Ceegee, blog graphisme et inspiration

Tribute to Zao Wou-Ki

clement — Wednesday, April 10 2013

I just read into my news feeds that the painter Zao Wou-Ki passed away yesterday. I find his work very interesting, and so I wanted to show some pictures of his work, some of my readers surely don't know this great artist. Zao Wou-Ki was born in China, and has been initially trained to traditionnal chinese painting. After coming to France in 1948, he met important french artists like Henri Michaux, Paul Klee or André Malraux. Their influence helped the artist to create his own style, later called lyric abstraction. His paintings put the viewer in a very singular feeling, a kind of reverie.

Interview with Robert Proch, multidisciplinary artist

clement — Thursday, March 7 2013

It's been a long time I didn't wrote any interview on Ceegee.fr, but when I thought about introducing the work of Robert Proch, I wanted to ask him some questions. These last months, we saw some pictures of this multidisciplinary artist form Poland buzzing around the web, mostly his huge street art works. Often at the borders of abstraction, the artist plays with colours and shapes, giving his compositions a very original point of vue and graphic style, with a striking touch. Known for his murals and canvas, the artist also created short animation films which are really interesting, both for the direction and the graphic style.

Could you shortly introduce yourself ? How did you came to produce your art ?

Introvertic type. Left handed. I'm diggin this work it since was 6 or 7. Found out that dropping observations on paper is the thing I just like to do more then any other. Never suspected that later it will 'eat me alive'.

What are your inspirations ?

Little things. I prefer to put attention on events happening close. Often boring everyday stuff. Psychical states are also my little topic frames- kind of confession. Point is to be honest. I'm really curious where it will go in future years.

You come from Poland, do you consider it influences your art ? How is the art scene in Poland today ?

Many things around is changing fast, internet made quite big mess. But nowdays we have world of such possibilities like never before. Regarding art scene in Poland- I'm not great follower of things happening. I have never been involved much. I just have few artist I really admire and it's totally enough. I know, it's ignorat.

You work on very varied media (canvas, walls, animation, etc). What are the relationships and differences between all these formats ?

I like to change size and background of my work. Way of thinking is actually the same. Variety of conditions brings fresh energy to each of media. It's also related to nature rythm- working on wall in warm months and getting back to studio for winter. Thank god we have March already :)

You realise amazing mural paintings. How do you play with the urban environment of the paintings ? What are the neighbours reactions ?

I treat this as kind of compromise. I always try to leave somthing that won't kill people around every day just to be as original as possible. But in the same way it cannot be easy kitch. Usually reactions are negative in the beginning cause I'm treated as intruder but on last day of work relations are opposite so far.

Thank you very much for this interview Robert !

You can see more works of Robert Proch on his website http://proch.madkittens.pl and on his Behance portfolio.
Below, two amazing animation films to watch absolutly !

My Strange Grandfather, stop motion short film by Dina Velikovskaya

clement — Wednesday, February 27 2013

Dina Velikovskaya is still studying at the Russian State University of Cinematography, but after watching her last short film, "My Strange Grandfather", we can easily think the director has several years of experience. Based on the stop motion puppets animation technique, the film is really beautiful, with amazing details allowing the artist to create a very unique atmosphere. Elements like the soundtrack, the wind illusion, or the post-production effects give the whole a great quality, with a nice story. A very talented student who surely will be a major animation artist in the next years.

Cumulus showreel 2013

clement — Wednesday, January 30 2013

The Lyon-based motion design agency Cumulus, which I wrote an interview some years ago (read it here) just released their new 2013 showreel. An opportunity to have a look at their last works for clients like Orangina, Footmercato, Région Rhône-Alpes or the electronic music festival in Lyon Les Nuits Sonores.

www.cumulus-collectif.com

A chalkboard season greetings by Coming Soon

clement — Thursday, January 24 2013

For the season greetings of Twixl Media, Belgian agency Coming Soon realised a stop motion video showing a chalkboard typographic creation. Two designers create frame by frame several compositions playing with characters, shapes and proportions in order to communicate the company's wishes.

www.coming-soon.be

Les Pixels Associés, in orbit for 2013 !

clement — Saturday, January 12 2013

It's been a long time I didn't wrote any article on this blog, I'm sorry for my regular readers but I've been very busy during the last months, with not a lot of time for Ceegee. I will try to take more time for it, but at first, I wanted to wish you a great year 2013.

2012 has been for me a very special year, I left my last webdesigner job to create my own communication and graphic design company, Les Pixels Associés. A just starting adventure, which already allowed me to work on very interesting and varied projects, for passionate clients. I also started a new job as a teacher in a design school, Aries Lyon (Visual communication Bachelor section). A great experience, passionnate and talentful students, and the opportunity to transmit technical and graphical competences, but also my own vision of the job.

After this little personnal summary, I share with you some picture of the 2013 greeting card of Les Pixels Associés, wishing you happiness and success for this new year 2013 !

Settlements and City Strategies by Vigilism

clement — Wednesday, October 24 2012

Vigilism aka Lekan Jeyifo is a digital artist born in Nigeria and based in Brooklyn, New York. In his illustrations series untitled Settlements and City Strategies, he shares his own vision of urban atmospheres. His pictures mix up fragmented compositions, playing with geometric shapes in a 3D architecture rendering way, and vintage colours and textures, warming up the images.
In the second part of the series, the artist plays with semi-realistic maps, with weird informations of networks, directions, key points...

La page Behance du projet
http://vigilism.com

Récession Terminale, sand animation film

clement — Friday, October 12 2012

David Myriam is a pluri-disciplinary artist who specializes in sand animation. He uses this technique for animation films, but also works live during events all over the world.
Récession Terminale, (meaning in french something like "final recession"), is his last work, produced by Citron Bien (which produces very interesting animation films, like Paphù vs idols).

This short film is a very experimental work, playing on emotions. It describes a mutation, a transformation, in a dark and frightening style. I think that the main notion of the film turns around identity and consciousness. The editing and the sound track give the film a nice rythm and dynamic, which is often a problem in linear and slow sand animation films.
The film is currently broadcasted by european channel Arte, via the online platform Arte Creative.
the film page on Citron Bien website
The facebook page

404 Concept : illustration and wall art

clement — Wednesday, October 3 2012

404 Concept is an art and design collective founded by french designers Pierre Coulanges and Jérôme Beguier. After several works as freelancers and with agencies, they decided in 2011 to focus on their common projects and they moved to London. They specialize in illustration and wall design, playing with different mediums and with the architecture of each place to express their creativity.

If you're located in France, near Lyon, 404 Concept just lauch their new exhibition Thursday, October 4th 2012, at Galerie Sans Titre, rue Burdeau (69001). Have a look at the teaser below, before some pictures of their precedent works.
http://404concept.com
The Facebook page of the exhibition

Webdesigns by Vanessa Pepin

clement — Tuesday, September 25 2012

Vanessa Pepin is an art director and webdesigner working for the Quebec agency Deuxhuithuit. I discovered her works on Behance and her interactive design works are very impressive. They combine legibility, typographic precision and graphic identity with a clever use of recent HTML/CSS technologies.
An interesting example is her work for Le Clou theatre, which is outstanding on several point of vues : a very legible and user friendly layout, a nice use of responsive design techniques, and an interesting organization of content, especially on spectacles pages.

Behance portfolio of Vanessa Pepin
www.deuxhuithuit.com

Print design : LWLies - On the road edition

clement — Thursday, September 20 2012

For their "On the road" untitled issue, creators of independant english magazine Little White Lies decided to get inspiration from Jack Kerouac and his famous book "On the Road". They produced the magazine with the same process as Kerouac wrote his manuscript : on a long single paper scroll, like the old volumens.
The result is a very unusual magazine format, mixing up writing machine text and original illustrations, directly drawn on the same paper scroll and almost in the same time. The "handmade" aspect is very present and recalls some artist's travel sketchbooks. Illustrations are varied and interesting, but the detail which really seduced me is the calligraphed headtitles, very dynamic and contrasting with the structured paragraph of machine typed texts.

Overlook of the issue on the website of The Church Of London, the magazine editor
Behance page of the project

Metro, short animation film by Jacob Wyatt

clement — Wednesday, September 12 2012

Metro is a short animation film directed by Jacob Wyatt when he was stuudying at Brigham Young University. The story's about a little girl in the subway, a bit scared by a world she apparently does'nt really know. But after the first sequences the scenario becomes more fantastic and develops an imaginary world with a new character, a strange white fox.

A very interesting feature of this short film is the use of small frames, recalling the comic-books frames, allowing to focus on the action and creating a dynamic visual rythm.

Have a look at Jacob Wyatt's blog, great pictures inside :
http://jake-paperlife.blogspot.fr

Illustrations by Masha Karpushina

clement — Wednesday, September 5 2012

Masha Karpushina is a russo-british illustrator born in USSR in 1982. A lot of different clients chose her graphic style to create magazine illustration, advertising or package design. She introduces her work with these words : "She is driven by the power of nature, the beauty within man and beast, traditions of past generations and the essence of love." Her portfolio is essentially composed of ink or pencil line drawings playing with watercolor paintings, but some of her works also contain photography.

Her Behance Portfolio
http://mashakarpushina.com

Tres Hombres branding

clement — Friday, August 24 2012

Tres Hombres is a very special rum brand. Created by three european friends (they met each others on the sea), this rum, produced in the caribean, is the very first rum of the 21^st century to be conveyed in Europe by an environment-friendly way.To achieve this goal, the three friends built a sailing boat, allowing them to cross the Atlantic ocean in two months, in order to deliver the product in Europe. The whole production tries to be as much ecological as possible, by labelling the bottles manually by example.
The branding has been created by dutch art director Kim Stassar. Even if it's not very original, it fits well to the simple but adventurous concept, like an invitation to the travel and the sea... The ship theme, which is pretty common in rum identities, gets here another dimension when we thought that the spirit has been delivered by this very special sailboat.

www.blancodesign.nl
http://treshombres-rum.com

Webdesign selection : Mountain

clement — Saturday, August 11 2012

I start a new type of article with this post : thematic selection of webdesigns. This kind of posts are pretty classic and you can find a lot of examples on blogs, but there are a lot of themes that nobody talk about. By example : mountains. Maybe you wonder why making a selection of webdesigns about such a theme, but I had to make it for a professionnal project and I thought it was a good idea to share it with you some of the most interesting websites. By the way, feel free to share interesting websites you bookmarked in the comments.

Keep Exploring

A nice tourist canadian website, built as a photo reporting. The photographs series are sorted by themes and regions. There are very good shots and the whole allows the user to immerse into the travels.

I-mtb

This mountain bike dedicated website is built around a strict layout grid, but the great use of photographs and the choice of colours give more fun to the whole. A very clear and functionnal website, with a strong graphic identity.
Created by Roomfive.

Millet

Millet is a great french brand of mountain sport gear. The sober but dynamic design, playing with a punchy scale of colours, conveys the quality and seriousness of the company and products. From a marketing and communication point of vue, the place dedicated to the technical consultants shows the company expertise without a classic advertising approach.
Created by La Haute Société.

MontagneTV

Montagne TV is a french tv channel dedicated to the mountain universe. Even if the logotype and graphic identity are very basic and common, the website in itself is interesting : The user experience, mostly on the homepage, contains good ideas to organize information.
Created by Altimax.

Auvergne Tourisme

Tourist website for the french region Auvergne (a nice region of very old volcanos). Obviously, the main goal here was to seduce, specifically through nice pictures and videos. An interesting idea of layout, which takes advantage of all the screen's place, but not very adapted to a deep and long read of the texts. The interactive map could have been more emphasized, but the whole website is very rich and attractive.
Created by Agence Interactive.

Savoie Mont Blanc

This website uses the "Parallax" système (a javascript trick with several grounds of pictures moving when scrolling), which plays with nice bacground photographs. This parallax homepage is good looking but contains almost only photos, and I think it's not so easy for everyone to see how to access the content pages. It could be a shame if the users don't visit these pages, because their content is really rich and interesting, with videos and interactive maps.
Created by Agence Interactive

To conlude this little selection, to websites created by the french (Lyon based) web agency Enyware (this great team learned me the basics of the job few several years ago). The art director is Julien Milliès (who just won a site of the day awwward with his brand new portfolio).

Temmos

Introducing the different luxury resorts of the Temmos group, the website shows a nice pictures mosaic with a fluid and intuitive user experience.

Hôtel Aigle des Neiges

A luxury resort, member of the Temmos group. This website is really outstanding : innovative design, audacious layout, flash-similar user experience... a great work !

Samsara, an audiovisual experience

clement — Monday, August 6 2012

You may have notice that the blog's activity has slowed these last weeks and I'm sorry about it, but the launch of my communication studio takes me a lot of time and energy. So I'll try to take advantage of the calm of August to share with you some of my recent discoveries.
It's not already a hot news here in France, but I think that a really great documentary film is about to be launched at the end of the month trough the world. This film, called Samsara, directed by Ron Fricke and produced by Mark Magidson, is the result of 5 years of work through 25 countries. An interactive map, on the film website, shows all the locations with some photographs. Entirely shot in 70mm, the movie is conceived as a kind of guided meditation, a unique audiovisual experience in which only music and images lead the viewer's mind.

www.barakasamsara.com

The official trailer (don't forget to put the 1080p HD mode on, pictures are wonderful) :

Martin Allais, visual artist

clement — Tuesday, July 17 2012

Martin Allais is a pluridisciplinary designer, working essentially for illustration, animation and motion design. His productions are very varied and he works as well for advertising as for V-Jing projects (with for instance Four Tet). Born in Venezuela, latino-american culture is very important for him and in his work : he sees this culture as an original creation made of different parts of European, American and Pre-columbian cultures.

When talking about inspiration, he cites Platon, french philosopher of 17 century or Egon Schiele... A nice blend with no borders ! Visually, I really like the simple and sometimes childish aspect in his pictures, which often conveys a part of fun and poetry.

http://martinallais.com
www.juntosotravez.com

Interview directed by Gestalten TV :

Les Pixels Associés, communication and multimedia design

clement — Tuesday, July 10 2012

When wishing you a happy year 2012 (with this greeting card), I told you my project to create my own studio. Today it's done, and after many administrative formalities, trainings and reflexions, I'm proud to introduce Les Pixels Associés, communication and multimedia design studio. More precisely, my work is to provide communication and branding consultancy to freelancers, small or mid-size companies, and to create their communication tools, especially interactive tools (website creation, online marketing, mobile, etc).
I can't show you my first works yet, but here are some pictures of the studio's identity. Feel free to get in touch if you want more informations, or if you want to work with me (as client or partner).

Les Pixels Associés

Landscapes by Gregory Euclide

clement — Friday, July 6 2012

Son of an art teacher and a master gardener, american artist Gregory Euclide develops a very original work, essentially composed of landscapes representations. His pieces of art are the result of various blends : various materials are used (found materials, plastic, papers...), different kind of shapes are mixed (natural shapes and landscapes near abstract geometric shapes), and a particular blend of natural and artifical elements. The artist has a very interesting vision about it : according to him, the border between natural and artificial is not so clear, and sometimes what we consider as natural is the result of man's action, draining rivers, drawing roads and flattening grounds... Beyond this very personnal vision, the works of Gregory Euclide are very beautiful, very intricate, and allow imagination to get lost inside in few seconds.

www.gregoryeuclide.com

Steve Burg, Prometheus concept art and more

clement — Wednesday, July 4 2012

Steve Burg is an american concept artist, who worked on several of the biggest movies of science-fiction since the 80's. With works for Total Recall, Waterworld, Terminator 2 or the recent Prometheus, he conceived very detailed universes and more particularly machines and ships. Something very interesting with this artist is that he began to work when digital wasn't used for concept art. His first pictures were painted with gouache or markers, but he currently works essentially in digital art, with a strong base of 3D modeling.