Artists Research - Alex Beltechi

I've decided to search for some artists that embrace colour, print & detail.  On the Oasis brief they say they love these particular styles.  In my work I would like to bring the messages to life using colour and detail.  In the following blogs I will look at a diversity of artists that pursue different visual styles using different elements of prints colours & layouts.  The first artist I will be looking at is Alex Beltechi.

Alex Beltechi creates his own typography and incorporates illustration within to make them extremely interesting and appealing.  I am researching his work because I want inspiration into using detailed design alongside text.

Here is one of his Self-initiated designs.  This typographic poster is called The Lost Art of Subtelty.  I'm most interested in the flicks and swishes he uses off the top part of the poster.  I like the way these elements look so effortless but also precise.  These parts add value to the text suggesting its importance.  I love the neon glow effects on this part of the text too.  Its also lighter and brighter in some places to the others too.  As the ascenders on this type are so varied they look freely used and flow with the type.  As for the other part you can see that this is in blocks almost.  This is interesting because when different parts of a letter cross over as you would write it out, a lighter shade has been used.  This may not be medianly obvious.

Here is the mock up in pencil before being digitalised.

In this one he used the image of a fresh beech wood branch as a symbol of his progress and personal growth as an artist.  The slightly italic text again brings value to the text for me.  The letter 'g' isn't actually a capital letter however considerably larger than the rest of the text.  This is clever and maybe something to think about for my own messages.  A theme seems to be the exaggeration on the tops of letters being elaborately used.  On the end of these are leafs from a beech wood branch.  His colours are fairly dull and dark, but this is the visual theme of this design and works very well.

   

This one is called Type treat.  I love how the word type has been illustrated in a way of one of those red & white candy sticks.  It actually looks like you could take the text and re-bend it into a different position.  The word treat is written as if its a splash of melted chocolate.  Italics has been used here slightly.  The visual style is very strong.  

Above here is a design called City.  I like this one as its simple yet can maybe get slightly complex in areas so a nice balance.  Its obvious that main parts that can be seen in cities are used here working around the letters.  We can see buildings, CCTV cameras, cables & a pair of headphones.  I love how this looks especially on the letter Y.  On the descender of the y, the cables just casually flow down looking so natural but obviously well thought out. 

Last of his work is Dream.  I like the way the text is 3D on this it really stands out.  The baseline in this design has been fairly ignored to create something that is odd but looks very organic.  Branches seem to be spouting from parts of the text maybe to symbolise aspirations and dreams, of course.  The green colour suggests this is natural and organic alike.  The background works well as this is dark to make the text stand out.  To me the dark background symbolises the night sky as if this could be in someones head when their sleeping.  You can defiantly see a moon in background to back my idea up and what I think are mountains there.  I really love this design.  It has a focus and has so much meaning.

After looking at Alex Beltechi's work, it has been interesting to read into his designs to think about the meaning of them.  The use of colour and space has been a theme throughout, as has been the ascenders on his typefaces.  From this research I can take away different visual themes to consider for my own considering the Oasis brand.