I take a lot of my influence from urban style and contemporary feelings. Being a child of the 80′s, I grew up around the hip-hop culture and participated in graffiti art, breakdancing and rap. If you pay attention to my style, you might find lots of thick lines, colorful splashes and bold fonts. However, one must become a well rounded graphic artist right? Thats where the other influences come in.
While working for Award Concepts in St. Charles, I found myself challenged with the request of creating interesting catalogue covers, but with a professional and corporate look. Human resource administrators and corporate managers don’t necessarily want the urban and modern feel that I’m used to. I had been used to letting my creative juices loose on my machine, but in this situation one has to tone down the street aggression a bit. So I discovered two of my best friends in font world. Their names are Garamond and Adobe Garamond Pro. Garamond was once the royal font type for the printing office of the French government. We cannot get much more classic than this my friends. Garamond served as my font savior to make my layouts and copy clean and professional looking. Yes, I did want to bold everything I could, but my higher ups would not allow it.
My other friend while working at AC was Gill Sans. For those moments where I wanted to create a little edge without the bubble letters I would throw in a little Gill Sans or even Gill Sans Light if I felt daring enough! Without the serifs this font choice really made a marketing piece I was designing stand out and give it a little more cutting edge when needed.
The days of graffiti and breakdancing are not over folks. Give me a clean sheet of paper, some markers and a few hours of your time and I can still blend colors and outline characters like the rest of them. Its so amazing how much of how we are raised and brought up influences who we are today. I have learned to appreciate all styles of art and opinions and most of all appreciate myself for who I am and the unique part I play to the design puzzle.
