Art Event- 1/28 Robert Knoth and Greenpace

      The event that I attended in the Boyden gallery was towards the beginning of the semester and it was a gallery talk. It featured Robert Knoth who talked to us about his project and showed us a slide show of his images that he took. He works for a company called greenpeace and the project he did was called Shadowlands. What he did was he went to Fukushima in Japan where there was a nuclear disaster and captured how peoples lives have changed. He showed us his documentary and had some videos of people and many images and talked to them about how their daily lives have changed and the horrible conditions that they are living in. Most people had to leave their homes and move to different places until their homes were safe, but many have not been able to move back home because there is nothing left of their homes. They are living in terrible conditions and even the water they have to bathe in is harmful to them. Robert Knoth captured images that showed the beauty of what used to be Fukushima and how the nuclear disaster has changed it.
     Many of the images that were hung on the wall were of some form of civilization with nature surrounding it. The image that struck me the most was of an abandoned gas station, but the lights in the vending machine were still working. There was also an image of an obviously abandoned road but the traffic lights were still working. The images that he hung on the wall were mainly nature in the environment but the images he showed us on the slideshow were more of people and interviews. Robert Knoth risked his health by going to this place to document how these people have suffered and continue to suffer. If it weren't for someone like him who is willing to risk his health to show the world what is happening, most of us would have never heard about this tragic event. I find it really inspiring as someone who would love to be a photo journalist to know that by taking pictures you can cause social change to help people who are in need and who have a hard time getting their voice heard. I really enjoyed this event and would love to see more of his work and want to keep up with this terrible tragedy.

Greenpeace International Website

Web Designer Artist Post- Mike Kus

Mike Kus is a designer from the UK who specializes in WEB/UI design, graphic design, branding, illustration, and photography. He has a worldwide client roster and his work is regularly featured in design related publications. He has been working in the creative industries for 15 years. He is known for creating web designs that seamlessly marries form and function. His work has been featured in many design books and magazines and he regularly speaks at design and web conferences across the world. He has designed works for the likes of twitter, Microsoft, berocca and mailchimp and many more. He really likes to take pictures and share them on instagram. 

https://twitter.com/mikekus

Going through Mike's work is really interesting because he has such a broad range of what he does. Obviously if he is designing a website for another company he has to do what they tell him to do but his work has some sort of consistency. Most of the websites he designs he illustrates by hand the imagery so that there is a handmade aesthetic to it. It seems like he likes to use lots of illustrations and images in his work and has a eye-catching yet simple feel to them. One site he even does a "two color per page" theme where he has a foreground color and a background color. I really enjoy this because it is easy for the eye to navigate around the page. 

Mike even did some of his own little illustrations for the Olympics in 2012 in London. He played with the idea of likening the athletes abilities to that of animals with legendary abilities in the same area. I thought this was really neat because he used the same type of hand made illustrations that you see throughout his websites. I really like his work because it is very colorful and artsy yet it is very simple and easy to look at. Even his website is artsy and fun but easy to navigate. He definitely has a style which he sticks to which is using illustrations and color in a simple manner. I think this style might not be as effective if someone were trying to make a web design for a serious company or something that shouldn't be so artsy. But for my interest and for what I am looking into, I really admire his work and his style.

Mike Kus Website

Bowie Portrait

Logo

Music Sketch

Portraits

Project 1