Andrew Croce

Since Adobe’s Creative Suite 5 just came out, it is appropriate that I show this imagining of CS6. I created these drawings as brand guidelines for further development into other media.

 

The fundamental concept behind the designs is physical space, and the tension between flatness and depth. After all, almost everything Adobe’s software produces lives on flat, two-dimensional screens, and it seems that every iteration of their branding moves deeper and deeper into simulating three-dimensions. The most recent CS5 does it explicitly (and gorgeously, I might add), formulating their entire brand campaign around a big 3D  number “5″ with all sorts of realistic physical objects inside and around it.

This makes me think of something a drawing professor told me in art school: design inevitably follows the fine-arts, often decades behind. I suppose I didn’t get it at the time, but in the CS5 branding I see the references to Louise Nevelson’s painted wood collages, Robert Rauschenberg’s mixed media pieces, even Donald Judd’s shiny minimal forms.

I’m not sure what artwork my own designs reference… I’m sure someone else can tell me that. But, from my perspective, the designs started with exploration of flat physical media, including scans of back-lit fabric, ink soaked paper, and other oddities. My own abstract drawings and letter forms were superimposed on this background, creating a tension between the flatness of the textures, and the dimensionality of the shapes.

The final layer came in the form of color inversion. The shapes that overlay the background images invert whats behind them, not only changing the color, but reversing their sense of space. The primary, light-colored backgrounds feel (to me anyway) essentially flat, referencing the flat paper and fabric I used to create them. The inversion turns that flatness into depth and space, as if the overlaid shapes are cutting a window into a different scene.

Essentially I wanted to bring Adobe back to its roots, and create a next generation that doesn’t just try to avoid its inevitable flatness, but addresses it in a thoughtful wat. I’m not sure if I succeeded, but if anyone from Adobe is reading I’d love to hear your thoughts.

My first post about art/design. Stepping away from the technology and math for a bit and into some art process experiments

I have discovered that, being relatively new to the world of digital media, I had become a bit trapped by the tools of the trade. Working in Photoshop and Illustrator all the time has tended to make my work look…well, like it came from Photoshop and Illustrator. Its very easy to get stuck in a box, particularly the big white box that sits on my desk, and the the sharp, shiny, pixel-perfect boxes I would use it to create.

So I am going back to my roots for a bit, into the world of physical things and processes. These are some experiments in do-it-yourself chemistry, using common household ingredients to create images. In this particular picture, the yellow pigment is the spice turmeric, used a lot in Indian cooking. The color changes and patterns come from reactions with  water, salt, vinegar and baking soda…mmm!

Yes, I’ve used my scanner to capture them… and yes I used Photoshop create the color inversions, but thats it I swear! The truth is, I think, that in combining physical and digital processes together, we can come up with creative solutions that wouldn’t have otherwise been possible.