John Lawrence

John Lawrence is, in my eyes, a brilliant illustrator who ticks all of the boxes in terms of what I would look for when looking for inspiration. His prints (my favourites being the woodcut prints) are brightly coloured and  very eye catching, giving the children who read his books brilliant additions to their inspiration.

"This Little Chick" book cover

Originally from Hastings, John also works as a teacher whilst still deciding to still pursue his main passion in life as a freelance illustrator and went on to illustrate in excess of 200 books.

Covering both general and children's illustration, John Lawrence's briefs have ranged from illustrating Shakespearean tales to the classic "Watership Down", quite a diverse portfolio.

It is clear to me how this man has made such a name for himself and even had one of his creations named New York Times Best Illustrated Children's Book of the Year. One of my favourite children's illustrators whose creations really make me smile.

Spike Jonze

American director Spike Jonze works primarily in the fields of film, television, commercials and music videos. His name is recognisable to me from his huge success as director of the brilliant film "Being John Malkovich" (1999) for which he received an Academy Award but also as the director of a movie much more recently, "Where The Wild Things Are" in 2009 which brought to life the classic children's illustrated book by Maurice Sendak.

A still from the brilliant "Where The Wild Things Are" (2009) directed
by Spike Jonze

Outside of film, Jonze has also directed music videos for Kanye West, The Beastie Boys, Fatboy Slim, Notorious B.I.G. and R.E.M. amongst many, many others. All highly successful musicians/bands and highly successful songs directed by Spike.

There is also a link here with a subject of a previous blog post - Michel Gondry, as the two, along with Chris Cunningam, co-founded Directors Label, an organisation who honour music video directors.

I really appreciate the diversity in subject matter of Spike Jonze's work and am a huge fan of some of his work (predominantly music videos and films) and am intrigued to see what else I can witness of his in the near future.

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John Maeda

John Maeda is an American designer whose work focuses heavily on creating a connection between design, science, technology and literature (all fields in which Maeda is accomplished in). In terms of his artistic work, Maeda is sometimes credited as planting the seeds in creating creative motion graphics (which are used heavily today) by combining "classic" and traditional techniques of art and design with computer programming and technology.

To the left is an example of Maeda's work (Image Source), combining the use of typography and design to create this rather abstract image of a key (for a publication "Key" released in 2006). The typography used is a collection of street names and addresses, supposedly referencing and utilising the connection of a key
and "home"/where you call "home". Maeda is well recognised for this style of abstract and heavily computer/technology
based imagery which usually have a great emphasis on typography and symbolism.

Maeda's work is not something which I would usually stop and analyse as it's not a "style" which I would call myself a fan of. However, from doing so I have gained much understanding and  consideration for the work he does (and designers similar to him).

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