Ray-Ban ads

If rock and roll is noise pollution, are these visual contaminants? If sight is the most immediate of the senses, are these a swift strike to the peepers? Yes and yes, in the best ways possible.

Geared towards a trendy audience, Ray Ban uses these funky and loud print ads to lure in the youngsters. Catering to a hip lifestyle, ultra-colorful and busy ads were the way to create a fun mood. Going complimentary-heavy is a good strategy to achieve the attention-grab, but seeing these among similarly themed posters or behind a store display of highly-colored apparel tends to muddle the effect. Personally, I welcome the overload of visual stimuli, but seeing these highly-detailed illustrations as individual pieces gives them a higher artistic standard.

On a side note, it always makes me a bit sad when artists sell out and lend their talents to advertising. James Jean for Target? Ugh. Beautiful work mass produced and made unimportant. Imagine throwing away a James Jean illustration.. never! (Although, James Jean for Prada I can live with--at least it's still for art!) Anyway, here is a rundown of the artists who contributed work for this campaign and their multifaceted and very colorful portfolios:

Ames Bros
David Sossella
Matt W. Moore
Paul Reilly
Marta Cerda
Andreas Krapf

Grow Your Own Neutrals

Speaking of neutral color palates, artist Daniele Delnero's work unintentionally utilizes a beautiful array of neutral pastels. The pieces are 3d structures made out of paper covered with flour. The flour is left in the open air to grow mold and create the illusion of antiquity. Observing the natural occurrence of color development gives great insight to the nature of color relationships. Check out more work here:www.danieledelnero.com/

Movie Stills: The Machinist

These stills are from 2004's twist-ending, eye candy thriller The Machinist, directed by Brad Anderson. I chose to show these still because this film is highly stylized and totally gorgeous. These still are from separate scenes yet the color schemes are identical. All throughout the film, the colors don't waver yet the look isn't black and white. The dark pastel family is perfect for the dark subject matter portrayed in the film. Although relying mainly on values and shadows, the sophistication of the (award-winning) cinematography isn't compromised.

Full of symbolism, color is certainly employed as a symbol of the protagonist's state of mind. Post-twist, at the end of the film, the colors warm up.

Nils Udo

Nils Udo is a Bavarian nature artist. He uses pieces of nature (twigs, leaves, branches) to create temporary sculptures, and alter color schemes and landscapes. Breaking the monotony of green monochrome, he uses bright, oftentimes contrasting colors to complete his striking pieces. His sense of color allows him to put together impressive compositions and create vibrant gradients.

See more art and read about the artist here: Nils Udo.

Leica Ad

"Pig."

"Frog."

"Robin."

Here's a 2010 ad for a Leica zoom lens. I think the company and the advertisement geniuses were very bold to just feature a full-page color swatch to promote their new product. Their previous ads featured nature photography and in a unique way, they stick to that theme. The zoom is so powerful, you can see nothing but a block of colored molecules, right? Har, we get the gag. Nonetheless, these ads are lovely and are a great use of simple color.

This series is somewhat reminiscent of the Glade campaign.

The Mondrian Algorithm

      

            


Samuel Monnier, Swiss algorithmic artist, creates Mondrian-esque pattern pieces.

          "Through each edge of the tile, there will be a segment of line perpendicular to it. The actual location of the line segment is chosen randomly. Inside the tile, the line segment coming from all four edges are somehow combined to complete the decoration. When they are assembled, an interesting pattern appears."

He is a "layer artist" and takes the Mondrian pattern to new extremes. Check out the intricate use of color! I love how the little bright squares of yellow stipple the bigger dark squares of red and blue.

Artist's website here: http://www.algorithmic-worlds.net/index.php. Lots of awesome artists featured on the website blog!

Gratuitous Pigment