OUMA RUSKS REVAMPLE

 

 

 

 

Ouma rusks re-designed package and posters. I worked with my ol' Lisa Anne Nelson on this one. We emphasised the 'dipping ritual of the brand', and tried to flesh it out a bit to make it a bit more fun. The redesign was aimed at a purely female audience.

Hava a heart why dontcha

 

 

A conceptual poster for a conceptual NGO. The idea was for it to promote those little pink and white, heart shaped candies, where the proceeds would go to childrens charities. I ended up with this style of illustration because the realistic one was too tragic. In the end I did't want to guilt trip people into caring, but instead make them go wow that's so cute...

Swellifant

An illustration I did for Ree Treewick. She had these doodles on what she called a test sheet, actually just a way for her to scout for talented artists. this was my interp.

meeting GOD...

My friend Jared and I sat on a wall at Muizenberg beach on Sunday night drinking quarts. We had a heart to heart, or more of a post heart to heart. This guy arrives with what must have been a three week old pitbull puppy. We just remarked that there's something special about that relationship between man and dog, thousands of years old, that will always prevail. The little puppy was caught by surprise as the tide caught up to them, and we chuckled as it struggle to climb up a small step and just sought of hung there, suspended in it's effort. It reminded me of when swimming as a child something that should be so effortless, climbing out, suddenly requires gargantuan effort.

We found ourselves talking to this guy and he said that the puppy was the runt of what was already a weak litter, but still he would give it a chance to fight for it's life. He had a kind of brutal understanding of nature, in the way that it refines itself by weeding out the weak and rewarding the strong. He wouldn't help the dog out of the water, but instead guided her up the rocks. He decided on a name for her that very night. "SKIM". In afrikaans it translates to 'foam', but also to 'spirit'. Skim was always fluctuating between life and death.

We discovered he's name, the man, to be Arthur. A noble name for the someone I would totally follow into battle. We talked for hours and were humbled and touched. I won't even attempt to do it justice by blogging it. All I can do is give credit to the profoundness of our experience, and hopefully show some of the wisdom we acquired in future posts.

Sholom

Regrets...

After weeks of flying underneath the radar, Toffie is where I decided to come out and play. I often suffer from hunger, being a growing boy and all, and when i look at this picture, i kick myself for not having taken full advantage of a years supply of Big Corn Bites.

Golden Rule

just a little CK quote i discovered, "...the solution to a problem always lies in the problem itself, and any preconcieved notion of an approach to take before you properly define the problem is folly..."

Realised that i also cannot design with cliche as my origin. I think this approach will almost always end up in fresh design, or atleast develop the skills to do so.

The Dark Path

Had many sought of 'question' design moments this week. I've always seen design as sought of the mercenary wing of the arts. The artists who are prepared to get their hands dirty and delve almost completely in consumerism. I've never had a problem with that because I will always maintain a certain respect for the discipline of our visual language as designers. Great design is a beautiful thing to look at. So anyway my issue arose after the Paradise Apparatus Exhibition opening i went to earlier this week. It was beautiful and cool on an aesthetic level, the theory behind it honestly was a bit over my head but maybe i have a really low head...

Many drinks later though with a couple of friends we sought of debated weather or not that was actually art! My point was that art is really a balance between what the artist expresses from an internal standpoint, and what he or she wants the public to see. This lead to a comparison to design. In short: We're ultimately doing what we do simply to make money at the end of the day. A few drinks in ? I REALLY FOUND THAT DEPRESSING!

It made feel negative about design for the first time. That we're really just manipulating the masses to think a certain way, by always pushing our techniques in the name of innovation, really so that we can manipulate them in new ways.

The proverbial 'wolf in sheep's clothing'.

I know deep down that my heart lies in design, but if i need to delve into art just to avoid an office job someday, I'll find a graphic designers solution to that problem.