration and believe it’s a very healthy creative process to keep doing alongside your commercial/personal work. It doesn’t have to be big projects, it can be as small as sending each other an image a week or a piece of writing you’ve read in a book. It’s good to share what you see with others around you. I also teach a couple of days here and there at a college just outside of London, which I find very rewarding and I think it’s great to put back into the education system from which I learnt.” 

“I really would love to get more music video, fashion film and moving image work right now. I want my ideas, the costumes,my stories (and hopefully the budgets) to get bigger and better!”

Can you tell us more about the video, ‘Wonderful World’ in particular? 

“The idea came from a set of drawings that I had based around using the hands as a net for space in which to input information. They slowly evolved into these odd creatures which I then dreamt about in detail, in which my hands duplicated and attacked me, trying to bond with me in a way … it was very surreal.”

“I made notes about the dream and pitched the idea along with drawings to the band, they loved it and the idea went from there. I worked with make up artist Amanda O’Shaughnessy it was a quick simple and shoot actually. very minimal lighting and set but it was a great step in a new direction!”

© Gareth Roberts, 2011.

“I enjoy illustrating many different areas, from children’s book illustration to large fine art pieces.” 

“I have a unique process in which I work, which consists of both handmade and digital media. I use plain white paper cut outs for each shape that I use in an image. These paper shapes are then creased up to give them lowlights and highlights, and scanned into Photoshop where I edit them.”

“I find that each process is important. I love illustrations that are natural and rough, therefore use quick, rough cut-outs which I do not spend too much thought over. I like happy little accidents that are not planned, for example, the use of quick, wobbly child-like lines. Or creased up paper which gives unique, uncontrolled shades. One of my favourite quotes is; “the straight line is ungodly” – Friedensreich Hundertwasswer.”

“It is the digital media that I use when concentrating on perfecting my images. I use Photoshop to bring everything together, using it to change colours, compositions, brightness and sizes of my cut outs. I prefer doing it this way, rather than cutting from different paper colours and using purely handcrafted media, as the digital process is quicker. It enables me to make small tweaks to my illustrations with ease, and I can work on many projects at a time as I have more time to spare.”

© Kelly McPhee, 2011.