polish poster design

poland is famous for it’s poster designers. one of the probably best known, for his animated films as well, is JAN LENICA. below a collection of polish posters from the past 20 years

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ARD 1 – 1984

talking about the ‘good old days’ a short time ago I realized it is already 30 years ago that I worked on the the ARD 1 ( the german 1.tv-station ) logo-design. cg in those days was nearly unknown in germany. during my frequent visits in L.A. I had seen a lot of the development in computer generated images and I was fascinated by it ( that should change over the years! ). so I introduced the idea of a cg-logo to the german television guys and the ARD 1 logo became the first cg-logo in germany, and probably the first one produced at such high costs. below are my early designs, a rough story board and some very precise keyframes for the production at CRANSTON CSURI in columbus.

© ARD 1

kem weber

KEM WEBER, 1889 – 1963, born in berlin, germany, was a furniture- and industrial designer, an architect, art director and teacher. his first name KEM is the short for his full name KARL EMANUEL MARTIN. before he enrolled at the school of decorative arts in berlin in 1908, where he studied with BRUNO PAUL, he was trained as a cabinet maker. already in 1910 he became involved in the construction of the german pavilion at the the brussels world fair. after graduating in 1912 kem worked for the german government on a display for the san francisco PANAMA PACIFIC INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION in 1915. to supervise the project he was sent to san francisco and was stranded there after WW1 ( 1914 – 1918 ) erupted. while teaching in santa barbara, california, kem opened his own design studio, became a U.S.citizen in 1924, and headed to L.A. as an art director for barker bros. furniture. from 1927 on he also designed modern sets for hollywood movies and private residences in his own studio. in 1934 his AIRLINE CHAIR became famous.

kem weber’s design style of POST ART DECO and MODERN STREAMLINE DESIGN got the attention of walt disney who made weber the principle architect for the new disney studios in burbank in the late thirties. kem designed the whole look of the new studio, inclusive all the furniture and the interior architecture. the very specific desks, like the animation desks, layout-, BG- and checking desks, as well as the director’s- and ink&paint desks, are not just brilliant designed in their functionality, they look stunning as well. weber’s design influence became almost iconic with the disney look of the late 30s, he even developed a very special font to be used throughout the studio.

when the new disney studio opened in december 1994 his influence was still visible everywhere, in the interior architecture and furniture, and even the KEM WEBER FONT was visible everywhere. kem weber’s furniture pieces from the old studio, like all different desks and armchairs have become collector’s treasures all over the animation community.

© disney enterprises, inc

nostalgic ads

here are a few well designed german ads from the seventies.

corals

recently I did some stylistic designs for an animation project of a studio here in manila. one of the locations that had to be developed was a coral reef. I had never designed underwater-worlds before. and I never did snorkeling, not even here around some of the 7.000 islands. just to paint what I studied in reference photos would have been too boring, so I created different textures and other elements they give you the feel of the coral world, but they come from completely different origins. there is wallpaper, textile texture and architectural-design bits and pieces. I used a lot of my now 15.000 photoshop-brushes and created even some more.

new book

two questions always come up in my lectures – ‘how do you create a good composition’ – and – ‘how do you choose the right colors’. so, before repeating myself all the time I started a new book. these are tough questions, hard to answer. when you work in this business for so many years you don’t really think about the simple, basic things anymore, – they work automatic. but – now that I have to t h i n k and not just f e e l about it, a lot of questions came up for myself. I try to answer those with lots of artwork, hopefully simple enough. so far it’s a lot of fun and I am learning the most…