You may never tire of turning on your iOS device to find a picture of your adorable puppy staring back at you, but if you’re interested in creating a less loquacious background try the new app, Deko. Programmed by designers Jaakko Tuomivaara and Johan Halin, whose experimental music app,…
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Handprinted hosiery that toes the line between subversive and sweet
Originally conceived in “a little-known town situated between the the forest and the ocean,” Strathcona Stockings are at once a reflection of this ethereal Canadian landscape and founder Ryley O’Byrne’s distinct artistic vision. A graduate of Central Saint Martins and Emily Carr Institute of Art & Design, O’Byrne has…
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Shanan Campanaro reflects on her “Poolside” collection and the art of designing patterns
Using little more than Muji gel ink pens Shanan Campanaro creates highly detailed drawings then degrades them with a dash of water to reveal unexpected patterns for her line of wallpaper, pillows and scarves, Eskayel. Her simple set of tools provides the foundation for an extensive process that involves painting and then digital manipulating her analog work. We recently caught up with the self-proclaimed neat freak at her Williamsburg studio to learn more about her latest collection, and the surprising way in which she creates such whimsically structured motifs.
Campanaro starts by drawing, usually working small. She uses the water-soluble Muji pens (or sometimes Higgins inks) to paint primarily pictures of animals, and then distorts the lines by flicking water onto the paper to make the ink bleed. “I like to work on a couple pieces of paper on top of each other so that it sinks through, and then I’ll draw the same thing a couple of times,” she explains. While she prefers pens over brushes for cleaner lines, she then counteracts that precision with a loose application of water. Campanaro demonstrated her method for us on a painting of a rooster she is doing for an upcoming exhibition called “Rare Birds”. Although “everything comes from a painting”, at the end of the day “everything has to be done on the computer”.
While she says she always paints stuff “not for wallpaper”, this medium is often at the back of her mind. While painting, Campanaro tends to notice an element that might look good as wallpaper so she’ll stop and photograph the work at that point because, she explains, “for the painting to have more contrast and depth and look good as a painting, you kind of have to ruin the part that was good as wallpaper.”
The creation of the pattern marks the beginning of the digital aspect of the process. After scanning in a photograph of her painting, she begins to inspect it in Photoshop, looking for interesting areas where the ink has bled. This begins a lengthy trial-and-error process where Campanaro zooms in on and crops a fraction of the painting, copies it, multiplies it and decides if it makes a harmonious pattern. As we saw on our visit, this part of the operation relies heavily on Campanaro’s trained artistic eye and experience as a designer.
The Central St. Martins grad is mostly inspired by travel, and she enjoys bohemian settings in places like Indonesia, Mexico or Capri. These destinations tend to show up as the themes for her collections, although her latest, “Poolside“, draws from time spent back home at her parents’ house in San Diego. The collection includes eight different patterns, and spans bold geometric designs in “Solitaire” to the abstract motif of “Splash”.
Campanaro—who’s also an unexpected sneaker freak—likes working in the commercial realm of art. After receiving her degree in fine art, she began looking for jobs at streetwear labels and ended up making T-shirts in London with two friends from school. This actually marked the beginning of Eskayel, whose name is a phonetic combination of their initials, S, K and L. The company is now a solo act with a different purpose, but Campanaro still collaborates frequently, and she co-founded the charitable arts organization FOOLSGOLD with her friend Maria Kozak, where many of her wildlife paintings end up on display.
The industrious designer never stops thinking of ways to expand her talents. Whether experimenting with different types of paper, creating custom textiles for furniture upholstery or adding new products to her shop—last year she threw woven baskets into the mix of wares comprising her online shop—Campanaro continues to successfully combine fine art with commercial sensibility. Keep an eye out for her at the Javits Center during the upcoming ICFF in NYC, and for her next collection, “Akimbo”, debuting July 2012.
Images by Karen Day. See more in the slideshow below.
Focus sur le travail du photographe David Stephenson qui se porte sur les voûtes de cathédrales et églises du Moyen Age. Avec des clichés simples mais montrant la beauté l’architecture de ces monuments de l’Histoire, une série d’images est à découvrir dans la suite.
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Milton Glaser’s latest book shows adaptation as a mechanism for learning
Over the past five years, the highly influential graphic designer Milton Glaser has designed rugs, sculptures, posters and interior spaces for a variety of independent projects. In the forthcoming book based on the 2010 AIGA exhibition of the same name, “In Search Of The Miraculous or One Thing Leads To Another“, Glaser shows how the concepts for these works relate to each other as a continuous evolution of ideas.
Glaser began studying Kundalini yoga in the 1960s from a spiritual leader named Rudi, who believed that your consciousness grows by layering past lives—whether that was the past life of yesterday or long ago. The cover art Glaser did for Rudi’s book, “Spiritual Cannibalism“, not only opens this book, but the guru’s teachings serve as a metaphor for the natural progression of Glaser’s work into new designs born from past ideas.
As design consultant Ralph Caplan explains in the foreword, you can see traces of the book jacket design for “Spiritual Cannibalism” in the identity of Glaser’s graphic design for NYC’s Tibet-focused Rubin Museum of Art in 2004. Glaser was asked to create interior works, including a series of patterned silkscreen prints and a massive gilded copper wall panel inspired by his drawings of Tibetan clouds. Glaser explains in the book that these projects inspired a new interest in pattern design—from there, the unexpected opportunity to make rugs based on the patterns gave new purpose to the work he was doing, eventually giving rise to several new poster designs, and an important study on light and dark.
Another example of Glaser’s penchant for perpetual revision lies in his series of Shakespeare portraits created for the Theater for a New Audience. The various looks Glaser gives the legendary bard not only demonstrate his ability to see something from several different perspectives, but they also served as inspiration for the theater’s annual award, which is an iridescent bust sprayed with automotive paint that changes color depending on how you’re looking at it.
Glaser was once again inspired to experiment with patterns and portraits, which led him to develop a new series in which he explores the point where the image becomes visible through the pattern, like a more thoughtful and visually compelling version of Magic Eye posters.
In an interview with Anna Carnick for her book “Design Voices“, Glaser neatly explains his process of refining and reflection. “The work itself becomes a mechanism for learning,” he says. “And that is the most highly desirable aspect of design or anything else for that matter.”
Glaser will be at Brooklyn’s powerHouse Arena for a discussion and book signing 16 February 2012. Pick up a copy there or pre-order from Amazon for $20.
Toujours avec un style très original, l’artiste Flavio Melchiorre parvient à créer un univers coloré. Utilisant à merveille les patchworks et les patterns, ce dernier dévoile son talent quelque soit le support. Une sélection de ses oeuvres est à découvrir dans la suite.
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A comprehensive study of tribal art
American art historian Carl Schuster spent more than three decades traveling the world exploring tribal customs and patterns, gathering ancient tribal art and artifacts along the way. Though his goal was to illustrate the intrinsic human connection to artistic expression in an anthropological study, Shuster never managed to compile his research into a cohesive form. With the help of a fellow anthropologist, Edmund Carter, who transferred Schuster’s notes and musings, they were able to transform Shuster’s work into “Patterns that Connect: Social Symbolism in Ancient & Tribal Art“, a seminal book from 1996 that provides evidence and examples to support the scholar’s theories on our natural connection to art.
Comprehensive and comparative, the study contains a total of 1,023 illustrations, featuring sculpted figurines, garments, carved stones, paintings and body decorations from cultures and tribes around the world. Schuster labors to decode this complex iconography in notes and analyses that accompany the images, providing insight into the surprising unity of human society.
According to Schuster, tribal designs such as the ubiquitous zig-zag motif and artifacts such as “Y-posts” are really attempts to record family lineage, not meaningless doodles or objects meant for play. Of the continuous patterns generally used in ceremonial and even everyday garments Schuster remarks, “This is a graphic representation of the puzzle of procreation itself, in which there is neither beginning nor end.”
In contrast to the common anthropological idea that each culture is singularly unique, Schuster argues that since these designs did not just occur in isolated cultures, but were widespread across the earth at different time periods, they are proof of a collective human instinct. Schuster further pushes his theory by positing that ancient patterns continue to survive and are in fact relevant today. Stacked chevrons, for example, ubiquitous in several tribal cultures, are used as modern military insignia denoting rank. Another extension of this relevance appears in modern tattoos, textiles, fashion and art, which all seem to draw from frivolous and innocuous patterns that are actually saturated with hidden meaning through their connection to our tribal past.
A hefty tome in and of itself, Schuster & Carpenter’s “Patterns That Connect,” is intended for more than casual students of anthropological beauty (I discovered it in the library of New Mexico-based artist Judy Tuwaletstiwa). It’s out of print but a good copy can be found for around $100. Those even more serious about the discipline will want to check out the monumental work from which “Patterns” is derived, the 1986 “Materials for the Study of Social Symbolism in Ancient and Tribal Art,” which consists of twelve books in three volumes. Alibris is a good place to start your search.
Mathematical formulas lay the foundation for a series of hearty Italian wines
After many decades of visiting the Isola d’Elba, just off the coast of Tuscany, Milanese engineer Giuseppe Camerini decided to cement his love for the beautiful land by creating Cecilia Vineyards along the Etruscan Coast wine route. Camerini, passionate about math and science, applied his mechanical knowledge to wine-making, creating a customized temperature control system and special filters for his cellar, where wine is aged in small 225-liter barrels.
Camerini’s penchant for numbers also extends to Cecelia’s graphic identity, based on the aperiodic set of tiles devised by renowned physicist Roger Penrose. Founding Cecelia in 1990, Camerini now manages the entire activity together with his nephew, but still heads up the unique label design.
Cecilia produces the most traditional wines that made Tuscany and Elba famous among aficionados, like the sweet Aleatico and Moscato wines, as well as the delicious Elba Bianco and Elba Rosso blends.
The vineyard is open for visits and direct purchase of wines.
Pattern Matters est un projet de design graphique qui cherche à donner de nouveaux angles de réflexion et d’utilisation des couleurs et des formes. Avec des créations variés splendides, ce projet impressionnant se dévoile dans la suite de l’article.
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