Amandeep Singh (aka Inkquisitive) is a London-based graphic illustrator and artist. I came across his work by one of older sisters, Pooja, a few years ago. Since then, I have been following his work via his Facebook page and his Instagram account. Singh graduated from the University of Hertfordshire in 2009 where he studied illustration. He does a lot of editorial art as well as religious art, but is mostly inspired by today’s pop culture. He became famous after R&B singer, The Weeknd, was made aware of Amandeep’s awesome illustration himself. The Weeknd then responded online on the work by asking, “Who did that, dope art.” He has also been featured in some YouTube videos of Superwoman.

What I really like about his work is his visual style. All of his illustrations are all done in bright and vibrant ink colors to create a watercolor to them. I love how his work ranges from great Sikh warriors to hip-hop legends to movie stars to President Obama. His work tends to draw attention from no particular audience nor does his work stays in one genre category. Amandeep’s works have no particular message either. He’s just paying his tribute the subject in a creatively different way.

Overall, I think is his work is amazing. He portrays each subject of his, be it an actor or a religious figure, in a unique way using ink. He’s described his work as being a “controlled chaos” and as being “imperfectly perfect.” That being said, I don’t find anything I’d want to change in his work because the imperfections of this work created the end results.

Check out more of his work here.

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson

The Golden Temple

Justin Timberlake

Courage

I was grocery shopping at my local Giant Eagle when I decided to stop and look at book section there. I was delighted to see that they had the book Me Before You*. I really wanted to read this book, so I picked up the book cover on the left. But I was walking away, I spotted the book cover with the stars of the movie. I quickly placed the first book down, and took the cover with Emilia Clarke and Sam Claflin instead.

Now there wasn’t anything wrong with the original book. I really like the typography on the cover. I like how the letters move your eyes across the cover. The designer displays excellent hierarchy with letter height changes and color. I think the designer wanted to attract women who love a good romance novel with the colors. The title really pops on the page, especially the words ‘me’ and ‘you’. This cover is more typography driven and I love that, except it doesn’t really show or represent anything to me about the story.

The cover with the movie’s stars, however, interested me more. Why? Well, it gave me a preview of the movie and the ability to imagine the main characters nicely as I read. I personally prefer to buy the books with movie adaption’s stars on it so I can picture them instead of a blank face in my head. I also like the typography on this cover as well. I don’t really like serif fonts but this was an exception. The simple ligature between the letters ‘m’ and ‘b’ move your eyes to the rest of the title words. This cover still draws attention a female audience, but also to an audience who like the stars in their other roles (Game of Thrones and The Hunger Games). I happen to fall in both categories.

Both of these covers make great use of the space. They both move your eyes across the page thanks to their respective typefaces. They show text hierarchy and emphasize the important words on the page. However, one cover is type heavy, whereas, the other one greatly combines text with imagery. I like both covers, but the addition of imagery on the front cover made a great difference in my book purchase.

P.S. I may have also bought book because Khaleesi and Finnick Odair were on the cover! 😉

*Both covers were for Penguin Books, but the original cover is designed by de Vicq Design.

I had just binged watch all the Star Wars movies (except for Star Wars: The Force Awakens) when I came across this particular packaging on Pinterest. I was drawn to these coffee cups for the obvious reason: Darth Vader (aka Anakin Skywalker). Once clicking on the actual link from the pin itself, I found out that this package and brand are just conceptual designs (sad!) for a hypothetic coffee company called Dark Brew Coffee House. It was designed by two Seattle-based designers, Spencer Davis and Scott Schenone. The company’s tagline sticks to the Star Wars concept as well: “A coffee house with a dark side.” The targeted audience for this brand were Star Wars fans who are both coffee drinkers and “force-sensitive” to dark side. The coffee cups also featured adapted Star Wars quotes.

I think they have successfully combined two of the greatest things people have provided to us: Star Wars and coffee. I find the idea of drinking coffee from Darth Vader and Stormtrooper coffee lids awesome! You totally get the feeling of the dark side with the cup lids and quotes because they are all considered to part of the dark side. I would have never thought of using Star Wars has a branding and packaging approach to coffee! It’s a shame that this doesn’t really exist!

Sources:

http://www.packagingoftheworld.com/2015/12/dark-brew-coffee-house-concept.html

http://www.foodandwine.com/fwx/drink/star-wars-coffee-brew-dark-vaders-heart

Behance Page for Spencer Davis and Scott Schenone:

https://www.behance.net/spencedvs

https://www.behance.net/ScottSchenone

I came across this BuzzFeed article on my Facebook news feed the other day about 18 beautifully designed book covers from the new Pocket Penguin Series. I LOVE looking at book covers! In fact, my favorite project from Typography I is my To Kill A Mockingbird redesigned book cover. From reading article I found out that these books consist of famous and not so famous classic novels that were pulled deep from the archives of Penguin Books. I also found out these books are also small enough for you to carry in your back pocket, ergo the name, “Pocket Penguins.” But what was really interesting for me was how simplistic these book covers really are because They all have the same layout on the front and back covers. The front covers consist of two bold blocks of color and basic book cover info (author and title) but have the publisher smack dab in the middle separating the two color blocks and the book number at the bottom. On the back, front cover color is seen by font color of the quote and Penguin Books logo. Colors are consistent and adhere to a color-coding system based on the publishing origins (ex. orange= English; red= Russian; purple= French). Based on the minimalist style, it’s safe to say that the covers are for an audience who want a pocket sized book. Overall, I think they have a successful type pairing happening. Also, the covers make excellent use of the white space to draw in attention from the front to the back. I would definitely buy one of these books.

BuzzFeed Article: https://www.buzzfeed.com/danieldalton/pocket-penguins?utm_term=.vgeOb2erjW#.gl7gPl7Bz3