His style — bold, graphic, and naive – incorporates geometric shapes and distinct color palettes. “I was always attracted to the geometric interpretation of things,” he relayed in an interview with Sense of Creativity. “I even remember as a child that I liked Mondrian a lot, for example as an artist, I was struck by the synthesis and how the proper use of colors can generate new universes, even if the elements are minimal.”

“When it comes to graphically represent certain situations, objects or ideas, I try to think about the composition and in a ‘geometric’ way, seeing if I can find a new way of showing it,” he went on to explain. “I think it is more a style of thinking than of working since I do not always adopt the same techniques and sometimes I am changing.”

When it comes to design inspiration, Azambuja says he’s a fan of Swiss design, consisting of few elements that are well aligned. He also takes note of the work of other graphic designers who used illustration as a tool, amongst them, he mentions Alexander Girard. “I also like designers who combined their more ‘formal and corporate’ work with more playful and artistic explorations such as Ivan Chermayeff for example,” he adds, saying that “his collage work was fantastic.”

“I do not feel I have a style as marked as other illustrators, in fact probably because I feel more graphic designer than illustrator,” admits Azambuja. You can follow his work through Instagram.

The post Martín Azambuja’s Illustrations Are Geometric In Nature appeared first on PlayJunkie.

“I’m mostly inspired by the sea and the seashore, clear sky and sunny days,” Golubović stressed in an interview with Talenthouse. “I would say that generally, Mediterranean life is a big part of that well from which I draw inspiration. It’s not so easy to explain the exact thing I find inspiring about it, but it is present as a general feeling in my life and work. I think that it can be felt by looking at my work, it gives it a dreamy, calm, and a bit of a poetic atmosphere.”

Exploring a broad spectrum of subjects, her illustrations touch on topics like lifestyle, health, and wellness, nature and environment, and female empowerment; with her work including editorials, branding, and advertising.

Her illustrations are all digital, employing a Wacom graphic tablet. “I prefer digital over analog because it gives me more freedom to experiment,” Golubović admits. “As I really often change my mind about how something should look, it is more convenient for me to draw digitally and it is less time-consuming.”

Take a look at some of her work in the gallery below:

The post Milica Golubović’s Illustrations Are All About Positive Vibes appeared first on PlayJunkie.

“I was studying in Paris which is the best place to study art; there are many museums, galleries, and events,” she went on to explain. “In school, I studied the history of art, I was fascinated by the contemporary art, I like a lot Andy Warhol, Damien Hirst, Cindy Scherman, Basquiat, Yayoi Kusama, Keith Haring, Jeff Koons, Murakami, Olafur Eliasson, Anish Kapoor, A Wei Wei and many more.”

Born and raised in the suburbs of Paris, she now works full time as a graphic artist, with her work varying from illustration and animation to acrylic paintings. Her clients include giants like Adobe, Instagram, Tinder, and Refinery 29.

Her illustrations – bold, graphic, and colorful – focus mainly on African men and women. As for her inspiration, she says it comes from life itself: from films, music videos, photography, and other kinds of art and design forms, but also from the people she meets and the conversations she has with them. “As a creative person traveling is essential for getting new inspiration and bringing more nuances in my work,” Durand writes on her website. “I like to challenge my work by pushing myself to get new habits. My travels influence my work; my visuals are colorful and vibrant and aim to reflect the diversity of our society.​​​”

Take a look at some of her eye-popping creations:

The post Aurélia Durand’s Art is Bold and Colorful appeared first on PlayJunkie.

Having worked for the past 10 years with almost all the key players in New York’s brand underground, Meye draws on his classical training and outsider’s perspective to develop an iconic graphic language and style. It’s his unique blend of low-brow and high-brow aesthetic that has caught the attention of people like Spike Lee, who’ve Meye ended up designing him T-shirts.

But when it comes to his creative background, it all begins with his parents. “Both of my parents were architects, and because it was a Swiss household, my family was passionate about minimal design,” said Meye in an interview with The Great Discontent. “Growing up, I hung out a lot in my parents’ woodshop,” he recalled. “My parents frequently built models and drew blueprints for their projects. I spent time drawing with my brother and making things out of wood. Hanging out with my parents in their shop was my first connection to the world of art and illustration.”

Nowadays, his art is a mixture of all sorts – anything from digital illustrations and murals to sneaker design and sculpting. “I believe risk-taking is more about daring to try something new,” he says. “You don’t want to be pigeonholed as the person who’s only known for one thing.”

Take a look at some of his unique art in the gallery below:

The post Kimou Meye is No One Trick Pony appeared first on PlayJunkie.

And just like her messy images, so is Isaac’s creative process disorderly. “I don’t feel like I really have a consistent process, everything I work on is so different,” she told Inky Goodness. “The only thing that I really try to do for every job is research and mood boarding – although this is entirely dependant on how much time I have,  the depth of that research can be a very quick hour to a week’s worth of prep.”

Each job demands a different stylistic approach. Sometimes her work includes hand-making collages, cutting stuff out, and sticking it down physically; other times its all completely digital but more often than not its a mash-up of the two approaches.

This colorful mash-up caught the attention of clients like Reebok, Nike, Prada, and Adidas, amongst others. “I always say my style was kind of born out of necessity,” says Isaac. “When I first took the leap away from production I had minimal skills, I was ok at Photoshop, I could open After Effects. But technically I was a total beginner. My style is pretty low fi because my skills were pretty low fi, collage is also a great medium to work with if you can’t draw that well!”

Take a look at some of her work in the gallery below:

The post Alice Isaac’s Art Is a Wonderful Mash-Up of Sorts appeared first on PlayJunkie.

Although she’s created from a young age, her path to illustration isn’t traditional as she had a career in marketing before painting. “From a young age, I would sketch comic strips and draw people,” she shared with Freelance Wisdom.

“I never took it too seriously until after I finished college with a degree in marketing. I decided that I wasn’t really doing what I loved to do, and then after the birth of my first child, I got an insane passion to go for what I always dreamed of. Art started taking root again in my heart and I started sketching illustrations and sharing them online.”

After sharing her work, projects started coming in. “At a really wild time, I was pregnant with my second child, I decided to take the leap to freelance and it’s been a thrilling, fulfilling, and adventurous ride,” she says. “From there I’ve seen the need in the market for women, especially mothers, to be encouraged in being creative.”

Based in Minneapolis, in 2019 Holliday received the Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative Grant which was a great opportunity for her to showcase her work in the Minnesota community. Her online persona is also steadily growing, and with more than 11k fans on Instagram – people are clearly taking note.

Follow her inspiring journey.

The post Jena Holliday Encourages Women to Tap Into Their Gifts appeared first on PlayJunkie.

“Feminism definitely plays a strong role in my work and everything I do,” she told Les Femmes Folles. “While I’m not creating ‘political art’ per say, the fact that I myself am a mixed race female illustrator informs much of my work.”

With a BFA in Illustration, Davidson is currently working as a designer at Cash App. “I have always been a maker and a drawer so it was an easy decision to seek out an art school when I was given the option,” she recalled. “I have a strong memory of my mother’s sister asking me when I was 5 or 6, ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ I told her, ‘An artist.’ She snorted and said (to my mother), ‘Ah! A career that makes no money.’ Money or no, I’m an artist. Bite me, Aunt Grace.”

Check out her creations below.

The post Stephanie Davidson’s Witty Illustrations Are Surprisingly Genuine appeared first on PlayJunkie.

Born in the USSR to a family of artists and designers, she grew up in Minsk, Belarus, and has started art school at age seven. But though Griesinger had a strong grounding in classical academic drawing and painting, she didn’t want to become a fine artist. Influenced by the boldness and richness of Polish mid-century posters, she dreamed of joining the world of graphic design.

“Both of my parents studied interior design, my mom worked in architecture and then became an art teacher, my father is a graphic designer and photographer,” she recalled in an interview with The Design Kids. “Drawing, painting, any kind of creativity were always encouraged in me since young age. Through my childhood, I distinctly remember drawing two kind of things – funny animals and characters (before I started to read) and words and letters (after learning how to read). I think it is only natural that after years of practicing both I became a greeting card graphic designer and illustrator.”

Her work is varied and very much relies on her artistic background. In addition to having layout, typography, and photography skills, she is also able to create strong illustrations in almost any style or technique. “I get to have fun coming up with concepts (illustrations as well as words) for greeting cards of all sorts of occasions, which are printed in a beautiful old (and complicated to learn) technique of letterpress,” she says. “I also get to design stationery collections and products, gift-wrap and gift bags, which are later sold in stores like Papyrus, Homegoods, Marshalls, TJ-Max, and Clintons. So when you are out there buying a paper bag for your gift, you may be grabbing one of my creations.”

Take a look at some of her more adorable designs.

The post Olga Griesinger is the Master of Greeting Cards appeared first on PlayJunkie.

“The best way to get un-lost is draw a map,” he writes on his website, explaining that while living in Portland (and mostly getting lost) he drew a circular map of the city which helped him understand better his whereabouts. It was then that the brand Archie’s Press was born.

Having studied Art and Philosophy at Colorado College, Urban Design at Harvard, and Advertising at Wieden+Kennedy, Archambault travels all over the world meeting people and exploring cities. After asking residents a lot of questions and thinking really really hard, he assembles to map, referencing current and past maps.

His original idea has since unfolded into many other maps of different subjects, showing their structures in simple and intuitive ways. “I make letterpress ‘maps from the mind’ of cities, planets, organs, and many other subjects,” he explained in an interview with the Ohh Deer blog. “They’re all super-simple distillations of the complex ideas.”

“When I started taking this design practice seriously, I went in a dozen different directions,” he recalled. “Most of it was type and image with quippy or impactful messages. I made things that were funny, clever, crude, and everything in-between, but the maps were by far the biggest hit and I really enjoyed making them. Then my brain became like this map-thinking machine and I stopped thinking about other things.”

Get un-lost in his maps:

The post These Maps and Diagrams Will Help You Get Un-Lost appeared first on PlayJunkie.

Inspired by Jungian therapy and creative exercises, Malavida also remains a way of self-expression as well as a tool to raise emotional intelligence and mental health sensitivity, claims her site. Whatever it is – it seems to work.

“Being a graphic designer in the first place, I’ve also always been drawn to abstract and experiments in general,” said Rainaud in an interview with the Ohh Deer blog. “As far as I remember, before creating Malavida, I started playing with textures and visual effects for my graphic design projects while I was in school. I truly wanted to, one day, be able to build my own identity, based on the things I like and the way I am as a person. This trippy yet dark vibe has always been a part of my life, so I guess that my style and designs had to convey these aspects, in order to stay as true to myself as possible.

“My work always has this tangible to digital dynamic,” she adds. “I usually start by working with a mix of different types of paints, inks, and materials to create a base movement and vibe. In this step, I’m not bothering too much with the colors or displacements to look perfect. The second step is digitalizing the artwork through a scanner or a camera, and then moving on to my favorite part, post-production. This third step is all about movements enhancements and adding all these signature vibrant colors. To achieve this effect, I usually work with algorithms, 3D software such as Cinema 4D and of course Photoshop.”

Fall down the rabbit hole:

The post The Malavida Project Will Make Your Head Spin with Colors appeared first on PlayJunkie.

His style — bold, graphic, and naive – incorporates geometric shapes and distinct color palettes. “I was always attracted to the geometric interpretation of things,” he relayed in an interview with Sense of Creativity. “I even remember as a child that I liked Mondrian a lot, for example as an artist, I was struck by the synthesis and how the proper use of colors can generate new universes, even if the elements are minimal.”

“When it comes to graphically represent certain situations, objects or ideas, I try to think about the composition and in a ‘geometric’ way, seeing if I can find a new way of showing it,” he went on to explain. “I think it is more a style of thinking than of working since I do not always adopt the same techniques and sometimes I am changing.”

When it comes to design inspiration, Azambuja says he’s a fan of Swiss design, consisting of few elements that are well aligned. He also takes note of the work of other graphic designers who used illustration as a tool, amongst them, he mentions Alexander Girard. “I also like designers who combined their more ‘formal and corporate’ work with more playful and artistic explorations such as Ivan Chermayeff for example,” he adds, saying that “his collage work was fantastic.”

“I do not feel I have a style as marked as other illustrators, in fact probably because I feel more graphic designer than illustrator,” admits Azambuja. You can follow his work through Instagram.

The post Martín Azambuja’s Illustrations Are Geometric In Nature appeared first on PlayJunkie.

“I’m mostly inspired by the sea and the seashore, clear sky and sunny days,” Golubović stressed in an interview with Talenthouse. “I would say that generally, Mediterranean life is a big part of that well from which I draw inspiration. It’s not so easy to explain the exact thing I find inspiring about it, but it is present as a general feeling in my life and work. I think that it can be felt by looking at my work, it gives it a dreamy, calm, and a bit of a poetic atmosphere.”

Exploring a broad spectrum of subjects, her illustrations touch on topics like lifestyle, health, and wellness, nature and environment, and female empowerment; with her work including editorials, branding, and advertising.

Her illustrations are all digital, employing a Wacom graphic tablet. “I prefer digital over analog because it gives me more freedom to experiment,” Golubović admits. “As I really often change my mind about how something should look, it is more convenient for me to draw digitally and it is less time-consuming.”

Take a look at some of her work in the gallery below:

The post Milica Golubović’s Illustrations Are All About Positive Vibes appeared first on PlayJunkie.

“I was studying in Paris which is the best place to study art; there are many museums, galleries, and events,” she went on to explain. “In school, I studied the history of art, I was fascinated by the contemporary art, I like a lot Andy Warhol, Damien Hirst, Cindy Scherman, Basquiat, Yayoi Kusama, Keith Haring, Jeff Koons, Murakami, Olafur Eliasson, Anish Kapoor, A Wei Wei and many more.”

Born and raised in the suburbs of Paris, she now works full time as a graphic artist, with her work varying from illustration and animation to acrylic paintings. Her clients include giants like Adobe, Instagram, Tinder, and Refinery 29.

Her illustrations – bold, graphic, and colorful – focus mainly on African men and women. As for her inspiration, she says it comes from life itself: from films, music videos, photography, and other kinds of art and design forms, but also from the people she meets and the conversations she has with them. “As a creative person traveling is essential for getting new inspiration and bringing more nuances in my work,” Durand writes on her website. “I like to challenge my work by pushing myself to get new habits. My travels influence my work; my visuals are colorful and vibrant and aim to reflect the diversity of our society.​​​”

Take a look at some of her eye-popping creations:

The post Aurélia Durand’s Art is Bold and Colorful appeared first on PlayJunkie.

Having worked for the past 10 years with almost all the key players in New York’s brand underground, Meye draws on his classical training and outsider’s perspective to develop an iconic graphic language and style. It’s his unique blend of low-brow and high-brow aesthetic that has caught the attention of people like Spike Lee, who’ve Meye ended up designing him T-shirts.

But when it comes to his creative background, it all begins with his parents. “Both of my parents were architects, and because it was a Swiss household, my family was passionate about minimal design,” said Meye in an interview with The Great Discontent. “Growing up, I hung out a lot in my parents’ woodshop,” he recalled. “My parents frequently built models and drew blueprints for their projects. I spent time drawing with my brother and making things out of wood. Hanging out with my parents in their shop was my first connection to the world of art and illustration.”

Nowadays, his art is a mixture of all sorts – anything from digital illustrations and murals to sneaker design and sculpting. “I believe risk-taking is more about daring to try something new,” he says. “You don’t want to be pigeonholed as the person who’s only known for one thing.”

Take a look at some of his unique art in the gallery below:

The post Kimou Meye is No One Trick Pony appeared first on PlayJunkie.

And just like her messy images, so is Isaac’s creative process disorderly. “I don’t feel like I really have a consistent process, everything I work on is so different,” she told Inky Goodness. “The only thing that I really try to do for every job is research and mood boarding – although this is entirely dependant on how much time I have,  the depth of that research can be a very quick hour to a week’s worth of prep.”

Each job demands a different stylistic approach. Sometimes her work includes hand-making collages, cutting stuff out, and sticking it down physically; other times its all completely digital but more often than not its a mash-up of the two approaches.

This colorful mash-up caught the attention of clients like Reebok, Nike, Prada, and Adidas, amongst others. “I always say my style was kind of born out of necessity,” says Isaac. “When I first took the leap away from production I had minimal skills, I was ok at Photoshop, I could open After Effects. But technically I was a total beginner. My style is pretty low fi because my skills were pretty low fi, collage is also a great medium to work with if you can’t draw that well!”

Take a look at some of her work in the gallery below:

The post Alice Isaac’s Art Is a Wonderful Mash-Up of Sorts appeared first on PlayJunkie.

Although she’s created from a young age, her path to illustration isn’t traditional as she had a career in marketing before painting. “From a young age, I would sketch comic strips and draw people,” she shared with Freelance Wisdom.

“I never took it too seriously until after I finished college with a degree in marketing. I decided that I wasn’t really doing what I loved to do, and then after the birth of my first child, I got an insane passion to go for what I always dreamed of. Art started taking root again in my heart and I started sketching illustrations and sharing them online.”

After sharing her work, projects started coming in. “At a really wild time, I was pregnant with my second child, I decided to take the leap to freelance and it’s been a thrilling, fulfilling, and adventurous ride,” she says. “From there I’ve seen the need in the market for women, especially mothers, to be encouraged in being creative.”

Based in Minneapolis, in 2019 Holliday received the Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative Grant which was a great opportunity for her to showcase her work in the Minnesota community. Her online persona is also steadily growing, and with more than 11k fans on Instagram – people are clearly taking note.

Follow her inspiring journey.

The post Jena Holliday Encourages Women to Tap Into Their Gifts appeared first on PlayJunkie.

“Feminism definitely plays a strong role in my work and everything I do,” she told Les Femmes Folles. “While I’m not creating ‘political art’ per say, the fact that I myself am a mixed race female illustrator informs much of my work.”

With a BFA in Illustration, Davidson is currently working as a designer at Cash App. “I have always been a maker and a drawer so it was an easy decision to seek out an art school when I was given the option,” she recalled. “I have a strong memory of my mother’s sister asking me when I was 5 or 6, ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ I told her, ‘An artist.’ She snorted and said (to my mother), ‘Ah! A career that makes no money.’ Money or no, I’m an artist. Bite me, Aunt Grace.”

Check out her creations below.

The post Stephanie Davidson’s Witty Illustrations Are Surprisingly Genuine appeared first on PlayJunkie.

Born in the USSR to a family of artists and designers, she grew up in Minsk, Belarus, and has started art school at age seven. But though Griesinger had a strong grounding in classical academic drawing and painting, she didn’t want to become a fine artist. Influenced by the boldness and richness of Polish mid-century posters, she dreamed of joining the world of graphic design.

“Both of my parents studied interior design, my mom worked in architecture and then became an art teacher, my father is a graphic designer and photographer,” she recalled in an interview with The Design Kids. “Drawing, painting, any kind of creativity were always encouraged in me since young age. Through my childhood, I distinctly remember drawing two kind of things – funny animals and characters (before I started to read) and words and letters (after learning how to read). I think it is only natural that after years of practicing both I became a greeting card graphic designer and illustrator.”

Her work is varied and very much relies on her artistic background. In addition to having layout, typography, and photography skills, she is also able to create strong illustrations in almost any style or technique. “I get to have fun coming up with concepts (illustrations as well as words) for greeting cards of all sorts of occasions, which are printed in a beautiful old (and complicated to learn) technique of letterpress,” she says. “I also get to design stationery collections and products, gift-wrap and gift bags, which are later sold in stores like Papyrus, Homegoods, Marshalls, TJ-Max, and Clintons. So when you are out there buying a paper bag for your gift, you may be grabbing one of my creations.”

Take a look at some of her more adorable designs.

The post Olga Griesinger is the Master of Greeting Cards appeared first on PlayJunkie.

“The best way to get un-lost is draw a map,” he writes on his website, explaining that while living in Portland (and mostly getting lost) he drew a circular map of the city which helped him understand better his whereabouts. It was then that the brand Archie’s Press was born.

Having studied Art and Philosophy at Colorado College, Urban Design at Harvard, and Advertising at Wieden+Kennedy, Archambault travels all over the world meeting people and exploring cities. After asking residents a lot of questions and thinking really really hard, he assembles to map, referencing current and past maps.

His original idea has since unfolded into many other maps of different subjects, showing their structures in simple and intuitive ways. “I make letterpress ‘maps from the mind’ of cities, planets, organs, and many other subjects,” he explained in an interview with the Ohh Deer blog. “They’re all super-simple distillations of the complex ideas.”

“When I started taking this design practice seriously, I went in a dozen different directions,” he recalled. “Most of it was type and image with quippy or impactful messages. I made things that were funny, clever, crude, and everything in-between, but the maps were by far the biggest hit and I really enjoyed making them. Then my brain became like this map-thinking machine and I stopped thinking about other things.”

Get un-lost in his maps:

The post These Maps and Diagrams Will Help You Get Un-Lost appeared first on PlayJunkie.

Inspired by Jungian therapy and creative exercises, Malavida also remains a way of self-expression as well as a tool to raise emotional intelligence and mental health sensitivity, claims her site. Whatever it is – it seems to work.

“Being a graphic designer in the first place, I’ve also always been drawn to abstract and experiments in general,” said Rainaud in an interview with the Ohh Deer blog. “As far as I remember, before creating Malavida, I started playing with textures and visual effects for my graphic design projects while I was in school. I truly wanted to, one day, be able to build my own identity, based on the things I like and the way I am as a person. This trippy yet dark vibe has always been a part of my life, so I guess that my style and designs had to convey these aspects, in order to stay as true to myself as possible.

“My work always has this tangible to digital dynamic,” she adds. “I usually start by working with a mix of different types of paints, inks, and materials to create a base movement and vibe. In this step, I’m not bothering too much with the colors or displacements to look perfect. The second step is digitalizing the artwork through a scanner or a camera, and then moving on to my favorite part, post-production. This third step is all about movements enhancements and adding all these signature vibrant colors. To achieve this effect, I usually work with algorithms, 3D software such as Cinema 4D and of course Photoshop.”

Fall down the rabbit hole:

The post The Malavida Project Will Make Your Head Spin with Colors appeared first on PlayJunkie.