graphic designer monika traikov

Monika Traikov is a Toronto based graphic designer with a passion for every facet of design: branding, typography, layouts and illustration. In here work she makes a connection between the impact of digital manipulation while still communication pieces of Monika's past. She focuses on the illusion of memories and nostalgia. The photographs are digitally manipulated via pixelating, shifting, layering and stretching elements of the frame.  

Monika about her work:
“The works explore the illusion of memories and nostalgia, reflecting a constant yearning for the past, often in an idealized or distorted form. The way we remember moments are often glossed over, or warped in a beautiful way. Often, feelings, colours and emotions are remembered more than the tangible. I used my personal experiences with memories to deconstruct my old family photographs, and create a new, idealized, and illusionary moments. Each image evokes a certain mood and emotion encased in a memory- whether it is an eerie memory that you can’t quite put back together, or a dreamy, fantastical memory that you will never forget. The series tells a fragmented story of different emotions, moods, and moments that translates these foreign family photographs into something familiar and thought provoking. I wanted to establish a familiarity in each image, allowing viewers to extract their own personal meaning and be able to relate them to their own memories and past.

The photographs are scanned into the computer digitally, and are changed through stretching, pixelating, shifting, or layering. Using a digital medium contrasts the organic elements of the photographs by adding structure, organization and a more methodological element to the images. The post processing helps to unify the essence of past and present.

The fragmented qualities of the images mimic the constructive and illusionary processes that our minds use in remembering a specific moment of our past. The images weave together both truth (the tangible photographs) and illusions (the distortions and fragments) to create a sense of uncanny memory.”

source:

http://www.monikatraikov.com/
http://www.escapeintolife.com/artist-watch/monika-traikov/

Culture Couture

Last weekend I visited the 'Tropenmuseum' in my hometown Amsterdam. It is one of Europe's leading ethnographic museums. It certainly wasn't my first visit to this beautiful museum, but this time I came with a purpose: the exposition Culture Couture. Three young students from the Antwerp's Academy of Arts are showcasing a selection of their creations inspired by other cultures. Manon Kündig, Tabitha Osler and Wali Mohammed Barrech.

Tabitha Osler was inspired by a portrait painted by Swiss artist Karl Bodmer who traveled the upper missouri region in the 1830's. The portrait was of a Lakota woman. Tabitha's collection is  called Burning Bush. In her collection she tried to stay true to here inspiration as much as possible. She only used stitching techniques that Lakota women use themselves.

Burning Bush

The ethnic costume inspired by the portrait 'wood red nation woman'  with in the background Tabitha's collection pieces 

Burning Bush

Manon Kündig's collection was inspired by der hobuspöönig, which is a part of the Swiss culture. The costume of this man (see photo below) is made completely of out wood chips. She translated this volume and lightness in to a series of inflateble objects. The items are made of latex. Her collection is called Blowjob. One of the pieces is a inflatable skull (which unfortunately wasn't on display at the Tropenmuseum).

Hobespoonig

Blowjob

Blowjob

Wali Mohammed Barrech's collection is inspired by the Feredja Burka Mostar. Which is a traditional Burka from Bosnia Herzegovina. With this collection he deals with questions raised by the progress in modern medicine and the way pharmaceutical drugs affect our lives. He translated some of the most successful pharmaceutical drugs suchas Xanax, multi-vitamins and HIV drugs into silhouettes by blending the purpose and the effect of each drug with its respectice chemical composition.

Feredja Burka Mostar

Reset

Reset

Reset

Reset

for more info go to: www.tropenmuseum.nl (dutch, german, english, french, spanish, italian)
for more information about the collection Reset, go to: http://www.catch-fire.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Idolitryline.pdf

trend phasebook, behind the screens

Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin. Nowadays it is fairly easy to direct your life, your digital life that is. In the comfort of your own home, behind your computer you can define excactly how you want to come across and create your own little fairytale. But all that digital content usually doesn't last a long time, before you know it those stories and photos are replaced by newer ones.

This is where Phasebook comes in. It's an analog reaction to the digital highway of social media. Phasebook is created by dutch graphic designer Jorgen Koolwijk. He did research on a group of 30-something people that are in one way or another connected to each other by social networks. It resulted in the artbook 'Phasebook', in which recent portrets are accompanied by old photos, handwritten stories, anekdotes and drawings. The past and the present combined make an interesting reflection on former dreams, ambitions, ideas and todays reality. 

For more information about the project, or to browse through the whole book: visit www.phasebook.nl (dutch only).