With the green trend in full swing, the pendulum
was bound to reach the opposite end soon enough.
As more companies don their eco-attire (picture the
wave of greener identities and messaging), savvy marketing
revolutionists recognize that blending into the
Emerald City landscape won’t get you noticed. But
a fresh approach—still with clear skies, unpolluted
waters and landscapes—to the current crisis can be
attained. While at first glance a mechanical palette
may sound unappealing, don’t dismiss the power of a
clean slate and cool blue hues.
For the image of a smog-free, futuristic
city, Toronto-based illustrator Gary Alphonso
employed a cobalt palette. “I think that I like warm
colors most,” he notes. And he suggests that “even
blues can have a certain warmth to them in context
with other colors.”
Alphonso likes to use muted colors, “colors that
evoke an earlier time.” He explains, “For example, I
seldom use white. It would be an off-white or cream.
Reds might be a tomato-red instead of a red right out
of the tube. I also try to save the colors with the most
contrast for areas in the piece that I would like to
draw attention to—the focal points.”
Coming from a printmaking, scratchboard background,
Alphonso draws everything on paper before
going to the computer. He describes his style as retro
or art deco. “I like to start with a dark background
and then carve lighter areas out. Essentially like
scratchboard, I carve the negative space away. This
forces you to respect the relationship between positive
and negative space, and in my opinion, creates
better-designed illustrations,” he says.
 High-tech alphabets
Bring the bling
with Neurochrome
(chrome); step ouside
the box with Polygon
Power (rigid); tune in
to your analog side
with Radioland (fixed);
go retro robot with
Zyborgs (solid)—all
are free at www.dafont.com.
|
A new dimension
From pencil to digital,
approaches to drawing
vary as widely
as the audience the
images target. And
arguments for and
against 3D identities
with full bells, whistles
and animation
abound. The software
capabilities for creating
realistic renderings
are altering the
artistic atmosphere.
E-mail dgmeditor@dgusa.com, and let us
know where you stand
on this issue. Image
5107411, liquidlibrary,
www.jiunlimited.com |
Put gears in motion
What about a color
motivates consumers
to act? Find out from
Pantone’s color guru
Leatrice Eiseman in a
free webcast. Image
5236161, Photos.com,
www.jiunlimited.com (get both the
complete webcast
schedule and free
images at www.dynamicgraphics.com)
|
