Lego

I have a love hate relationship with Lego.
Every day I clear it up. Every day my husband clears it up. We find it on the floor, the window sills, in trouser pockets, boxes, cupboards and beds, on the table and next to the toaster in our house. I love Lego for its mathematical perfection and its precision engineering. I love it because you can make anything with Lego because as you fiddle with the pieces that somehow are perfectly sized for small hands, your imagination takes over and convinces you that small straight edged blocks in a limited colour palette can be transformed into a house, a Star Wars ship, a robot, a jungle scene, a dog… anything.
I hate Lego because it annoys the washing machine and does not come in Pantone colours. I hate it because it is impossible to file (do you do it by colour, shape, size, per kit??). I hate it because it is more interesting than homework, bathtime or going to school. I hate it because it hurts your feet.

I found this image on the wonderful blog Uppercase Journal http://uppercase.squarespace.com/ that records all sorts of things associated with type and typographic art.

Disney Illustrator Mary Blair

I remember when i was a child having a big fat Disney story book. I used to love copying the illustrations over and over again. Mary Blair was an illustrator who worked for Disney in the 50's (more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Blair) and was responsible for many of the illustrations in the Disney portfolio. I love her stylised illustrations. They are colourful and vibrant and beautifully composed. Every character is delightful. You can see more of her work at http://www.animationarchive.org/2006/01/media-mary-blairs-little-verses-part.html

Honesty pattern

Here is another pattern based on the beautiful seeds of the 'Honesty' plant.

Graphic Pattern

I am always drawn to 50's style graphic prints and textiles and recently have been creating some of my own. Here is the latest. I can image it printed onto a linen fabric and used on a cushion or a summer skirt....

Save the Children

A friend sent this observation to me…
Is it
a) merely a typographic oversight?
b) a subtle way for victims of child labour to voice their plight to the world?
c) a designer who got off to a bad start that morning with their kids?
d) a reflection of the bad grammer taught in schools today?

Books that Fly Conference

Last week I attended a Conference held at the University of Brighton called 'Books that Fly'. The day was organised as a series of six speakers, each of whom demonstrate their art/skills and writing via the medium of handmade, or 'artists' books. Each speaker was there to spread the word about the medium to a broad audience and to encourage awareness and development of it. Question and answer sessions encouraged the sharing of ideas between the speakers and the delegates.

All of the speakers were passionate about, and dedicated to, their work. The speaker whose work I found the most intriguing was Sam Winston. Find out more at his website here: (http://www.samwinston.com/).

He spoke incredibly eloquently about his projects describing how he examines the connections between language, vocabulary, print, type, image, emotion and punctuation. He writes stories and analyses classic text, deconstructs it (semantically and by chopping it up!), categorizes it, reassembles it and produces beautiful images and sculptural forms which is exhibited in galleries all over the world.

In the context of graphic design, his work crosses over and challenges the understanding that we have about words, image, comprehension and format. Listening to him explain his work was fascinating and reminded me of how graphic design is often about understanding the rules of typography, layout, sequence, perception, observation and proportion and then distorting or breaking those rules. Clarity, logic and simplicity in design are nearly always the result of good observation, careful analysis, clear comprehension of the brief and the application of rules to provide structure. Breaking these rules, to me, is styling. Designers use styling effectively once all rules have been established. Styling design personalises graphics, either as the designer's work or to fit the 'personality' of a brand.

Animal character illustrations available online

Following on from the Artist's Open Houses Exhibition in Brighton, an online fine art retailer has selected my illustrations to buy as Limited Edition Giclée Prints. Have a look at the gallery of my animal character illustrations here:
http://www.fineartcompany.co.uk/SearchPrints.aspx~k~suzie+Johanson

New illustration

Since drawing the animal series of illustrations I have been keen to make some simple illustrations inspired by plant forms. At this time of year with so much energy, colour and new growth in nature and a huge variety of plant forms and colour on show, it is hard to find a starting point. Here are the first couple of drawings inspired by pure white blossom on the apple tree in our garden. It is looking stunning at the moment, standing out against other limey green spring foliage and an oddly grey blue sky the other day.

Hanna Werning

I have posted this link to the site of Hanna Werning as I keep coming across references to her amazing work. It is inspiring to see a designer working across so many design disciplines. Enjoy...

http://www.byhanna.com/

Artists Open House

Hurrah! At last I have finished drawing the series of animal character illustrations that I started when my children wanted me to draw them something (see earlier posts). I enjoyed doing these so much I am showing them as part of the Brighton Artists Open House exhibitions, http://www.aoh.org.uk/2008/ which have now opened all over Brighton. There are hundreds of artists displaying a massive variety of work throughout May alongside the Brighton Festival. Artists open their houses as galleries with work for sale. It is a great way to showcase work to a broad audience and attracts a large following.

This year, I am exhibiting signed, limited edition giclée prints of some cute animal characters. They are available professionally framed in a contemporary limed wood frame with a circular mount or unframed. As well as the framed prints, I have had some button badges made by a great little company who delivered a fantastic service and product and were lovely people to work with. Find them at http://www.makeabadge.co.uk/ The badges are really sweet and would be a cute little gift for a child. The final illustrations are all above but if you are in the Brighton area why not pop in to check out the whole show? Map available here. I am very pleased to have made some sales already so come before it is too late!

Alongside the prints, I have been working on some decorative textile pieces with a theme of fabric as paper. This is work in progress so have just a few pieces on show. I aim to post these on this blog throught the next few months.

The house belongs to an old friend, Julia Trigg. Her beautiful and intriguing digital collages use type and printed ephemera. They are proving to be very popular already. Have a look at her site http://www.juliatrigg.co.uk/ where you can see some samples of her work and the other artists on show.