25 Photobank (Shannon)

Game Cover (Kameron, Keith haring inspired)

Rick Griffin (Shannon)

Rick Griffin was born June of 1944 and passed August 1991. He lived as one of the leading designers of "psychedelic posters" in the 1960's. He also contributed his talents to the underground comix movement. He is mostly known for his connection to "Grateful Dead", for whom he has produced some of their greatest and best known posters and record jackets. Taking a look at Griffin's work you can see he has a distinct style where the main focus of his cover art is centered on the platform. A circular clipping layer is formed and encloses the background  while in the foreground lies the subject of his piece. A flat, solid color is also added just to the outside of his circular clipping layer, usually complimenting one of the prominent colors in the piece. To finish off his work, Griffin's titles are positioned in the top center of  the cover, laying tactfully over the clipping layer, usually in a very bold font.

Movie Cover (Andrew Hewitt; Keith Haring Inspired)

Hanuka 2 (Andreas)

This is probably my favorite from the brothers. My favorite thing about their work is the energy it brings. The lines and contours, in addition to the simplicity of the color scheme (highlights or shadows), just makes the piece come alive. I didn't realize how critical the backgrounds were to the composition until I tried to duplicate the style. Although the background is made of relatively drab colors, because they are complimentary, they stick out from the sky, and actually create depth in the composition.

Hanuka 1 (Andreas)

What I love most about this one is the color scheme. I love how you can get the sense of depth and dimension even though the piece is monochromatic. And I think its simply genius that they use virtually no local tones. Just highlights or shadows. It gives it this energy that I feel would be lost if they used more colors.

Book Cover (Andreas; Hanuka Inspired)

Sigh...

Book cover.

Inspired by the Hanuka Bros.

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Comparision Paper

    Group Comparison Biography On Keith Haring and Tropical Toxic Brothers








     Our two inspirational graphic design cover artists are Keith Haring and the Tropical Toxic brothers (Asaf and Tomer Hanuka). These artists are some of the best at designing album, magazine, book and game covers. Keith Haring not only designed covers but was the most prolific pop artist known, after his role model Andy Warhol's rein. Haring was born on May 4, 1958 in Reading, Pennsylvania and was raised in the nearby Kutztown Pennsylvania. Keith learned early art techniques like drawing cartoons from his father and the popular culture around him such as Walt Disney and Dr.Seuss. By the time Haring graduated from high school he was already on his way to the Pittsburgh Ivy School of Professional Art, where he studied temporarily commercial graphic art. Later he decided that he had no interest in commercial graphic design and dropped out to persue his career on his own terms. In 1978 he held his own art exhibition in a gallery in Pittsburgh. Later on that same year he moved to New York and attended The school of the Visual Arts where he finally felt at home. While living in New York Haring found an alternative art community willing to except his ecclectic art work. While in college Keith experimented with installations, collages and concentrated on drawing. Haring soon discovered that using the outside world as his art piece would bring more attention to his work instead of holding regular old gallery openings. Unused metro billboards began to interest Haring as a good canvas for his drawings and paintings, which he later displayed his work to the public. These artworks over time made Keith Haring one of the most famous pop artists even though he had a very brief career that spanned the 1980s. His work was featured in over 100 solo and group exhibitions combined. In 1986 Haring was featured in over 40 newspaper and magazine articles. He collaborated with many famous stars and artists on different art projects. The Pop Shop his own personal retail store and gallery in Soho became a major attraction in New York for its residents and visitors. In 1988 Haring was diagnosed with AIDS, in which he later established a foundation for. While living with the disease Keith became a spokesman and advocate to prevent the spread of AIDS. He later died of AIDS related complications in 1990 at the age of 31.
     Asaf and Tomer Hanuka are twins that were raised in different places but share the exact same genetic makeup. They are a two man recking ball team turning out all types of artwork and picking up awards left and right for their cartoon strips, commercial design work etc. Asaf Hanuka was born in 1974 and as stated previously he is a comic book artist and Israeli illustrator. Asaf and his identical twin brother makeup the design team Tropical Toxic where they do many art collaborations together.
     Although the artists works differ in style they remain similar in quality, popularity and noteriaty. Their description and processes for Tropical Toxic seem to be an untold secret, due to intensive research no information could be found. It can definitely be assumed that once their initial drawings are completed they move to the computer using such programs as photoshop and illustrator. Keith Harings artwork process consisted of drawing, painting on canvas, using acryllic or oil paint to complete his pieces. Then his reproduction process took place once he opened the Pop shop that lead to mass commercialism of his original works on cups, bags, shirts etc.. The artists are different in their art processes because although Haring used the computer for mass reproduction it was not used for most of his original works. Toxic shock uses the computer more for their works once their original pieces are created to add depth and animation.
These artists influenced our group work by helping us develop commercial cover art using their original works as references and trying techniques used to complete our projects. Their styles and processes will stick with us so in the future we will be able to produce our personalart designs and art pieces to the public. We also learned the adversities that they may have encountered to get to their epitimies of fame and recognition. In conclusion this experience has given us the opportunity to have knowledge in what it takes to be a entrepeneur in the art world in different styles, shapes and forms.

Tony harris (Kameron)

Tony harris is an American comic book artist, known for his work as series such as Starman, Iron Man, and Ex Machina. He has been nominated for five Eisner Awards for his work. Harris makes extensive use of models and photo reference in his work. In the cover below Tony displays how pure creativity, using several tools for this album. Such as theclone tool, blur tool and so on. He creates emotion through his artwork and definition. This is truly a good coverartist for just showing creativity and imagination in this. 

Abdul Mati Klarwein (Shannon)

Abdul Mati Klarwein was a Jewish painter that was born in Hamburg, Germany in 1932. In the beginning years of his life his family fled to the British Mandate of Palestine after the rise of Nazi Germany. He later found homes in France, Tibet, India, Bali, North Africa, Turkey, Europe and the Americas. Traveling was a large part of Klarwein's upbringing, thus he was privileged to study under a range of artists including Fernand Léger with whom he apprenticed for after attending the École des Beaux-Arts. The subject matter of Klarwein's works are generally related to pop culture and reference Western deities, symbolism and landscapes while giving off a surreal type feel. Though the color scheme involved in many of his paintings are very naturalistic tones, they are utilized in such a way that his images come off as surreal. His well-known works include Santana's cover for Abraxas and Miles Davis' Bitches Brew. However, he is still best-known for his artworks created in the 1960's and 1970's. Popular for his use of psychedelic imagery and religious art from a number of traditions, he died of cancer on March 7, 2002 on the Spanish island of Majorca.

Magazine Cover (Artisia; Keith Haring Inspired)

Game Cover (Shannon)

CD Cover (Shannon)

Stephen Bliss (Andrew)

1986 Stephen Bliss Started worked as an in house designer and artist at fashion company for Burton Snowboards, BMG Records, Sony, Nintendo, Pepsi, MTV, Aardman Animation, Jim Henson’s Creature Shop and painted the album/ CD cover for Massive Attack. He is currently senior Artist at Rockstar Games, NYC and has worked on The Warriors, Bully, Red Dead Redemption and Grand Theft Auto videos games. On the Vice City Stories cover Stephen Bliss added rounded edges on the box frames which suggests the 80s and distinguishes the cover from the previous GTA games, the colors were more pastel than GTA3, and the characters are more detailed less caricatured. With the other GTA games, such as San Andreas takes the flat color of the previous styles but there’s lighting on one side and reflective lighting on the other to make it more dimensional, there’s also a kind of blended paint style on the lighted side. The cover styles get more painterly as the series evolves GTA4 is completely painterly with no outline

James Jean (Andrew)

James Jean is a Taiwanese-American award winning artist and illustrator living in Los Angeles. He was educated at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. He works as a cover artist and some of his clients include Time Magazine, The New York Times, Rolling Stone, Spin, ESPN, Atlantic Records, Target, Knopf, and Prada among others. This piece was a double page spread done for the entertainment Weekly’s 2006 Holiday Movie Preview. In this illustration James Jean conveys colorful imagery. The process took four days to create, from drawing to digital coloring. Photoshop was used for coloring, compositing of the background, and the glow effects. There is something about Jame’s Jean’s work that transcends illustration. It is artful, curious, colorful and just a little bit dark.

Takashi Murakami (Artisia)

The japanese artist Takashi Murakami did a wonderful job creating the Kanye West "Graduation" album cover which truly embodies all of Kanye's alter anime egos.  This album artwork expresses colorful, pastel imagery influenced by Murakami's affiliation with postmodern art and anime. Its production process took place over the course of several weeks, with West constantly visualizing new images and emailing the ideas to Murakami and his team so the album cover could be created. Bringing the educational theme expressed by West's previous albums to a close, the visual plotline of the images contained within the liner notes lead up to a graduation ceremony that takes places within a fictional college institution situated within a futuristic metropolis called Universe City. Murakami used in collaboration photshop and all the emailed images, Kanye sent him to create this beautiful cover to make things come alive.

Keith Haring (Artisia)

The Keith Haring cover art done for the "Requiem for the degas of the B-boys", by robert Farris Thompson is an amazing piece. The work is done on a canvas board (60*60 inches) and uses acrylic paint as its medium, photoshop was also used but it is not listed. Unlike most of his artwork the cover is done mainly in black, white and hot pink acrylic paint which are dark colors. The cover was released May 1990 the year of Haring's death, but the work was done in 1988. The piece is definitely classic Haring and is always a trademark of his subway graffiti drawings. The difference is the lines are less bold in this piece then in the most of his works and the figure seems more sharp unlike the curvy lines he usually does.

Whaddup, Fam.

Okay, so as of now, we have a collective of 8 artists.

1. Keith Haring (Artisia)
2. Tropical Toxic (Dreas)
3. James Jean (Drew)
4. Stephen Bliss (Drew)
5. Mondolithic Sudios (Dreas)
6. Takashi Murakami (Artisia)
7. Mati Klarwein (Shannon)
8. Rick Griffin (Shannon)

If you guys found others/have others that I don't know about, put 'em up. Basically, if you found/like 'em then write up that bio.