Do you ever wonder how illusions like this work? Our brains perceive elements of what we view as either figures (the objects of focus) or ground (the rest of the space). Think of the classic example of the image that can either be two faces looking at each other or a vase (the negative space in between them). Visual cues like perspective, highlights, and shadows help our brains decide which is which, but sometimes we get it wrong — like in the case of the infamous blue and black dress (or was it white and gold?).

Designers and artists like Johnston can use those cues to make it look like flat, two-dimensional surfaces have 3D objects popping out of them. Sure, our rational brains know that these typographic murals aren’t really tumbling down the wall, but Ben’s mastery of the form results in near-perfect illusions that never fail to intrigue.

The “Heart of Gold” mural, for instance, has a delightful springiness to it that conveys excitement and enthusiasm. Johnston says it was created for a non-profit organization in Ontario around the idea that art can “inspire, transform, and help build a better community.” The town where the mural is located was once known for its nickel mining, so in homage, he came up with the slogan “City of Nickel, Heart of Gold.”

“I’ve always done art and painting throughout my school career when I was younger,” Johnston tells Typeroom. “After school I went traveling for a few years before deciding to study Product Design in Cape Town, South Africa. All the while studying I started playing around with graphic design and illustration. I dropped out of my course after a year and a half and decided to pursue graphic design. From there I got a job in a small agency and taught myself what I needed to know. After a few years of freelancing and working in ad agencies, I started working with lettering and type.”

The artist got his start with large-scale murals when a friend asked him to accent the entranceway of a new building. That was all it took for him to fall in love with the medium, and he’s been painting urban surfaces ever since, dividing his time between outdoor work and studio work for clients. On top of that, he also creates custom works for advertising, installations, and events, as well as his own fine art pieces shared in exhibitions.

“Raised in South Africa and currently splitting his time between Canada and the US, Ben has also been involved in various conferences and mural festivals around the world. As a multi-disciplinary artist and designer winning numerous awards for projects with Fortune 500 companies to working with a variety of NGOs, his main focus is on finding unique approaches to each opportunity, drawing on inspirations from his encounters throughout his travels.”

The post Ben Johnston’s Typographic Illusion Art Seems to Pop Off the Walls first appeared on Dornob.

The post 10 Real-Life Physical Fonts first appeared on Dornob.

That’s certainly the case in the work of John Ed De Vera, a multidisciplinary designer who uses paper cutting techniques to create three-dimensional lettering, portraits, and scenes. His technique involves layering cut paper shapes over each other to produce shadows that add depth to their overall compositions. While some paper cutting artists might spend hundreds of hours slicing the tiniest details into massive sheets of paper for gallery installations, De Vera’s work shines precisely because his simple shapes come together in such surprising and pleasing ways, breathing life into each subject in a way that almost feels like magic.

Based in the Philippines, De Vera has created portraits of figures like Stan Lee, Daenerys Targaryen, Wonder Woman, Willy Wonka, Beyoncé, Prince, Donald Glover, The Black Panther, Stephen King’s It, and a ton of other beloved characters and pop culture notables. Though each illustration may only consist of a few layers of stacked paper, the subjects’ identities are instantly recognizable — a true testament to the artist’s talent.

De Vera says his love for experimenting with different media first encouraged him to start working with paper. All it takes is a stack of quality sheets in an array of colors, an X-ACTO knife, plenty of backup blades, adhesive, and his own eye for precise proportions to produce these impressive results.

“My philosophy of creativity has so far led to finding new ways to push and innovate my craft, unafraid of learning new things and twisting them in my own creative way,” he adds.

“Each element of these illustrations was drawn on a bond paper, transferred on special paper, and individually cut by hand. The cutouts were then mounted on top of each other, depending on their layout and arrangement, similar to the process of making paper toles [a 3D paper decoupage technique]. The more protruded the elements were, the more shadows they would create, adding dimensionality to the whole image.”

De Vera also produces works on commission for companies, magazines, and other entities that need a little graphic punch for an upcoming editorial or ad campaign. The paper cutting artist has already collaborated with Esquire, The Washington Post, Delta Sky Magazine, Code 3 Athletics, Moleskine and more on fun and unique illustrations that really bring a little something extra to their content output.

Check out John Ed De Vera’s gorgeous portfolio of paper art at his website JohnEd.Co, and keep up with all his latest projects on Instagram.

The post A Cut Above: Layered Paper Art by John Ed De Vera first appeared on Dornob.

Early Career Highlights

Abdalla was a self-taught artist who gained recognition early in his life. At age 24, he unveiled his first solo exhibition of Egyptian modernism. After successfully showing his work all over Egypt, Abdalla was honored with a 1949 solo show at the Museum of Modern Egyptian Art in Cairo. Over the next decade, he would put on exhibitions all throughout the UK, Asia, Europe, and the United States, at one point participating in a group installation at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The same year as Abdalla’s Met exhibit (1956), Egypt’s politics were in upheaval, forcing the artist to relocate to Copenhagen. He continued to paint and put on both group and solo shows everywhere, from the Middle East and North Africa to Damascus, Beirut, Palestine, Paris, and Tunis. Shortly thereafter, he would move to France — but it was his introduction to artists involved in Copenhagen’s Cobra movement that most inspired his syncretic pieces.

ARABÉCÉDAIRE: Showcasing The “Creative Word” Concept

From April through June 2018, the Mosaic Rooms, an exhibition and research hub in London devoted to Middle Eastern visual culture, featured Abdalla’s ARABÉCÉDAIRE. Curated by Morad Montazemi, an art historian and research curator at Tate Modern, the show was the first of a three-part exhibition series called Cosmic Roads: Relocating Modernism, which also included the work of other key modernist artists from Egypt, Iran, and Morocco.

Abdalla named his show ARABÉCÉDAIRE after the French word for a visual alphabet primer commonly used by children when learning to read, “abécédaire’.” He felt the word provided an ideal representation of his “creative word” concept. It focused on six words that were particularly important to him: “Lovers,” “Revolution,” “Nubia,” “Caves,” Lettrism,” and “Klee,” each one of them being used to illustrate how the artist came to develop his distinctive visual language and political ideas through formerly unobserved materials and documents.

Behind The Words

Each word Abdalla chose for ARABÉCÉDAIRE was integral to his life as both a man and an artist — two roles that were entwined like the roots of a bramble bush.

L for Lovers

Abdalla made many paintings during his life of lovers and the word “desire.” These were inspired by his two grand loves: Tahia Halim, a popular Egyptian artist, and Dane Kirsten Blach, the mother of his children.

R for Revolution

Constantly in close proximity to political upheaval and war, Abdalla strove to access a “third space” in his work that would give a fresh voice to desperate and exploited people all around the world.

N for Nubia

The villages and countrysides of the Nubian region greatly inspired Abdalla’s artistic vision. They made him feel secure as a child and fueled his creativity when he first left his homeland.

C for Caves

Abdalla often spoke of his lifelong fascination with ancient caves and other wonders of natural history. He also used caves as symbols of refuge for those in exile.

L for Lettrism

Prior to becoming a visual artist, Abdalla trained as a calligrapher. He investigated the origins and role of writing in all its forms.

K for Klee

Abdalla’s fascination with western artists and European modernists really comes through in his depictions of his cultural roots. He was especially intrigued by Swiss German artist Paul Klee, and, even more particularly, by his painting Soil Consciousness.

The post Remembering Hamed Abdalla: The Pioneer of Egyptian Modernism and the “Creative Word” first appeared on Dornob.

Featuring over 200 musicians through a combination of iconography and typography, this wrap-around work of custom wallpaper manages to be dazzlingly complex and surprisingly cohesive at the same time. Commissioned by musician Olly Murs, graphic designer and illustrator Alex Fowkes documented the process of this typographic mural redesign with over 60,000 time-lapse photographs of his progress.

Artists featured range from James Brown and Michael Jackson to Kanye West and Justin Bieber, a visual tour de force timeline documenting the evolution of music over recent decades.

A few pieces of furniture, fixtures and built-ins were selected to match the colors and fit into the composition of the surrounding lettering and logos, aesthetically subservient to the wall surfaces.

The layout had to be carefully planned to seem seamless against its white backdrop, even as it wraps between walls and flows up to the angled ceiling. This same designer previously created a timeline for a Sony office along similar lines, which brought him to the attention of this new client.

About Alex Fowkes

“Born in the U.K and currently having completed projects across Europe, North America and Asia, Alex is no stranger to travel and working; Believing that experimentation and play are essential parts of the design process. He enjoys responding to physical environments with typography and graphic artwork with a belief that “on surface artwork commands attention like no other”.  

“Not only competent in murals and installations Alex works with logo branding, packaging, advertising, illustration, infographics and most other arms of graphic design. Being a “visual problem solver at the source allows you to tackle any design brief. Alex has been fortunate enough to author two books on typography with Rockport Publishing ‘Drawing Type’ and ‘Expressive Type’. He has created mammoth typographic installations and murals, crafted international advertising campaigns and collaborated with some of the best creative studios out there.”

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Folded down or flipped up, there is no mistaking what this matte black, punched-metal product was made for … in black or white, facing forward, or even from a worms-eye view via the floor below. It’s all right there, literally in bold type.

“Typeshelf” by designer Ufuk Keskin is a fun play on words, bringing the art of typography together with industrial design and home decor in an unusual form. Its brilliance is in its simplicity and the tongue-in-cheek nature of using the word “shelf” as a shelf.

“Typeshelf brings typography into product design by using the word as the object. 2D cut out letters on stainless steel are bent along the perforations at the bottom to form the ‘shelf’. The material characteristics of steel provides a sturdy platform for books etc. without requiring additional hardware.”

36-1 (aka 35 Creative Works) strives in this and other pieces for creative, aha-moment simplicity. In this cases, minimal energy and materials (as well as portable, flat-pack form) are required to make the design work, and customization is more easily possible for those who wish their shelving to speak along other lines. What words would you substitute for “shelf” if you designed one yourself?

“Ufuk is a New York City based multi-disciplinary design professional who is passionate about meaningful innovation and human centric design. He currently works for Marriott International, the largest hotel company globally – driving innovation and design thinking within Global Design Group. Prior to that he had privilege to work with some of world’s leading brands including Google, Delta, Absolut Vodka, AMC’S Breaking Bad. He is founder of a startup brand, Thirtyfive Creative Works for which he designs, manufactures and markets homeware products.”

“Ufuk has been writing for Istanbul based Architecture and Design Magazine XXI and his work have been featured in leading publications including Fast Company, Manhattan Magazine, Designboom. “

The post Typography Decor: Shelf Spells Self first appeared on Dornob.