Image of the day: Messi by Dave Williams

Computer Arts: Tell us about the Messi project ...
Dave Williams: The project was born out of a combination of my love of sport and my affection for poster art. I've always wanted to design something that grownups could happily display in their homes, without it looking like an obvious "football poster". I was recently watching a YouTube clip containing all of Lionel Messi's goals from 2012, and it struck me that this was a really unique event. He broke Gerd Muller's world record for most goals scored in a calendar year, and the sheer variation in his goals is what really caught my imagination. I wanted to create a single poster that somehow showed off this incredible achievement, but I also wanted the end result to be subtle enough that it could be displayed in the home, and not just a teenager's bedroom wall.

CA: How did you put such an ambitious piece together?
DW: After realising how much work was going to be involved in the project, I quickly decided to keep the illustrations very simple. It took me about a day to draw all of the individual elements, while watching the 91 Messi goals on a loop to decide how to describe each one. Once I had ilustrated and categorised each goal I started to lay out the poster. The only thing I struggled with was the final colour palette. I played around with a full colour version as well as a version that used the colours of Barcelona and Argentina, before I finally settled on the minimal colour palette of blacks and whites with a subtle hint of colour to show if it was a goal scored for his club or his country.

CA: How did you get into design?
DW: I got into design by taking the longest route possible ... I wanted to be an artist when I was younger, but didnt think it could be a career job so I studied product design at university. I went on to complete a masters in graphic design at Salford University. Then I spent around six months working for free on various internships to gain some experience before I found a job in a busy studio. Since then I've freelanced in my spare time, taking on projects that I don't get the chance to work on during my day job. I would say my illustrative style is quite fun and playful; I like work that is clean and minimal, but I try to inject some humour into my designs when I can.

Check out more from Dave on his blog, Behance and on Twitter. 

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