Retro Graphic Design:

- “Hey Warren. Who is this guy?”
- “He’s Stuntman Mike”
- “What does he do?”
- “He’s a stuntman…”

One piece of extremely effective retro design is the cover and promotional pieces for Quentin Tarantino’s 2007 Grindhouse segment; “Death Proof”. The film itself plays homage to the over the top exploitative films of the 1970’s that commonly featured fast cars, sexy women, bloody violence and bad acting. The posters, however, are brilliant pieces of art; beautiful hand painted recreations of the movie’s main characters or climax scenes are tied lovingly together with stylish, hand drawn type. What can I say, B-Movies have kick ass posters.

“I’m afraid you’re going to have to start getting scared… immediately.”

Tarantino knows this, it’s his life, so for the cover and promotional pieces for Death Proof (and its Grindhouse sister Planet Terror) it makes total sense that he wanted a hand drawn cover as opposed to a brilliantly photoshopped image of a Dodge Charger.

Now let me introduce you to the cover:

When I first saw this sitting on the shelf in Big W, I couldn’t take my eyes off it. The artwork has this unique quality to it when you see it sitting next to every other DVD case on the shelf, and not that it loses this when you take it from that environment, it just works. Everything from the hand drawn type, to the silhouetted girls in the sunset to the thundering “Death Proof” car works. It fits. The extra “film scratch” and “creased edges” just give it that little bit more added authenticity, that isn’t exactly needed, but its icing on the cake. I could go on forever about how much I like this cover, but I will stop. I will, on the other hand, say that this is definitely one of the top 5 movie covers I have ever seen (the top being Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark) and If I were wearing a hat, I would tip it to you, Quentin sir.

I’m going to quote a review for the closing, as I think it sums up this movie and in turn, this style, effectively:

“This one is like they used to make ‘em – real driving, done real fast.” Except in this case, we are talking about drawing…

Graphic Designer Review

I first come across Chris King a couple months ago when I was researching on how to prepare myself for when the zombies arise. Specifically it was this picture that caught my eye:



Chris King isn’t a hugely known artist, but he has had his work published in Spin magazine, and designed the cover for Dancing Stage Universe 2 (I know, I have never heard of it either) for the X Box 360 console. He is a freelance and has some really great quality stuff. I strongly suggest checking out his site http://deadmega.blogspot.com/ if you want 5 minutes to kill checking out his work.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to return some video tapes…

Design Book Review

The design book I would like to bring to your attention is Animation Art, a book I picked up ago a few years back now, but still is useful for graphic designers. The book details the history of animation, from its humble beginnings of stop motion chalk drawings, to today’s super powerful CGI creations.

The book also outlines the international success of animation, including Australia and specifically Yoram Gross Film Studios (which you would commonly know them for Blinky Bill).

Outlines of the concept procedure and other such lead up tasks can be found inside these pages, as well as a vast array of interesting and unknown facts. If you are at all interesting in animation, it makes a worthwhile read.

Animation Art
The Five Mile Press
2004
ISBN 1-74124-4412

Michael Biehn is awesome!

'Nuff said.

Task No. 1 - Review a Graphic Design Blog

Hey folks!

So apparently I am supposed to review a graphic design blog, here goes:

*Ahem!*

http://www.graphicdesignblog.org/ is a website i recently came across searching for graphic design blogs. It's full of interesting, cleaver and horrible graphic design examples.

I'm not really a fan of graphic design blogs, but for this, I will make an exception. There is no preachy messages that are common among most blogs nowadays (not that I am against that kind of thing, I just don't want to read about it). And it seems as though the blog favors images, creativity and fun over more serious topics such as global warming and how we can make a difference.

Check it out, I doubt that anyone would click away from this site feeling as though they had wasted their time. There is healthy amounts of Photoshop disasters to keep you entertained, awesome photography to keep you amazed and just the right amount of Logo designs to inspire your creative ideas.

http://www.graphicdesignblog.org/

Later,

O HAI!

chek out mah sweet blog ma.