The Brilliant creative team blog

Happy new year everyone... so back to work and back on the hunt for more awesome stuffs to inspire, excite and generally distract you from what you are supposed to be doing.

I have found some really talented work by Laura Bifano who takes the focal subject of her paintings and throws a modern twist at it, turning the subject into blocks with almost an over sized, disorienting pixel like effect.

They have a hallucinatory quality to them which I really enjoy plus, it reminds of that Simpsons episode... you know the one where homer eats the mega hot chilly and trips balls.

View more of Lauras fantastic collection here.

i’m a huge fan of Street art and Graffiti, It’s sheer rebellious undertone attracted me as a kid. The large and often unusual canvas, the strong colours, experimental typography and of course the complete illegality of it all invigorated my need to draw on things that I wasn’t supposed to... personally I blame my parents for going nuts if i ever got close to a wall whilst brandishing a fist full of Crayola’s.

Over the years I have drawn on, painted, splattered, scratched and melted pretty much everything from 12" vinyl to a Sky dish to a car bonnet!

It’s great to see a project like the WCP (White Canvas Project) happen from the guys at Supremebeing, a band of brothers style gathering to produce art on abnormal surfaces.

I have also just come across the artwork of two brothers form Germany, QGRK and Nerd who paint together and recreate characters they made up during their childhood... they seem to love a good fox!

You can check out their portfolios by visiting their website www.lowbros.de

Stanley Chow is an Illustrator and Caricaturist that I have admired for a very long time. His style is very clean with sharp lines and excellent use of block colours with each piece looking as well designed as it has been illustrated. There are simply too many amazing pieces especially when you can buy most of his prints from his online cartel shop... I will, one day buy a print of "I love Leeloo" (an orange haired Milla Jovovich from the film The Fifth Element)!

Visit his portfolio.

A truly inspirational short film from Carlos Lascano.

The use of mixed media and illustration styles not only look amazing but work so well together.

Parking outside Brilliant HQ can be risky business, especially with the large amount of morons who do not know how wide their own cars are!

After another encounter with a fellow ’Sawbonite’ recently and more damage to my pride and joy I decided enough was enough and in true English spirit, wrote him a very angry note along with a diagram and stuck it to his car, pointing out the evidence left on his car.

So be warned, cross me and I will write you a sarcastic note and draw you a pretty picture :D

Supremebeing have a new competition and this time the task is to take your favorite album and rework the cover design. I have had no time to do much on this but chucked down some quick ideas on a few of my favorite albums. I’m really looking forward to seeing what others come up with and their take on album art.

I have just come across this site with a stack of very inspirational typography posters (above being my personal favorite), check them out here.

Liquid - Sweet Harmony

This video sparked off something amazing for me back in 1992 (wow, that really is a long time ago) as well as the memory of being berated by my parents for calling up The Box video channel to view it more than ten times. Watching this for the first time led me to the decision that I wanted a career that involved being creative.

I didn’t know how anyone could produce something so inspiring or what the job title would be of this awesome creator, but I wanted in. Knowing what you want to become at the age of eleven even in today’s society seems pretty crazy but I was awe struck, and not just by the messages, the pretty girl, location or the tune itself, it was the combination of audio, video and typography working together to form something bigger.

Watching it 19 years on it looks rather cheesy and shabby in places but it still gives me the overwhelming feeling of unlimited possibilities and the passion to explore them.

Last week I entered a competition that Supremebeing hold each month for a bit of fun.

The brief was to design a snowboard graphic and not only did my design reach the final three but it won the comp... although I’m not to sure that it didn’t just turn into a popularity contest as it was left to Facebook fans to decide the winner, either way I’m chuffed at the victory :)

So Sunday evening was a lazy one for me, typical. Mindlessly flicking through Facebook I noticed Supremebeing had stepped up their monthly competition and were requesting snowboard designs, great I thought, bit of fun, when’s the deadline... Monday... bugger!

An hour later I had my entry finished up, a mainly symbolic representation of rebellion against social conformity. (I know, I surprise even myself sometimes)

Check it!