(Touch of Nature, Dana Tanamachi)
I didn’t grow up in a particularly creative family, and I remember being jealous of my fellow design students who had artists, designers and musicians as parents. I was certainly not one of them, although they did encourage me. My earliest recollections of graphic experimentations included labels for my mother’s canned pears (which she kept and laminated). In my teenage years, I liked to try and create journals with covers in different coloured paper. But mostly, because I didn’t have a lot of influence directly from the people around me, I gained creative inspiration from books and the internet (thankfully I grew up in the ’90s right around the time the internet became popular!). Here’s my list (in no particular order or importance, but kinda in chronological order how I found out about them in my life):
Ryan McGinness
McGinness is an artist who works with symbols and iconography. Known for his bright colours and playful aesthetic, seeing his work for the first time was like a breath of fresh air and sparked my initial curiosity behind images and their meaning. One neat thing about him is that he basically started out as a young skateboarder, and drew lots of inspiration from surf and skate culture. Personally, I like his beginning work from the early 2000s. It’s more simple and subdued and seems less layered and unnecessarily chaotic to me.
Banksy
Who can’t be inspired by Banksy? He’s the popular street graffiti artist/political activist who has managed to stay anonymous for 3 decades, and has plastered his distinct marks all over the UK and Europe. I found out about him in university and I remember being so intrigued about how he made people think about public space and surveillance through his art.
Frost*Design
Vince Frost is the Australian powerhouse behind Frost*Design, a creative agency that works in print, digital, product, environmental—everything under the sun. You name it, they’ve done it. One of his books (along with Garry Emery) was the very first design book I ever owned, and it was one of those books that blow your mind (at least, my teenage mind). I think the reason I was so taken by this book is because it made me believe that I can pursue this as a profession, even to the point of thinking, “I want to work for these guys some day.” And the reason why they’re so amazing is because they don’t adhere to one particular style, which is very hard to do when you’re a designer.
Grace Bonney
I discovered Grace Bonney’s design*sponge blog (now retired) as an undergrad when I was living in a shared rental house with my girlfriends. I had a new penchant for remodeling spaces but had virutally no money to do it, and her blog satisfied that itch. She would feature drastic makeovers and easy DIY projects that wouldn’t break the bank. She encouraged me to go dumpster diving and investigate curb-side furniture. I purchased her book when it first came out, and used it as my go-to interior decorating book for years. She was fortunate to start out when blogging sites were still growing in popularity, and she got to ride the wave of relatively easy advertising and sponsorship deals. When she finally decided to close shop, she explains her thoughts in her last blog post, which I thought was well worth the read. Most recently, she published a book called “In the Company of Women,” if that gives you a clue as to where her current interests lie.
Dana Tanamachi
She is the freehand typographical extraordinaire that every female designer (that I know of, anyways) wants to be like. She is a huge inspiration for modern calligraphy, but has found a niche medium in the form of the humble chalk. That’s right, she’s basically a very skilled chalk letterer. So amazing that Oprah Magazine commissioned her to do an entire issue and she had her own line of Target products. My favourite recent projects of hers are the collection of ESV Illustrated Bibles. *swoon*
Who were your first creative influencers? Would love to find out—shoot me a line at audrey@designwala.ca 🙂