Spotlight on Darkie: Illustrator

I’ve happened to make a new friend through an iPhone application called Instagram. A place to show off your life through photos, whether it’s randomness throughout your day, or artwork that inspires you or what you have created. Discovering Darkie was like finally pulling the blindfold off my eyes, I finally know who’s done this work for a World re-noun artist Drake. Not to define Darkie as a Drake fanatic but to finally know the artist behind the visuals that just keep popping up all over the Internet and on EP releases. People tend to forget that there is an artist behind all these album covers and artworks that stay unknown. Well I found HIM!! ahahah.

I gave him list of questions which were really challenging to answer, especially for a guy who doesn’t really put himself out there. Overall he’s a really cool dude and I have to give it up to Instagram for leading me to a great connection. Make sure to check out www.darkiemade.com

How would you describe your style; what unique characteristics does your work possess?

I don’t think I have a specific style… I think it’s contemporary and kind of street, but always clean. I hate loud and cluttered work. As far as unique characteristics, there is nothing in my work that is just “Darkie”, meaning you can’t look at my artwork and instinctively know I did it. To me, this can be a good and bad thing. Although I have been asked if I did certain artwork, so maybe I’m just not aware of my “style.” Not going to a proper post secondary school and learning the history of design (ie. art history and colour theory) may have hindered me, so I’ve strived to be diverse by picking up a little typography, a little illustration and a little bit of logo design and so on. In retrospect, I was just talking to a friend the other day and asked “Is it bad that I don’t have a specific style like say Grotesk or 123KLAN?” So its funny that you asked this question. I’m hoping that everything I do is “clever” if that counts as a unique characteristic. I try to put a clever spin on everything I do, especially logo design.

Is there a certain type of art buyer that commissions your work frequently? What is that particular market and why do you think your work is desirable to them?

I think the type of clients that come my way are looking for Design firm level design but not design firm pricing (horrible I know). I mostly receive requests for music artwork, illustration, apparel, Cad and Branding jobs from different types of people in many different markets. If I had to pick which repeat customer is giving me the most work at the moment, it would be a young local Black entrepreneur who has his hand in many different markets. I have done branding for his Blog OhverlyCritical.com, his Rolling Paper company “Real Wrap”, and I’ve done flyers for some of his parties. This goes back to me being diverse. I’m able to do any artwork he needs, not just by getting the job done, but doing so with high quality artwork. I guess that’s  what makes me desirable to him *Pause* lol… I mean, what makes my artwork desirable. That sounds better, no?

Have you ever evolved your style to broaden your appeal? If so, how?

For sure. You have to or else you’ll get left behind, your style should never remain constant. I never used to do vector Illustration until I met a guy name Mike Taylor, and his artwork blew me away. I instantly thought “I have to learn that ASAP.” I make it a point to keep learning and evolving. I try to keep up on certain magazines and blogs because there is so much to know, and you never know when you might need a certain skill.

What was your most rewarding project? Why?

The most rewarding project was any of the Drake work I’ve done. That was just so unexpected, I had no idea he was gonna blow up like that. It’s not even like I got to hear “So Far Gone” before anyone else. I downloaded it at same time the rest of the world did. They just hit me up on some “We need artwork can you do it?” I said “of course” and the monster grew from there. My artwork went from never being seen to being on the side of an airplane, which is super humbling. I thank the OVO  crew for that opportunity. It exposed me to people worldwide, and now people I really look up to have seen my artwork. That has its ups and downs though. People have emailed me with a lot of hate and that really bothered me at first.  I was complaining about it one day, and a friend straight laughed at me and said “Are you crazy? You’re from Toronto, Canada…  Scarborough! If someone from Scarborough hated on your artwork would you care?You’re worried about the people who have nothing better to do than jump on the internet and blog about your artwork? You should be happy people are seeing it and getting the chance to hate it… hate comes from people who are mad that they aren’t in your position.” That changed my whole perspective on things, and the emails I get from people who love my artwork outweigh the hate, so that also help… lol.

Illustration Research Assignment

Tokion’s Factory Magazine, “Nagel” by Patrick Nagel.

I was attracted to this illustration mainly because of the expression of the women’s face, then taking note that it was a beautiful piece of vector work. I really like the solid colours used throughout the image. As well as the composition of he chose, he created a stronger connection between the illustration and myself.

There was no article on the artist in this magazine, just 4 pieces named in the series called, “Nagel”. The magazine is about beauty and targeted to women so it effectively communicated the content withheld in this magazine. He achieved this through the using a using image of a woman with strong eye contact, the limit of solid soft colours and the minimal light and heavy strokes.

Annual Report Process

. Describe your process for designing the Annual Report for your corporation.

• Explain your rationale for colour decisions, font choices, images and how all of these contribute to effectively conveying the brand message of your corporation.

 

I chose to create an Annual Report relative to the brand standards guide when it came to the colours choices. I wanted to use a unique display of typography, just to stray away from the standard type layout mainly to generate interest in the way it was laid out on the page. By right justifying the type and using negative space i feel like I achieved this successfully.

Packaging Process

Your Product: Nestle Milo

Your Target Consumer: Young Japanese Adults; age 22 to 26

Your Core Idea (a target + a problem = the core idea or product niche): New quirky chocolate malt drink; New Kawaii Identity for Milo.

What are their internal drivers?

cultural identification: Japanese tweens 11- 17.

family history: father was a photographer of the early 80s; exposed to a lot of entertainers and odd collectible cameras and photos of today.

dominant personality traits: outgoing, social butterfly. Not afraid to be the silence breaker.

emotional needs: single, just wanting someone who likes the same thing they do

rational needs: Needs 3 meals a day to feel motivated to do school work and other responsibilities.

perceived needs:

guilty pleasures: loves anime and kawaii characters

aspirations: To be a graphic designer

beliefs: Rebel without a cause, wants to live an Americanized lifestyle.

values: wants to be a samurai.

prejudices: parents aren’t cool enough to understand the lifestyle of a growing cool teenager.

 

Original Milo usually found in West Indian grocery stores.

The redesign of Nestle’s Milo is targeted to young energetic, quirky Japanese teens.

It’s created to look like the Kawaii style creations; cute and friendly cartoons.

Inspiration Images

At first I thought of creating a juice box based drink.. but when further developing the design I decided to change the format into a label for a can of Milo. The dieline became tedious and wasn’t working as a 3D model. A label for a can turned out to look better and had much better clarity.

In kawaii design the colours are pastel like hues; all solids. Limited to about 3-4 colours used in each character. That was definitely incorporated into the design of the Japanese inspired Caribbean favorite.

I began with developing different expressions that were cute and quirky.

Kawaii Expressions

Second I created a chocolate graphic that had the impression the it was melting down the side of the label.

Melting Chocolate Graphic

Next was the colour scheme. I went thru my Pantone Solid uncoated swatch library and used colours that were strong alone but also worked as a series.

Colour Swatches

Lastly was developing a dieline for the label and applying the creative elements to the design and bring it all together as a whole.

Complete Label

Font choice: Piron V1 and Piron V2. This font has clarity and slight little elements that give the workmark subtle personality. Even for the body text Piron V1 was used.

Milo Identity

Body Text in Piron typeface.

Lastly a tab top for the top of the can.

Tab Top

Final Product

• Clearly identify the ways in which your solution and process meets the objectives outlined above

• Explain your rationale for shapes, contrasts, font choices, images and how all of these contribute to effectively conveying the brand message of your corporation.

Process

I had a few ideas when it came to the development of the Canada Goose redesign. Canada Goose is a retail company with a strong line of Winter pieces fit for arctic climate. Their present logo is a badge that displays a shape of a country… when sketching ideas I thought of two things. One was a way to display the key components of Canada Goose clothing provides and the background of Canadian history or things that represent Canadian culture i.e Native Culture.

For concept 2 I was just brainstorming a wordmark which didn’t work out so well.

Concept 1

Concept 2

Concept 3

Concept 1- Totem idea derived from the research of Canadian culture and the Native history. I thought of their way of preserving traditions and thoughts by creating a goose totem pole logo. Possibly displaying the concept of CG clothing; displaying icons with in the totem that show what weather conditions CG clothing is ideal for.

Concept 2- Was just an experiment of a type based logo which didn’t work out successfully.

Concept 3- This idea was the idea I decided to move forward with, using a pictogram style to depict the use function and benefit of Canada Goose; symbols of the weather conditions.

Rebranding a classic film: Final

From a Graphic Designer’s Perspective; packaging edition

• Create a new category in your blog entitled ‘responsible
design’: From a graphic designer’s perspective, identify your roles and responsibilities as a global citizen in personal and professional life. Reflect upon how you can use your influence as a graphic designer to identify opportunities for more environmentally aware product concepts and packaging.