Cutout (aka the Flat Style) comprises flat shapes forming a picture. It’s a little like Paper Shapes without a third dimension.
(UPDATE 2016: Cutout got texture!)
Icon has thick coloured outlines and is great for, well… icons. But not only icons! Good for mascot characters too.
Legend has heavy outlines too, but they are black, like the work of the Ndebele people, Australian Aboriginal, Maori and Native American art.
Scraperboard has a similar indigenous African feel to Legend, with more texture within the shapes themselves. Both convey an ethnic art feeling, with as much or as little detail as the story needs, and sometimes these two styles blend.
This new style has very little to do with either. But watching his evocative animations somehow freed me up to do something new.
Back in the 80′s I was exposed to comic art, much of it very avant-garde. The artists were as obscure as they were talented. I remember protesting, ‘I just can’t draw as ugly as that.’ I didn’t understand at all…
More recently, there was a glimmer of what they were all about. Check out the children’s drawings for ‘My Children’s Act’. There was a charm there I just couldn’t replicate, no matter how I tried. Probably, I never will. But the Grobby style brings so much fun to my work. Local high school learners seemed to enjoy it too.
All work on this page was done with Kate Beaumont for Cambridge University Press.
It can also look imitate traditional African embroidery. In that sense, it’s been used for an intro page for a textbook for local schools featuring aspects of South African life. It doesn’t appear often, but sometimes it’s the only style for a certain effect or mood. It is more delicate than the Legend style, which can seem too heavy, with its black outlines. Ethnic can also be subtle, after all. In fact – in the African culture, with its intricate customs and etiquette, subtleties rule.
In South Africa, we have many cultures, far more than the eleven official languages. It’s always a joy to borrow from other traditions and to honour them. Quite apart from that, this style is colourful and decorative – just right for the maps commissioned by the University of Cape Town, for people to find their way to and around the campuses.
The menu was one of the props in an ad for a toy ice-cream making machine. Here the style shows confectionery decorations and fantasy- with a child-like, playful character. The icing style was perfect for the menu drawings. The African embroidery possibilities came much later.
The Icing style can combine many elements, just like collages. Many different things can be knitted together or linked with one dominant style. Each is still its own picture, though, in the ‘Intro’ page showing different elements of South African life. The purpose is different from that of the Fotomelt technique, where many elements come together to form one picture or scene.
Clients whose work appears here includes: Shuter and Shooter (Pty) Ltd; Axis Films, UCT
It may appear to be the Cut-out style with a drop shadow but there is an effort to make it look like paper. Sometimes I add a linen grain. The shadow is usually part of it. One can also imitate a crayon or pencil line on it, or a ragged edge using the highly gifted computer only. In some cases, actual paper is photographed.
The idea of using old or stained paper is a good way to get away from the constant digital feel. The work of e.g. Patrick Latimer, Cape Town, has inspired me to play with that technique more often.
In other examples of this style, from my Dappleshades paper decor range, the paper becomes a 3D sculpture evoking foliage or a cascade of bubbles or stones. There’s no reason not to use this as an illustration technique as well. I’ve used it in animation to construct a paper moth called ‘Tallulah (a very small love story)’
As you will see from the examples, this style is great for illustrations that can be just about lines, only about shapes, or exaggerations of form.
The subject can also be quite serious, so use this style to lighten the mood but still get the message across.
It is probably safe to say that this is a style with some form of exaggeration, whether in a complex direction, emphatically minimal or decorative.