Collaborative eBooklet

PRACTITIONER ANALYSIS By: Rana Ahmed, Ronny Lawrence Leung Weng Suen, Kirsten Bamboulis and Janice Sullivan.

2021

CONTENTS:

SHANTANU KUMAR A freelance Graphic Designer with focus on Ilutration, UI/UX as well as youtude vlog maker.

By Ronny L Leung Weng Suen

03 - 04 IKKO TANAKA A Japanese graphic designer that was competent in postmodernism posters and cultural designing production.

By Rana Ahmed

01 - 02

JAN ENKELMANN A London-based documentary and travel photographer, a creative director, communication designers and branding consultant.

By Janice Sullivan

07 - 08

TYLER PATE A Freelance graphic designer, illustrator as well as the Creative Pain creator with the aim to break the creative block and inspire others.

By Kirsten Bamboulis

05 - 06

IKKO TANAKA “Tanaka enjoyed playing with shape and color. He also liked pushing the boundaries of Modernism.

This shape-shifting poster is Modernist post-Modern in its look and feel and playfulness.”

1

01

Ikko Tanaka (1930, 2002) was a Japanese graphic designer competent in post-modernism posters and cultural designing production. He developed a geometrical and playful visual design style that combines the principles and aesthetics of modernism and the Japanese tradition.

Tanaka was born in Nara and lived in Tokyo. In 1947, he studied art at the Kyoto City University of Fine Arts and graduated in 1950. Then he started a job as a textile designer at Kanebo Fabrics. After two years, Tanaka became a member of the Sankei Paper Group (the organisation that influenced his professional design career In I954, Tanaka was awarded the Industrial Design Prize of the Mainichi newspaper. Then he joined the JAAC and won the Members’ Prize, which firmly established him as one of the most recognisable Japanese figures in the field of graphic design.

In 1963 Tanaka established his design studio in Tokyo. Since then, he has designed and curated exhibitions for numerous places, including the Oceanic Culture Museum in Okinawa, Japan, the Japanese design exhibition in Moscow, Russia, the V&A

in London, England and more collections throughout Japan.

During the 1980s, Tanaka and twelve top Japanese graphic designers were invited to UCLA to innovate poster designs for the Japanese Noh traditional arts under the direction of the art critic Masaru Katsumi. As a result, Tanaka created his renowned poster “Nihon Buyo Performance by the Asian Performing Arts Institute”.

As seen in Fig. 1, it is easy to notice the modern concepts of the design that Tanaka’s brought to the traditional Japanese style. It reflects classic Japanese performing art characteristics combining dance and pantomime (theatrical entertainment) performed by Geisha (traditional Japanese professional entertainers woman).

It shows strict, rigid geometry and strong colour contrast to distinguish and liven all art elements of the subject. On the other hand, it also has some key elements of post-modernism, which were inspired by Bauhaus design traditions, Avant-Garde Modernism, including Suprematism and De Stijl. It involves bright, bold and light colours that remind us of Wassily Kandinsky’s abstract paintings.

How Tanaka inspires me What inspires me the most about Tanaka’s work is his ability to translate complex concepts into a simple, laconic and thoughtful visual language that requires no explanation and can easily be understood by the simplicity of shapes, grids, hues, purity and silhouette clarity.

There is a fine line that separates simplicity and boring, and that is simple means effective.

I admire the simplicity in Tanaka’s work because it is unique, interesting, imaginative and easy to remember and understand, and these are four essential characteristics that lead to successful design. On the other hand, boring is dull and uninteresting, which is never the case with the effective design of Tanaka.

He avoided small details and the high complexity of the illustrations, such as movements, tension, or three-dimensional effects. Instead, he concentrated on attaining his primary goal: “the price of beauty” through flat geometric style. He infused expressive vitality to art and design and depicted communicable facts and ideas to the audience instead of fiction.

3

2

5

4

02

SHANTANU KUMAR “Smooth like butter’’ ‘‘Love all your videos.

Inspiring me in my pursuit of graphic design! Keep up the awesome work’’

6

03

While I was browsing on ‘‘How to Become a Graphic Designer ?’’ in early March 2019, I read articles and watched some videos around the subject on Youtube, I came to notice an aesthetics vlogs video on a young man making and filming his own graphic design process call ‘‘A Day in Life of a Graphic Designer’’.

Welcome to Shantanu Kumar world. The young talented man is from New Delhi, India and graduated from Delhi, public School - Computer Science Diploma. Via posted videos on Youtube, Shantanu is not only a graphic designer or a vlogger, he is also a coffee drinker, a fan of Nintendo games and always wear dark colour outfit.

While his age is unknown to the public, for now, this young man is ‘‘incredible’’ like his country, he can manipulate basic design principles easily, work with traditional to a digital tool and nothing stop him.

He is a freelancer at the moment and contributed to some projects with friends, as he mentioned sometimes in his videos. The talented man has a focus in Graphic Design, Illustration and UI/UX. He has great skills in sketching ideas and on a digital aspect, he understands perfectly the UI/UX elements.

On his vlog, he would start with a good coffee or sometimes later.

Shantanu will then talk about the plan of the day, a summarise brief and any software or tool platforms (as well as plug-ins) sponsoring his video. He will do research (without doing any references), sort of a direct mood-board, brief related. The interesting part is when he is sketching out several ideas on a dotted notebook and I do not know how he always chose the best attractive idea, and only a few times make alternative outcomes.

His unique visual skills when dealing with UI/UX are captivating, making you almost want to do the same or push yourself better. One thing is for sure, he applies consistently the basic core principles of design through the development process.

Comments from the social media platform are the adjectives that describe Shantanus’ works. He is an inspiration for anyone aspiring to become a Graphic Designer.

My concern about Shantanu is that the notification for his newest vlog is set ‘‘ON’’ on Youtube.

How Shantanu inspires me From his 27 vlog videos, surely I am a fan of the ‘‘A Day in Life of a Graphic Designer’’ vlog but there is one that inspires me most. It is the last vlog made in August this year, ‘‘How to Design a Sushi Logo - From Start to Finish’’. He designed the logo and elements, so genuinely. On the path to this great outcome, Shantanu shows dedication, loads of research and self-taught.

Further to why he is an inspiration to me, is the way he is organised. The neatness behind his UI/UX designs and logo creations are well executed. I like how he used colours and shapes to make the vector image. This link to the influence in my visual identification around a previous brief ‘‘Silent film’’ theme, where I used gold texture, vector shape and colour. All his outcomes reflect and solve the brief solution with simplicity.

The Sushi logo design aspire me more as he was able to use illustrator to create the amazing logo. This is where my weakness occurs and watching Shantanu working easily, gives me courage to upgrade my digital drawing skill.

8

7

10

9

04

TYLER PATE “Being creative is not always easy, but we should not be afraid of it”

11

05

Tyler Pate is a Graphic designer and Illustrator based in Los Angeles, California. He was born in Lakecity, South Carolina and graduated from Francis Marion University with a bachelors degree in visual communication and a minor in Art History.

Reminiscent of other designers as a beginner Tyler entered the design industry by interning and working with design agencies.

This provided Tyler with the opportunity to grow as a designer and gain valuable knowledge before deciding to freelance. Tyler is currently a freelance designer that specialises in corporate identification, website design, print design, product development, social media campaigns and design consulting.

Tyler’s design approach is a fluid and detailed process.In many of his Online demonstrations, found on you-tube and his personal website, Tyler begins his design through a sketch. Tyler than uses reference images as guidelines to create his foundations in Adobe Illustrator. Once the foundations are completed Tyler then creates a vector based underlay and finishes the design adding texture in Adobe Photoshop. This allows Tyler to go back and forth

in both softwares to create the finished product. This technique is used and evident throughout all of Tyler’s creative design works.

To demonstrate Tyler Pate’s design process he often links the demonstrations to his own personal ideas or his own personal brand ‘The creative pain’.

Tyler states that the idea for ‘The creative pain’ is to “showcase how creative inspiration can be found in everything around us”. Tyler further states that ‘The creative pain’ was created as an “idea of breaking through the creative blocks to inspire others and let the process push us to be the best creative we can be” and to not be afraid.

‘The creative pain’ and the illustrations associated with the brand achieve Tyler’s goal immensely; as he achieves the notion of showcasing how what we create can be used and created with versatility.

Thus creating a wide range of fluid designs under one design concept.

How Tyler inspires me Tyler inspires me through many different ways. I find inspiration in how Tyler showcases his work and shares his design process with others to help better their skillsets.

Tyler often does webinars and workshops with well known companies such as Adobe, Designhill and Wacom. During the webinars he is able to connect and provide live commentary to the audience.

These live interactions allows Tyler to communicate and provide the audience with answers to their questions and tips on how to use the adobe software. I often attend the webinars to follow along with Tyler’s process and have gained some fantastic tips that have helped me grow as a designer.

Tyler, like many creatives out there, also highlights that he has times where he experiences what we call ‘creative’ or ‘artist block’. This also inspires me as it has shown me that every individual can experience the block. It has also shown me that, as Tyler mentions, trusting the process and finding ways to push past the block through the things around us is something we as creatives should not fear.

13

12

15

14

06

JAN ENKELMANN “I’d completely forgotten about the whole thing when the Congestion Charge scheme was finally launched two years later and that symbol was suddenly painted onto the street everywhere.”

16

07

Jan Enkelmann was born and educated in Merz Akademie, Stuttgart, and holds a degree in Communication Design and MA in European Media. At that time, he says that unlike many of his fellow students he knew very little about design icons and the latest typefaces. He takes some inspiration from Neville Brody but is also a great fan of the work and philosophy behind the design of people like Kenya Hara and Naoto Fukasawa (who both worked for Muji).

He likes Japanese design a lot.

As a creative director, communication designer and branding consultant, he works with design and branding agencies and directly with clients. Photography is his passion, and it shows in the beautiful work he has created. He has completed two outstanding works, in my opinion – Happiness: How the world keeps smiling and PAUSE. He is good at solving design problems in a straightforward and practical way and has produced some amazing work that stands out amongst the crowd, literally, he created the Congestion Charge Symbol. As part of a team at Henrion Ludlow Schmidt, he helped design the whole way finding

system for the tube in the 80s.

They were still on the TfL roster, but his team only got the odd little brief from them while he was working there. The Congestion Charge logo was also one of these briefs.

Most of his clients wouldn’t admit it, but most of the time, if they have the choice, they will go with a creative solution that feels familiar and close to other things that they have already seen elsewhere. Jan understands his clients well and reacts to their needs without scaring them too much with ultra-creative stuff.

One of Jan’s unique points is his photography business. In the lockdown, many freelance photographers and designers were struggling, Jan was able to use his exercise routine and downtime efficiently to produce a series of photographs which are haunting and a future reminder of how terrible this time was.

He empathised with the situation and used his skills to show the world the impact of the pandemic in one of our busiest cities.

How Jan inspires me Jan’s work doesn’t have it’s own style or particular formula but his reaction to ‘problems’ comes from his wealth of knowledge over the years in design agencies.

His understanding of the client and what they need to convey, not what is just the latest fashion trend for their industry.

I was once part of the team that was his client. He was professional, understanding, informative and when the original photographer wasn’t available for additional corporate shots, he stepped in to do that as well and was a lot better!

My inspiration comes from Jan and the fact he is very well organised and always finds the best way to present to a client.

One can see from his website and how he follows the client brief from conception to outcome, for example the Q8 project. Here we can see how he plans and shows evidence of his development and physical development. Jan is also a really a nice human being.

18

17

20

19

08

BIBLIOGRAPHY: IKKO TANAKA

Philip B. Meggs, Alston W. Purvis (2016) Meggs’ History of Graphic Design, 6th Edition. John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated, New York. [Online] Available at: https://ebookcentral. proquest.com/lib/herts/reader. action?docID=4505417. [Accessed 3 Oct. 2021] Visual-arts-cork.com (n.d) Postmodernist Art. [Online] Available at: http://www.visualarts-cork.com/postmodernism. htm#characteristics. [Accessed 6 Oct. 2021] La frimeuse (n.d) The Japanese language of graphic design. Ikko Tanaka. [Online] Available at: https://lafrimeuse.wordpress. com/2016/03/04/the-japaneselanguage-of-graphic-designikko-tanaka/. [Accessed 11 Oct. 2021] Lvy Panda (2021) IIkko Tanaka’s Graphic Design Analysis Essay.

[Online] Available at: http://www. designishistory.com/1960/ikkotanaka/. [Accessed 11 Oct. 2021]

Brandon Moore (2016) Simplicity vs Boring. [Online] Available at: https://medium.com/graphiclanguage/simplicity-vs-boringbf5e48d826b7. [Accessed 11 Oct. 2021] Quote : Madeleine Morley, 2017, Poster Picks: Steven Heller’s Top 5 Ikko Tanaka Designs. [Online] Available at: https://eyeondesign. aiga.org/poster-picks-stevenheller-on-5-top-ikko-tanakadesigns/. [Accessed 11 Oct. 2021] Tanaka portrait: Unknown, n.d, Ikko Tanaka. [online] Available at: http://adcglobal.org/hall-offame/ikko-tanaka/. [Accessed 30 Sept. 2021] Fig. 1 Ikko Tanaka, 1981, Japanese (culture or style). [Online] Available at: https://exchange.umma. umich.edu/resources/41975/view.

[Accessed 3 Oct. 2021] Fig. 2 Ikko Tanaka, Theatre poster; Ikko Tanaka. [Online] Available at: http://japanesedesign.pl/2012/ ikko-tanaka/. [Accessed 27 Oct. 2021]

Fig. 3 Ikko Tanaka, 1986, Ryumin: New Classicism. [Online] Available at: https://exchange.umma. umich.edu/resources/41982/ view. [Accessed 3 Oct. 2021] Fig. 4 Ikko Tanaka, 1986,The First Citizens Culture Festival – Grand Finale. [Online] Available at: https://tlmagazine.com/facesikko-tanaka/. [Accessed 27 October 2021] Fig.5 Ikko Tanaka, 1986, Ryumin: Supermodernism. [Online] Available at: https://exchange.umma.umich. edu/resources/41983/view. [Accessed 3 October 2021]

SHANTANU KUMAR

Behance.(Aug 10, 2018). Shantanu Kumar on Behance. [Online] Behance. Available at https://www. behance.net/shantanukmr/projects [Accessed 1 Oct. 2021].

Shantanu, K (n.d.). Shantanu Kumar - Quora. [online] Available at: https://www.quora.com/profile/ Shantanu-Kumar-61 [Accessed 1 Oct. 2021].

Shantanu, K. shantanu.kmr/ (n.d.).

Login • Instagram. [online] Available at: https://www.instagram.com/p/ CB45Q69j3z1/ [Accessed 1 Oct. 2021].

Shantanu, K. (n.d.). Shantanu Kumar. [online] LinkedIn. Available at: https://www.linkedin.com/ in/shantanu-kumar-5538811b7/ [Accessed 1 Oct. 2021].

Shantanu, K. (Feb 9, 2012). Shantanu Kumar - YouTube. [online] www. youtube.com. Available at: https:// www.youtube.com/c/ShantanuKumar/ videos [Accessed 2 Oct. 2021].

Quote : Shantanu Kumar, (Aug 2021). Shantanu Kumar - YouTube comments [Online]. Available at :https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=N7nkapWKOa4&t=354s [Accessed 8 Oct. 2021].

TYLER PATE

Shantanu portrait : Shantanu, K. (20 Sep 2017). Shantanu Kumar - Instagram [Online]. Available at https://www.instagram.com/p/ BZQ38wjn-nT/. [Accessed 1 Oct. 2021]

Pate, T. (2020a). The Creative Pain. [online] The Creative Pain. Available at: https://www.thecreativepain. com/ [Accessed 27 Sep. 2021].

Fig 6 : Shantanu, K. (25 April 2019).

Screwed & brewed coffee app UI/UX Logo & Elements [Online].

Available at: https://www.behance. net/gallery/79394269/Screwedbrewed-coffee-app-UIUX-LogoElements. [Accessed 29 Oct. 2021] Fig 7-10 : All from same link screenshots: Shantanu Kumar.

(27 August 2021). How to Design a Sushi Logo - From Start to Finish.

[Video]. YouTube. https://youtu. be/4y1BAqOnhMM. [Accessed 4 Oct. 2021]

Linkedin (n.d.). Tyler Pate. [online] Linkedin.com. Available at: https:// www.linkedin.com/in/tyler-pate [Accessed 28 Sep. 2021].

Pate, T. (2020b). Tyler Pate Design Co. [online] Tyler Pate Design Co. Available at: https://tylerpatedesignco. com/ [Accessed 27 Sep. 2021].

Quote : Pate, T. (2020a). The Creative Pain. [online] WELCOME TO THE CREATIVE PAIN. Available at: https:// www.thecreativepain.com/ [Accessed 27 Sep. 2021].

Tyler portrait, T. (2020b). Tyler Pate.

Tyler Pate Design Co. Available at: https://tylerpatedesignco.com/ about [Accessed 1 Oct. 2021].

Fig 11, 12 and 14 Pate, T. (2017). The Creative Pain. [Illustration] Available at: https://tylerpatedesignco.com/ the-creative-pain [Accessed 11 Oct. 2021].

Fig 13 Pate, T. and Blue Ion (2018).

Ville To Ville Craft Brew Relay.

[Illustration] Available at: https:// tylerpatedesignco.com/ville-toville-craft-brew-relay [Accessed 11 Oct. 2021].

JAN ENKELMANN

Fig 15 Pate, T. (2020a). Trust the Process. [Illustration] Available at: https://tylerpatedesignco.com/ illustration-work [Accessed 10 Oct. 2021].

Jan Enkelmann. (n.d.). Jan Enkelmann | Creative Direction and Design | London. [online] Available at: https://www. enkelmann.studio/home [Accessed 01 Oct. 2021].

Jan Enkelmann. (n.d.). About and Contact page. [online] Available at: https://www.enkelmann.studio/ contact-about [Accessed 01 Oct. 2021].

Article & Quote: Enkelmann, J (2021).

Interviewed by J. Sullivan.

Jan portrait. citylikeyou. (2012). London / Jan Enkelmann — citylikeyou. [online] Available at: https://www.citylikeyou. com/london/people/jan-enkelmann [Accessed 8 Oct. 2021].

Fig 17. Jan Enkelmann. (n.d.). Darzi. [online] Available at: https://www. enkelmann.studio/darzi [Accessed 29 Sep. 2021].

F‌ ig 18-19. Jan Enkelmann. (n.d.). Q8. [online] Available at: https://www. enkelmann.studio/q8 [Accessed 29 Sep. 2021].‌ Fig 16: Enkelmann, J. 2020, Pause.

Scanned from original signed photograph 2021, Leadenhall Market, Enkelmann Ltd, UK