"I AM." Project by photographer Vanessa Leissring

Vanessa Leissring's photographic project is about actual youth subcultures. I personally wonder if there is such a thing as youth subculture today as it existed by definition since the 50s to the mid-80s. Anyway, this project is particulary interesting, because it shows how today's subcultures' styles are very much influenced by "classic" subcultures, especially the Punk- and Modscene. At the same time it is very much influenced by the commercial fashion and music industry. Fashion-policies doesn't seem to matter nowadays: One can dress up like a 100% Punk but still listen to commercial music acts such as "Mando Diao" or "MGMT". A phenomenon which would have been unthinkable 30 years ago: One simply couldn't be accepted in the Punk scene at the time in the late 70s when mentioning of being a fan of The Police for instance. Anyway, this project shows how borders between different youth scenes seem to dissolve...

LINK TO "I AM." PROJECT

Make something beautiful every day #9

My fav things poster – Binary watch

Fake Tilt-Shift Photography

All of the following pictures are based on a technique called "tilt-shift miniature faking". In this particular case, the effect was applied digitally, with Photoshop CS3. Most important to archive the miniature-effect is the view angle when taking the original picture. Best results are always archieved when choosing a higher position and looking down on the object to be photographed.
This miniature-faking effect is even more impressing, considering the simplicity of image editing, which is based just on blurring the picture's background areas and colour editing (saturation & contrast). The rest of the miniature illusion is simulated by one's brain. Teriffic!

All of the pictures were shot in Cologne, around the river Rhine, in 2008.

Make something beautiful every day #8

My fav things – Analog NT telephone, 1972

3 "favourite punctuation mark"-posters

A simple but interesting typographic experiment on 3 of my favourite puctuation marks: "?" "," and "!". These Posters will be included in the book "Type Image" by Barbara Brownie.

Make something beautiful every day #7

04/18/09

gowiththeflow poster.

A very intuitive and simple poster layout inspired by a song...

Make something beautiful every day #6

04/17/09

"My Fav Things" poster series.
Just a poster layout about my favourite things I'm loving to use every day. - To be continued...

My grandma's cellar archive #2

My father's Super 8 Filmcamera,
Kodak Super 8 filmcartridge & package,
Voigtländer Bessamatic camera package,
Biloret Tripod package.

Make something beautiful every day #5

Fictional Joy Division Cover-Layout.

This cover design was inspired by the minimalist style of Joy Division's album "Unknown Pleasures", showing just white lines presenting 100 pulses of the first pulsar discovered ("PSR B1919+21"). The image itself was taken from Cambridge Encyclopedia of Astronomy and the idea for the cover design came from Joy Division's (later New Order's) guitarist Bernard Sumner.
Unknown Pleasures' record sleeve had no tracklisting: neither on the backside of the cover, nor on the record label. The label didn't even showed "a-side" or "b-side".
Though Unknown Pleasures didn't have the band's name printed anywhere on the sleeve, it became highly recognizable through its minimalism.


Joy Division's "Unknown Pleasures", 1979

I tried to create something similar recognizable. To be honest, the idea of using the circle as the basic shape was influenced by the cover design of The Germs' album "GI".


The Germs' "GI", 1979

The symbolism of the circle breaking up should remain mysterious, so that one should wonder if the graphic sign stands for something or not. The viewer's own imagination should be the main record sleeve's theme.


Sleeve, front


Record label, A/B side


Record label, A/B side


Sleeve & Label

Make something beautiful every day #4

26.03.09
Brutalism - modernist architectural movement (50s - 70s).
Bookcover & exhibition poster.

Vanessa Leissring Portfolio

Photographer Vanessa Leissring asked me, if I could design a cover for her new portfolio.
These are the results:

Make something beautiful every day #3

03/26/09

Braunpod type 2.0

"How could a device like Apple's iPod have looked like 35 years ago?"
"By what company could it have been released?"
"If Braun released it, how would the advertising have looked like?"

The answers:

Make something beautiful every day #2

03/24/09
Branding and poster layout for a fictional Arts Gallery.

In a 70s design magazine (which was part of my grandpa's heritage), I found a nice ad for "Eumig" Super 8 projectors. I used the photo of it for an illustation and started working on it and playing around, not knowing how my work would end. The projector's shape seemed kind of retrofuturistic to me, so I thought something archaic like a Super 8 projector could be an interesting theme for a today's Gallery of Visual Arts.
But, to be honest, the whole process was more or less intuitive, so the result was surprising even to me.