LOVE AND HATE

Love - The Art and Illustrations of Seb Lester. 

I am a massive fan of intricate detail and here Seb Lester has bought it into illustrative typography. Lester usually works with large corporations in branding however he has recently turned to creating collectable artworks like these. Heavy influence from Victorian-esque script and letter-forms has just added to the spectacle for me.



Hate- Microsoft Word-Art.

I'm going to be honest, I find it hard to find graphic design that I HATE. Hate is a very strong word and in fairness I don't see many professionals creating terrible graphic design because they would not be professionals if that were the case and I would have never heard of them. However in 1997 when I was only 6 years of age I loved WordArt.



Love-  The Zimbabwean Newspaper/ TBWA South Africa. 100 Trillion Dollar Posters.

Much to my surprise I was handed a 50 Billion Dollar (Z$) note in a Zambian bar back in 2008. When I got home I realised that the Zimbabwean inflation rate had been running at 10,500,000%  while I was only 10 miles from the boarder. To raise awareness the Zimbabwean newspaper (a voice for the voiceless, newspaper in exile) ran a campaign in South Africa to inform people about the plight to the north. It would start as a small section of wall covered in the worthless banknotes with some simple type in the centre. Over days locals would come over and add more and more banknotes to the wall until it was absolutely covered in paper money with literally no value. One slogan I saw at a design awards two years later quoted "it would be more expensive to print this on paper". This is still one of my favourite pieces of design ever, it is a simply unique and incredibly intelligent idea.




 Love- The Barnbrook Bible

Probably my favourite book that I own.  If I get stuck this is often where I go. I'm not necessarily a huge fan of Barnbrooks social and political views, or perhaps its his need to shove them down your throat in very unsubtle ways. Despite this I have great respect for nearly every page of this book. Its funny, thought provoking, well designed stuff and that's what interests me the most.




Love/ Hate- AdBusters

I used to really love adbusters. Proclaimers of 'Culture Jamming' (top three images). I admire the magazine mainly for the parodies they create. I like their passion to promote free speech and reason and find most of the magazine very funny, much like a bi-monthly Barnbrook Bible. Unfortunately In #92 adbusters took Gandhi way out of context and used his enlightenment to justify mass-violence on the streets. I also turned to one page which told me to buy their shoes. I thought this might have been a joke, but it was not. I never felt that adbusters views where right or wrong (I never participated in their campaigns, I just enjoyed the design they were creating) but when I saw the hypocrisy and contradiction in that issue I lost a lot of respect for them. Fighting commercial style with the exact same commercial style, also preaching peace but also violence. Some believe adbusters has become a glossy magazine will ill-conceived content.