- Part 15

Posted on January 23, 2011

Artist of the week – Sam Abdallah

Art

Now for another artist of the week from New Jersey! My jaw dropped to the floor when I saw this series of photos he had done. I love crazy ideas like this one! I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. This series is titled “Some Assembly Required” by Sam Abdallah. It is a project he has been working on for 3 years. Visit SamAbdallah.com to see more from this collection. Now for a little bit of information from Mr. Abdallah himself:

The Idea came about because I used to work with a photographer who treated their models really poorly, he would constantly go up to them and grab them and say thing like “this one needs new arms they are too lanky” or “this one needs a prettier face”. He would treat them like object and the models would LET him do it, to the point where it looked like they were losing their personalities.

So i thought to myself “how could I show the way this guy is treating his models in such a way where its interesting and different” , I then remembered how back in college I did a project in which I had to represent one of the 7 deadly sins which was “vanity” and I did a photo in which the woman in it had removed her head to apply makeup and thought that it would be a perfect way to represent what I was going for.

So now by showing the models with their heads/parts detached from the rest of them it shows how their parts are nothing more than clothing accessories that they could just change to suit their feelings. It also has some more hidden meanings behind it, showing how vain our society has become.

I wanted the photos to be in such a way where its comical but eye popping so that it captures the viewers attention and keeps them looking. I am almost done with the series, I have 75 different photos with various models so far, but am looking to get to about 100-150 photos with different models

More about the artist:
Sameh Abdalalh is a Graphic Designer/Photographer. He has been a designer for about 5 years professionally and a Photographer for about 7 years professionally. He graduated from William Paterson University with a BFA and a concentration in computer graphics. He worked for about 3 years as a product designer/ graphic designer for two companies, Springfield Precision Instruments and Taylor Precision Products/HoMedics. Currently he is searching for employment while working on his projects and photography in his spare time. Visit SamAbdallah.com to see more of his work.

Posted on January 19, 2011

Florida Keys and Flickr

Photo

For my birthday as a gift I received a new telephoto zoom lens for my Canon SLR. Around mid-December I took a trip to the Florida keys and got to take some really amazing photos using my new lens. Here are some of the recent additions I made to my flickr. Many have birds because I went to visit a bird rescue site in Key Largo. (I’m a bird lover)

Posted on January 16, 2011

Artist of the week – Paul Jach

Art

Paul Jach has been working as a freelance artist since receiving his BFA majoring in Illustration from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, CA in 1998. He has participated in several solo and group shows, as well as commercial work for created event posters for Bill Graham Present’s Fillmore West and Warfield Auditorium, Carnegie Hall’s Weill Auditorium and the record label Saturday Morning Records. In 2001, Paul formed the art collective, Speak-Easy Art. In January of 2009, Paul partnered in Speak-Easy Art Gallery with fellow artist, Michael Paquette. Speak-Easy Art Gallery sets a new standard in showcasing established and emerging artists. They have created a space, both interesting and accessible to all art enthusiasts. As co-owner of the gallery, Paul serves as co-curator and education director. www.SpeakEasyArt.com

Paul on his Work:

To create the doodle series, I used a subconscious constructive technique and knew that I wanted it to begin with line. For most of us, our first experience in creating art is to scribble on a piece of paper. This is a primal impulse for us, we naturally make these marks once a drawing implement is put in our hand. I felt the place where we all begin in art, an experience that most of us share, would be an interesting place to start with these prints. That line would then ultimately become the skeleton of the pieces. I wanted the curves of the lines to be more controlled than just scribbling, yet remain free flowing. The nature of the lines in some ways also references the graffiti tags that had caught my eye while riding the city buses in the past. To make the work more unique, I explored printing on surfaces other than paper, such as sheet metal, wood and backlit plexiglass. www.PaulJach.com

Posted on January 11, 2011

Vintage Lady Magazine Ads

Design

Happy 1.11.11! I’d like to thank Web Designer Aid for including me in their 45 Girly Geeks to Follow on Twitter. And with that I decided to make this entry a girly one as well! Sometimes being a hoarder can be a bit of a good thing. I found a PILE of vintage magazines my dad had saved, many from well before the 80s when I was born. I LOVE looking at vintage design, to see not only how far we’ve come but to also laugh at the silly slogans from back then. Here are some fun *girly* ads I scanned from a 1948 Silver Screen Magazine. Who ever knew there were such thing as “Brownettes or “Liquid Liptone”. These will soon be a part of my scan site I am working on.

Posted on January 6, 2011

Looking forward in 2011

Rambling

So it has been a while, but I will say I was SO occupied by the holiday season. Plus I had gone to Florida so I was out on an adventure in the Florida Keys. I was disappointed to find out there is no such thing as “Kokomo” (thanks to the beach boys I thought there was). But anyway, some new things I am hoping to achieve this year within girloncanvas.com

Looking to have an “artist of the week” every week. Any kind of artist- not just designers. I love especially finding local artists and bringing some attention to them. I saw some really great local art in Miami, which I may share here at some point. If you have any artist you would like to recommend or if you are an artist and would like to be featured please email me [email protected].

I really want to get more involved in Threadless.com. Most know it is a site to create t-shirt designs for and if they accept your design anyone can purchase a shirt with your art on it! Designing for clothing is something I could see myself doing forever. I am obsessed with graphic-tees!

Start a personal long-term project. I think to keep my creative juices flowing all year I am going to start a long-term design project. Lately anything I’ve created was for someone else, but I think I should also design for myself! I have some ideas of what I want to create, but I’m not going to make any promises yet 😉

Create more resources for others. I want to start a scan-site. I have a lot of vintage magazines that are calling me, and wanting to be scanned. I would also like to create more fun useful things others can download, whether they are a designer or not.

Well that is what we have to look forward to in the new year. I hope you all have a great 2011… remember there’s only one! 🙂

Posted on December 13, 2010

Love and a Postcard

Design/ www

Speaking of OnePageLove.com in my last entry, turns out my portfolio is in today’s entry on their site! I got their email when I woke up this morning, they let me know they added my page. What a great way to wake up on a Monday! I know I’ve been really really really slow with entries lately, but I’ve been busy with projects! And those projects pay me so they get a little bit more attention 😉

About a month ago I made my own postcard to pimp out this blog (just my cool way of saying advertise). They came out pretty nice, I had them printed at Overnightprints.com. They do print nice postcards with pretty UV coating and all BUT let me tell you, if you make a mistake and don’t align it right, they WON’T care, so make sure your preview of your project looks EXACTLY how you want it to! I’m going to give some of these away to whoever wants one I also had magnets made too. The magnet looks like the black side of the postcard with the words. I’m only going to give away 3 of the magnets, so if you want it email me fast! Send me your name/address and let me know if you want a postcard or both. [email protected].

Posted on December 4, 2010

Another Portfolio Layout

Design/ www

With lots of inspiration from OnePageLove.com I created my own one page portfolio. I used this Lightbox2 script. I tried a ton of different scripts and did not like any of them, I just keep going back to it. The only con that bothered me is that if used with another script, they interfere with each other and I’m not enough of a code dork to figure out why. But having more than one script wasn’t really necessary since I was trying to keep it simple anyhow. With some love of the color purple and a fun typeface I bring you this…

Posted on November 23, 2010

postcard design

Design

Recently I designed a postcard for a lawyer in NYC. He basically gave me text and left how it looked up to me. I was happy he let me have some creative freedom, some people tell you exactly what to put and I’m thinking “Well who is the artist here??”. I had a lot of fun working with him and even later meeting him. He wanted 4,000 of these made, and I order the prints too! Oh yes and I got to design them pins, which I had not done before. It was overall a great experience and here I share the digital and final product.