Computer Arts Gallery: October 2008

Matt Keers
Location Liverpool
Job Designer
Contact www.mattkeers.co.uk
Software Photoshop

"I enjoy using and experimenting with typography, geometric shapes and photography, and these form the basis of my creative output," says Matt. He's just graduated from Liverpool John Moores University, where he studied Graphic Arts and took on a number of placements in design studios.

Matt was involved in commissioned projects for the Liverpool Fine Art Degree Show 08, and since then has been developing his online portfolio and pursuing new ideas. He's currently seeking employment and work placements with a view to beginning his career in the design industry.

3 Beat Records A rebranding brief for 3 Beat Records, focusing on the production of an abstract logo. "The aim of the design was to create an identity which could have both print and multimedia-based applications," Matt explains. "In the design, the three interchangeable geometric shapes represent the energy and diversity of music."

Sam Cotton
Location Warwickshire
Job Illustrator
Contact www.hundredpercentcotton.co.uk
Software Photoshop, Illustrator

Sam describes his work as contemporary, fashion-based illustration. "I feel that traditional, Renaissance-style painting methods mixed with a deconstructive contemporary style can look very powerful and intriguing."

To this end he employs traditional media in his work, including watercolour, gouache, pen and pencil. "Within this I often end up collaging my work in Photoshop with little bits of scrap paper and trinkets," says Sam. The images featured here are from a collection based on the Charles Bukowski novel Women, designed to be a kind of fashion illustration through portraiture.

Dee Dee Bronson "A tall, Jewish woman with a slick, post-war look, she's a very eccentric character. I wanted to display this through her love of British Victorian history. Her 'freaky' attitude, as the book puts it, stood out even in the artwork around her house."

Sam Cotton
Location Warwickshire
Job Illustrator
Contact www.hundredpercentcotton.co.uk
Software Photoshop, Illustrator

Sam describes his work as contemporary, fashion-based illustration. "I feel that traditional, Renaissance-style painting methods mixed with a deconstructive contemporary style can look very powerful and intriguing."

To this end he employs traditional media in his work, including watercolour, gouache, pen and pencil. "Within this I often end up collaging my work in Photoshop with little bits of scrap paper and trinkets," says Sam. The images featured here are from a collection based on the Charles Bukowski novel Women, designed to be a kind of fashion illustration through portraiture.

Lydia Vance This image was created using watercolour, acrylic and pen, then scanned into Photoshop and layered. "Lydia is a very sexually stimulating and beautiful woman," Sam explains. "Behind her arrogance she thinks a lot of the novel's protagonist, Chinaski. Her insecurity - she keeps thoughts to herself - means she often unleashes verbal abuse in large, aggressive blurts."

Matthew Dent
Location London
Job Illustrator
Contact www.state28.com
Software Photoshop

"I still have a lot to achieve, but for now I want to carry on building relationships with clients and continue to do what I enjoy most," says Matthew, a recent graduate of the University of Westminster. Although he was always interested in drawing as a child, it wasn't until last year that Matthew decided it was time to take things further and become a freelance illustrator.

"My work combines a whole host of ideas and influences, ranging from classic graphic design to old fonts and typography," he adds.

Matthew creates all his drawings by hand using ink, before transferring them to Photoshop and making adjustments to the colour and contrast, and adding other digital effects.

State28State28 A self-promotional piece incorporating a range of different typographical styles, demonstrating his versatility. "I love hand-drawn type in ink," Matthew says. "I just think of the weirdest shapes and try to make letters out of them." As usual, he then adjusted the letters in Photoshop.

Paul Ryding
Location London
Job Illustrator
Contact www.paulryding.com
Software Photoshop

With clients including MySpace, NYLON magazine, Glasgow-based design firm After The News and Channel 4, Paul could be described as being in the second phase of his career. "I moved to London four months ago and I'm kicking myself that I didn't do it sooner," he admits.

Paul previously lived and worked in Glasgow, graduating from the Glasgow School of Art in 2003. He began his career selling and exhibiting screenprints in galleries, trying to make it as a 'real artist'. The resulting publicity and media attention convinced him that he'd rather see his work in print than in a gallery. "I began applying my first love of pencil studies to the same print-making technique through Photoshop," Paul explains. Now most of his work is for clients in publishing and advertising.

Lorem Ipsum A centrefold illustration for the eponymous magazine, published by design and communications firm After The News. "They gave me free rein to do whatever I wanted," Paul says. "The mag contained some really dense essays about design that I couldn't get my head around, so I settled for some shameless self-promotion."

Kuanth
Location Singapore
Job Illustrator/graphic designer
Contact www.kuanth.com
Software FreeHand MX, Illustrator CS2, Photoshop CS2

Kuanth, also known as Kuan Teckharn, studied at The One Academy of Communication Design in Malaysia. He describes art and design as his absolute passions. Deskbound for five years in the publishing and advertising industries, he broke free to become a freelance illustrator in 2002.

Kuanth says he's a daydreamer. He enjoys working in a range of fields, including fashion, photography and graphic design, and loves being surrounded by beautiful and creative things. That's why he came up with his own brand called Mistake, which produces everything from decorative displays to tableware. And the name? "Perfection is boring. Mistakes can be beautiful."

Iris and the Bees One of the characters in Dark Series, a collection of illustrations that Kuanth suggests are spawned from the depths of a slightly morbid imagination. Iris is the princess of the Underworld, alone but for the bees - her most faithful friends. "I think there are mysterious entities all around us, so-called ghosts and gods," he says. "Perhaps they're like lifeless plankton drifting in the air, or speckles of abstract dust in the invisible realm. We shouldn't be afraid of them, though, as I think nature has the magical force of letting all beings co-exist in equilibrium. We don't know how the system works, but it's all governed by an unseen set of rules."

Laura Snell
Location London
Job Designer
Contact www.laurasnell.co.uk
Software Photoshop

Laura's career in graphic design has just begun. After graduating from Brighton University in 2007, she went on to complete a number of work placements and enjoyed a stint as creative assistant at YCN. She's now working as a junior designer at London agency thomas.matthews.

"thomas.matthews is a studio that specialises in sustainable design," Laura explains. "This is something that I've always been passionate about. It's great to be learning about the wider issues of graphic design, while also improving my skills and working alongside the more experienced designers here."

Shiva Park A Brighton University project completed with illustration student Jess Bonham, this is proposed album artwork for the band Shiva Park. "The inspiration for the piece was the music - we wanted to create surreal and strange visuals with bold typography. The stitching image was projected onto the model, who was asked to create awkward body shapes. The resulting images were then cropped at strange angles."

Ben Qwek
Location Singapore
Job Illustrator
Contact www.benqwek.com
Software Photoshop

Ben is a self-proclaimed visual stylist, describing himself as "a crossover artist from the world of graphic design and street art". A native of Singapore, he cites that country's cosmopolitan nature, with its vibrant mix of cultures, as a major influence on his style of artwork. "I'm always striving to create distinctive visuals that fuse various influences and design communication," he says. "I believe that designing is a dynamic process of thought… having empathy in the areas of conceptual thinking and idea generation is what I enjoy the most. I worship a good, solid art foundation that enables you to be well-versed in all art media - except performing arts."

Ben is also part of a collective called Geeksigners, a quartet with interests including illustration, animation and motion video - as well as street art. "Diverse as we are, our creations are distinctively us and definitely geeky-kinky!"

Bohemian POP A personal piece indulging Ben's love of side profiles, particularly those by Japanese fashion illustrator Tadahiro Uesugi. "My main intention was to fuse flat graphic shapes and digital painting, using simple strokes and colours to convey the desired feel. Just by drawing side profiles, Uesugi is able to capture the moment and it was what I was trying to do for Bohemian POP."

Bison
Location Cape Town
Job Graphic design
Contact www.bisonart.co.za
Software Photoshop, Illustrator

Bison comprises Daniel Orme and Linsey Levendall, who met while working at a media company in South Africa. It combines Linsey's illustrative work and Daniel's typography experiments. "The two styles, as it were, came together quite naturally and without notice," they say. The pair formed Bison as a way of escaping from routine, "the monotonous, hum-drum lifestyle which goes along with working within a commercial graphic design industry".

"Bison is about making something which we cannot or have not yet made. It's a platform from which our mistakes and intended or unintended incidents may be exploited."

Push On "This piece was purely a medium for venting my frustration," says Linsey. "The use of a dark colour scheme, wood texture and illustration seemed to be the perfect visual interpretation of emotions in the heat of the moment."

Bison
Location Cape Town
Job Graphic design
Contact www.bisonart.co.za
Software Photoshop, Illustrator

Bison comprises Daniel Orme and Linsey Levendall, who met while working at a media company in South Africa. It combines Linsey's illustrative work and Daniel's typography experiments. "The two styles, as it were, came together quite naturally and without notice," they say. The pair formed Bison as a way of escaping from routine, "the monotonous, hum-drum lifestyle which goes along with working within a commercial graphic design industry".

"Bison is about making something which we cannot or have not yet made. It's a platform from which our mistakes and intended or unintended incidents may be exploited."

Juggle Surrealism meets Cubism, Bison-style, in this personal project. "This is experimentation between basic shapes, perspective, illustration and texture, which results in an aesthetically balanced composition," say the pair.