Mick Wiggins

Mick WigginsStepping into ignorance, I can't tell what Mick Wiggins does to achieve the look of his work. There are lots of raw canvas etchings with varying colors which make me think Photoshop, his lines are awesome which leads me to think he also uses Illustrator. But I can't get past his gradient blends, sometimes unfocused subject matter, obvious brush strokes, unfitting pathfinder objects, and it makes me think he actually paints these things. Regardless of the process, his style, layout, and design are tremendous. I was floored by his work, and the series of Steinbeck novels he designed for Penguin Classics made me want to buy each of them, frame the cover, and throw away the rest.

Jordan Michael Gray

Jordan Michael Gray

Jordan Michael Gray seems to be a low level grunt at a design firm who makes fantastic poster designs that never get used. His work is striking though, layered with textures and toned down colors, the background usually involves a slight highlight gradient, they flow very nice. His typographical work is also exceptional.

Representing UITS

Here's my latest.

Yulia Brodskaya

Yulia Brodskaya
I had seen these images floating around for some time, but it wasn't until my recent fetish of physical construction of illustrations that I regarded them with amazement. Yulia Brodskaya has a portfolio of flowing typography, poster designs and the like, but her "Papergraphics" are what really stand out. Cardboard is always nice (above), but many of her pieces involve bright swatches of stock paper meticulously laid out in arrangements of words and designs. The amount of work it takes to cut out the shapes, bend them, swirl them, place them on end must be insane. I'd really like to see how these things are constructed.

El Jefe Design

El Jefe DesignJeffrey Everett is the guy behind D.C. based El Jefe Design. His portfolio includes everything from gig posters to book covers, corporate brochures, annual reports, restaurant menus and a Rollins Band hotel towel and soap encased cd set. What I enjoy about his gig posters are the colors. Something I was thinking about from the Small Stakes post, was the simplicity of a small-cost 3/4 color poster. El Jefe has some very nice ones, and there's just something to say about using that limitation as a pole vault into awesomeness.

The Small Stakes

The Small Stakes

The Small Stakes is a design studio headed by Wisconsin raised Jason Munn. Now in California, he produces posters, album packages, t-shirt designs, and other schwag for an amazing client list of musicians. There's something about "gig posters" these days that lends itself to incredible design- at least from some. A really pure form of illustration boiled down to a remarkable image and bold typography that is meant to catch your eye and scream.

Jeremy Prasatik

Jeremy PrasatikJeremy Prasatik leads the design studio jp33 which churns out all sorts of work from print ads, to catalogs, t-shirts and web site design. Some of his visual cues are reminiscent of ISO50's style, a good mix of trees, birds, vector rainbows with that grungy retro feel. He does many other things though, he makes greater use of Illustrator for explosions of color and movement, and also enhances photographs with light effects- waves of electricity, or ephemeral radiance.

Paolo Lim

Paolo LimPaolo Lim does not have that extensive of a portfolio, and what he does have is scattered throughout multiple websites, but I really liked what I saw of his latest works. His Photoshop collages are awesome, but what really makes them stand out is that he takes them out of the digital realm and composites them onto printed layouts. The Corporate Lo-Fi album (above) was delicately cut out shapes from heavy construction paper and glued together. The work below was from a collection of photographs melded together on textured paper stained with coffee. Very nice effects from different sources adds to his style.

Joshua Davis

Joshua Davis
Joshua Davis is a designer whose work best reminds me of Tetsuo's arm when it explodes in Akira. His Tropism project is a crazy-hectic view of life under the microscope, in vector form, and with gorgeous color schemes. His other work follows the trends of large circles connected with pathfinder, gradient fills, and numbers/characters disseminated throughout. You might have seen backpacks, notebooks, and other schwag with his work on them. It lends itself to a large variety of objects that could use a touch of the abstract.