Reza Abedini

• January 28, 2009
  5 Comments // Artist Profiles

Practicing in his homeland of Iran, Reza Abedini is an accomplished graphic designer who continually blurs the lines between art and design. He combines simple illustrations with poetic typography and elegant layouts, exploring the beauty of the Persian language. As well as being a member of the AGI, Abedini has won many awards as well as judged and been apart of many panel discussions.

“For me, graphic design is totally art”

“For me, graphic design is totally art.” Looking at the work of Iranian graphic designer Reza Abedini this is easily an understandable comment. With a strong sense of pride in his Islamic heritage and Iranian background, Abedini wields his skills with the Persian Language in beautiful and graceful ways. With a strong passion for the history of his culture, Abedini believes that traditional art forms are dead and that “graphic design is a new art of the 20th [and] 21st century … Graphic design is a kind of phoenix”. Looking at his posters, free of the influences of the International Style, you can’t help but feel that you are looking at a piece of art as much as you are looking at a piece of graphic design — the lines of both being deliberately blurred in an effort to speak with his own voice as a director speaks with theirs when reciting a screenwriters script.

“Graphic design is a kind of phoenix”

A helping hand

As a teenager Abedini was guided into the arts by the hand of a teacher who saw a creative spark in his pupil. He requested a short story from Abedini. Finding favour with his teacher, this short story caused him to see fit to ask Abedini to assist him with various creative projects. With a way to travel into the world of creative thinking, Abedini’s knowledge of the crafts began to expand.

Abedini enjoyed this time of creative flourishing and exploration, eventually hitting a chord with brush and paint. An interest ignited when he was tasked with illustrating the set for the play his school was performing. His teacher, once again seeing something in Abedini, introduced him to graphic designers and other creatives in the area, who served as a gateway to deeper knowledge of the world of creativity, as well as Iranian and Persian cultural history.

How To Achieve An Impossible Task

• January 21, 2009
  8 Comments // Creativity

One of the most memorable lessons learned while studying design had nothing to do with layout, typography, color or any other facet of the syllabus. It had absolutely nothing to do with design, but effected how to go about doing it. It was how to work furiously and complete a conceivably impossible task.

After expressing an interest in using ink for illustration but not feeling confident enough in my abilities, my teacher of the time set me to task on something that caused many a cursed word to spill. Before I had ever illustrated a single image using ink, he told me I was to deliver to him a book full of illustrations by the following class. A full book in a week. How I was meant to achieve this man-walking-on-the-moon goal was beyond me. But there wasn’t enough time to sit around and think about how I couldn’t do it—
I had work to do and I was shitting myself.

***

After a week of working furiously and completely changing my routine,
I proudly, and a little arrogantly, presented my book of illustrations,
which was greeted with a somber flicking-through, then closed and commented on.
With a sadistic smile, he uttered ‘… good on you, now double it by next week –
two more books.’ More words of the cursed spilled.

***

When the day to present came, something remarkable happened. He gingerly went through this new duo of books, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly.
A few minutes passed and we started talking.

‘Look at this one … then this one – what do you notice?’

Well, you evil son-of-a-bitch, I notice hours upon hours of my life sucked into over 300 pages of shitty illustrations.
‘That one.. is a little better than the first.’

Beautiful Bjork

• January 13, 2009
  Nil Comments // Artist Profiles

There are some artists, regardless of medium, who are special. For many of us, Icelandic mega-talent Bjork is someone special. Her soulful voice sings to our hearts and souls in ways few-to-none can match.

Originally I wanted to have a wide look at the works of Bjork, going from album to album and looking at the art and design of the album art as well as the film clips the accompany her beautiful music. Having listened to her music over and over and enviously gazed at her film clips in the same way one might look at the works of an old master, I realised something. Something obvious, something I already knew but hadn’t quite realised. She’s extremely accomplished. Like I said, obvious.

So instead of presenting you with a 25,000 word article on the artistry of this queen of the creative, I thought it might serve better to produce for you a small article, focusing on a few key creative works. Of course, I could, and would, happily express my love for her work for 25,000 words, so this may very well turn into a series of articles, each focusing on a few film clips and an album or two per article. Without further ado, I give you creativity in one of its most beautiful personifications: Bjork.

Post

Having evolved from her days as a punk-rock firecracker as part of the Icelandic group The Sugarcubes, through her first (and very successful) solo endeavour of Debut, her explosive exploration is contained and expressed through the part-jazz, part-pop and part-dance sounds of Post.

Each song is increasingly different. Opening with the heavy sounds of Army of Me, we are given an impression best left as the first. This strong, somewhat powerful piece of music doesn’t set the tone for the rest of the album. In fact, no single song does. Each song is distinctly Bjork—expressive, hyper, emotional and unique. Each feeling right and fitting nicely on this album, but no one song defining the qualities or sounds of it as a whole.

There is the almost dance, almost ambient Hyperballed, the delicate Isobel, the extroverted big-band extravaganza It’s Oh So Quiet and the sombre Possibly Maybe. All different in style and sound and all tracks that would serve as keystone moments on albums of their own.

Hyperballad

A song set in the moment of a relationship when aspects of your character need to be executed in secret. We are given a tale of someone who needs to release themselves in a away so that they can feel comfortable with the ones their with. To put it simply, it’s about acting out or in a certain way when your partner isn’t in the audience, so that you can be more comfortable when they are around. Not so much about keeping secrets, more about keeping apart of yourself for yourself.

Much like the music Bjork creates, the French director Michel Gondry created a multi-layered film clip full of contrasting styles mashed together with beautiful colours and shapes while being elegant in its execution.

With layered video, it’d be easy to assume it was all simply done during post-production. Surprisingly it was all done straight to film, on one role 400 feet in length.

Maybe it was done this way for no other reason than to experiment with double (does it count as triple when you do it a third time?) exposing the film in the name of artistic experimentation. An excuse to have bit of a play. Perhaps I’m wanting to find the romance in the production and methodology of this one, but I’d rather think that more than an excuse to play, it was done this way to give the clip an organic feel. By layering the clip via double exposure, rather than doing it in post, Gondry relinquishes a great deal of control, giving the video room to grow along its own path through misalignment and mistiming in filming.

Perhaps it might be better to consider this film clip crafted by Gondry, rather than directed.