Toronto, Ontario, Canada–
Narani Kannan is a fourth year student at Ontario College of Art & Design (OCAD) [My old school] majoring in Bachelor of Design (Graphic Design). As you can see from some of wonderful illustrations, she has a strong understanding of color and form as well as editorial design and packaging.
She is also a fantastic illustrator in traditional mediums as well. There is no doubt that her computer skills benefit from that talent. We look forward to watching her portfolio grow. Learn more about this talented young lady.
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Homeless Signs In Toronto – Mark Daye
Toronto, Canada –
Mark Daye has created a socially intrusive project that has caused much of the public to stop and take notice of the world around them Specifically, the thousands of “invisible” people who call the streets their home. His weapon is typography and his medium is the forest of street signs that seem to melt into the texture of any major city. We were also forced to take a second look at ourselves and felt compelled to share this project with you.
“The goal was to affect an urban population on an intimate level using graphic design. Official Toronto city signs were deconstructed, then re-encoded with a subversive message that spoke about a less discussed and largely ignored urban population, the homeless. The intent was to catch people off-guard by making the invisible visible through a respected and authorized medium. Official signs carry with them an authoritative voice put in place to inform behaviour. The question was, what if the authoritative voice spoke of a humanitarian issue? On how many levels can these signs be read?”
– Mark Daye
Learn more here. The main site has all of the project’s notations, additional pictures and press related to it. A great idea that we hope changes perceptions.
ADVERTISING AND ART COLLIDE – BRANDED
Toronto, Ontario –
Adam Jarvis is a creative director. He has enjoyed a successful 14 year career building brands for some of the world’s most noticeable names. Adam is also a classically trained painter and illustrator. These two sides of his creative life have been in constant conflict for many years. The strategic side of his brain and the free spirited artistic side finally collided in the form of an art show entitled BRANDED. The show consisted of 12 female vector portraits created entirely out of logos. See how many you can find.
“My business life has been focused on building brands – designingadvertisements that sell things.
My artistic life has primarily been about the female form – painting portraits of women as powerful and magical characters.
Shortly after the birth of my daughter Olivia this year, I stumbled upon a place in which the two collide.
My new collection BRANDED is a series of 12 portraits. 4 of which are multi-layerd between 5 sheets of glass. Each digitally created piece is comprised from a pool of thousands of logos collected across my career as a graphic designer.
The subjects are also brands themselves. Transformed into goddesses of capitalism.
As consumers, are we defined by the brands we buy?Collectively are we the sum of our purchases?
The answer is the question – BRANDED
Dedicated to my wife Natalie, my daughter Olivia,
and the memory of Gerald Caracciolo (June 22, 1957 – May 25, 2006)”
– From the BRANDED gallery program by Adam Jarvis
In addition, Adam also composed small poems to accompany each of his pieces to give you a sense of personality for each. The idea was that if a customer would identify with a piece on a personal level, they would take her home. His instincts were correct. All of these prints sold out.
MY LIFE IS A DEMO – Adam Jarvis
Toronto, Canada –
This is a sold out limited edition poster (10″ x 30″) created by Canadian Illustrator Adam Jarvis . The proceeds from the sale of this poster (entitled: “My life is a demo“) was donated to a local community group.
“I was messing around with Adobe Illustrator and started to rhyme off some of the artists from my computer’s playlist. Before I knew it I was obsessed with stringing them along in a chaotic jumble. It made me think of the days when all of my music was on tape. Anyone old enough to remember can sympathize with the painstaking task of unwinding a tape with a pencil to save their treasured mix.
I will always regret throwing away boxes of old tapes. Say what you will about the digital age. My music never sounded better than it did on tape.”
– Adam Jarvis
Nick La – BUTTERFLY
Toronto, Ontario –
Nick La is a young and talented creative who has a wide range of interests. Here is an example of his vector illustration style. This piece is entitled “Butterfly“. As you can see he has a flare for color and shape.
Here is a bio in the artist’s own words:“Hello everyone, my name is Nick La and I am based in Toronto. As you can see, Im a graphic/web designer. Most of the skills and knowlege I have are self-taught, but I did attendHumber College for a two year Advertising and Graphic Design program. There, I learned about Photoshop, Illustrator, QuarkXpress, typography, advertising, and color theory.BACKGROUND
After graduating from Humber College, I realized advertising isnt something I want to do as a career. So, I jumped to web design since I have the Photoshop and Illustrator skills. I registered ndesignportfolio.com and launched my first website, hoping to get some freelance work. However, it didnt work out well. So, I decided to advance my Flash skills and spent most of my free time reading tutorials and books on Flash and Actionscript. Then I relaunched N.Design V3, a full Flash based website. It impressed a lot of people with the stunning illustration and animation. My work started getting recognition and featuring in many design portals & magazines.
PRESENT
Currently, Im working as a full time designer. On my free time, I write tutorials for Web Designermagazine, maintain this site, and keep learning about web design. My main focus now is to design beautiful and usable CSS website because I understand how important it is for my website to be accessible.”
To learn more about Nick and his work, please take a moment to visit him here.
New Years Eve – EVENT POSTER
Toronto, Canada –
There is no doubt that 2007 was an interesting year. Disc12 Productions, Divine Interventions, United Soul and Tight Entertainment brought in the year with an incredible event that rocked Toronto to it’s foundation.This is the poster that launched that event. It was created using Vectorvault.
