Design Inspiration: Matthew Lyons

Matthew Lyons has fantastically moody illustration. The style and colors remind me of Gravity Bone.

Design Inspiration: Kazumasa Nagai

More great '60s-'80s design! Seems like at least once every month I discover another awesome designer from that era.

Kazumasa Nagai is a Japanese designer who did a ton of promo poster work during that time. I found a few galleries of his work at Lifelounge, Pink Tentacle and Flickr. There were also a few books based on his work, though they're hella expensive.

Design Inspiration: Sapphire and Steel intro

I made an influence map!

I'd never heard of influence maps until a few weeks ago, but thanks to Harveyjames I realize what a great exercise this is. Really made me think about what inspires me artistically.

Basically you make a grid of however many squares and fill them with images of things that influence and inspire you. Use more squares/larger images for bigger influences!

Learn more here.

Here's my list (with links if you're curious)!
1. Milton Glaser
2. Seymour Chwast
3. Otl Aicher
4. Peter Max
5. Heinz Edelmann
6. Parra
7. Katsuhiro Otomo
8. NES graphics
9. Network Osaka
10. Kevin Dart
11. 80s blank VHS covers
12. The Zonders
13. Olly Moss
14. Fez
15. NIntendo Power
16. Atari commercials
17. So-Me
18. Futurecop!
19. 80s TV graphics
20. Infographics
21. Superbrothers
22. Harveyjames
23. James White
24. Game & Watch
And I can't forget Studio 4c (even though I did).

Counter-Print has an awesome flickr collection of older design. I've always loved Avant Garde and U&LC!

Design Inspiration: Lance Wyman

+1 favorite designer! His website is gorgeous too!


http://www.lancewyman.com/

     

Design Inspiration: The Zonders

The Zonders is a collective of illustrators with a visual style inspired by 70s sci-fi album cover and book design. Lots of album cover work, as you can see!

http://www.thezonders.com/
http://www.thezonders.blogspot.com/

Like FFFFOUND but also good

Awesome resource for random images, photos and general creativity!

http://piccsy.com/

Design Inspiration: Yusuke Nagano

Just discovered Yusuke Nagano's illustration work at The Strange Attractor.

My inspiration comes from drawing anything and everything that comes my way. I truly enjoy it so much that it's a pleasure for me to draw anything, Industrial motors, people, nature or fantasy pictures, I enjoy it all. I find it important to work and exchange ideas with young people who have the same passion, the same view of life, New perspectives keep me going.

Design Inspiration: Superbrothers

I've taken way too long to post about Superbrothers, a pixel artist from Canada. I remember falling in love with the look and feel of his videos when I discovered his website last year. His characters are very abstract but he still maintains a high level of detail, and the animation is incredible.

I looked to Jordan Mechner‘s Prince of Persia and Eric Chahi‘s Out of this World as well as the original Super Mario Bros, and I began to make some discoveries of my own. I began to avoid curves and outlines, deploying ‘jaggies’ carefully, keeping the focus on carefully calibrated fields of color and a sparse approach to pattern and texture. I experimented with less cumbersome stick-limbed pin-headed pixel rigs, which has since become my aesthetic preference. Eventually I began to see a distinct style develop – it seemed fresh, clean and absolute.

Website
Twitter
In-depth interview at 8-bit Today

DOT MATRIX REVOLUTION from superbrothers on Vimeo.


DESIGN REBOOT HD from superbrothers on Vimeo.

"sword" S:S&S EP @ GDC 2010 from Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery on Vimeo.

Design Inspiration: souloff

I can't find much information on souloff, but she has an awesome body of work online. She manages to make vector art look like it was sketched out with Sharpies. Looks inspired by fashion design too - the line work is really carefree.

Website
Blog
Twitter