Chicken Billy is artist and designer Billy Hayes hailing from Fort Worth, Texas. He has an unusual and highly recognizable style using aggressive color schemes with arranged flat graphic ‘puzzle’ pieces. This is how he describes his work: “The recipe – Take Hanna Barbera, Hulk Hogan, James Brown, Fort Worth Zoo, B.B. King, Hank Williams III and Jesus Christ, mix until the image is bright like a angel. Add a pair of cowboy boots and jeans, some Mexican beer, your choice, and put it all on a page using only flat vector shapes.”
His work is impossible not to like and ready made for t-shirt art. The best way to take in his work is by perusing his Flickr-folio which he updates regularly.
Brazilian illustrator Fernando Volken Togni has updated his portfolio lately with more of his vector collage work. It’s bright and colorful and he is sticking to his guns on they style he is choosing to work in. It definitely makes for a fun portfolio to browse through.
Illustrator John Mattos has only one long and glorious scroll of beautiful images in his Behance-folio but it is oh-so-worth-checking-out. Mattos is the recipient of over 100 awards for graphic excellence from various graphic magazines and design organizations including a Gold Medal from the New York Society of Illustrators, Gold from the New York Art Director’s Club and Silver from the Los Angeles Society of Illustrators. He has illustrated for just about every client and magazine you can think of and has also developed institutional projects and provided consulting for Harvard, Stanford, Art Center College, N.Y.U., Boston University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of the Pacific, Brigham Young University.
I am digging some of the prints available at Another Example produced by Former McFaul designer/illustrator Elliott Grubb. They are simple clean and interesting. Definitely look sharp on a wall. Nice to see the whole ‘holding up my poster to acknowledge it’s physicality’ trend is still hanging on for dear life.
There is some slick vector work happening in the portfolio of Japanese (now based in the U.S.) designer/illustrator Junichi Tsuneoka whose studio name is Stubborn Sideburn. You can see a slight influence of Japanese prints in his very ornate illustration work.
Yann AKA Blind Salida has updated with some fun and colorful new vector illustration work. There is some really nice contrast happening in some of the pieces between soft gradiation and simple line work.
Jimmy Zombie is an illustrator with a unique individual style and perspective that recalls a bit of 60′s psychedelia but is achieve most likely through vector art. It always makes you look twice and would be killer hanging on a wall or adorning a tee shirt.
Shire born Bristol-based designer and illustrator Tom Lane keeps churning out some good-looking vector eye candy. He has been busy lately working under his taken design name ‘Ginger Monkey‘ and has recently updated with some new and fun work in his portfolio. Just another squirrel in this world tryin’ to get a nut.
St. Louis based illustrator Natalie Sklobovskaya has some impressive vector work in her Behance-folio including both densely layered ‘Vexel’ art and simple black and white pictograms.
Vector illustrator extraordinaire Akutou has updated with a new website featuring some 80′s, manga and movie inspired vector candy that is sure to bring a smile to your face. It’s the first website I can remember in years that starts with music that I didn’t immediately turn off. The soundtrack is as good as the website and work and you can see what you are listening to by clicking here.
There is a cache of simply executed illustrations brimming with personality at Patrick Draws Things where it appears some of the drawings were most likely completed via computer (but who’s counting).
Italian illustrator Flavio Melchiorre creates densely-layered vector style work that he sometimes works into complex abstract patterns that fry your brain when you try to look at them.
Philippe Intraligi does some crisp and clean vector branding work for some big clients. He also cranks out some nice visuals for use in television spots. He is a bit of a jack of all trades and it doesn’t seem to hinder him at all from pulling in the projects.
Illustrator Sanna Annukka really caught on to something special when she started incorporating her work into wall prints and the first image at her new website (above) portrays this realization in stark beauty. She also has a new storefront added to her new site that offers up some beautiful (yet pricey) prints.
The gradient mesh in illustrator has been a bit of a mystery to me in when illustrating with vector graphics. This tutorial really shed some light on how to actually use the tool to create that ‘hyper-real’ look that some illustrators seem able to magically achieve.
Barcelona born and raised graphic designer Marta Cerdà Alimbau has been busy updating with some really attractive vector-heavy design and typography work.
German-based illustrator and KDU member Magomed Dovjenko has updated his website with his typically wild and colorful mind-bending vector-to-Photoshop mashup imagery.
04/12 ZIMMERMAN FACES MURDER In a case we’ve been following closely there is finally what we think is some good news to report. George ZImmerman, the man accused of killing the innocent teenager Trayvon Martin has been taken into custody and charged with second degree murder. At last there is some justice.
12/16 HITCHENS DIES Outspoken author and pundit Christopher Hitchens passed away yesterday at the age of 62 after succombing to a long battle with cancer. His honest and bravado opinion that rarely favored one side versus the other but was instead often a cry for ‘reason’ will be missed.
11/23 BURZYNKSI CLINIC Is there an alternative, non-toxic treatment for cancer? Dr. Stanislaw R. Burzynski seems to think so and has been experiencing higher rate of success than the current accepted practice of treating cancer.
11/23 TALKING TO MACHINES “What can machines tell us about being human? This hour of Radiolab, Jad and Robert meet humans and robots who are trying to connect, and blur the line.” Listen, read and learn here.
