Editor’s Note: This is part 47 in Emily Potts’ inspirational series. Every other week she features three artists whose work offers fresh, fun, and stimulating creative inspiration.
Each artist picks the next link—someone who personally inspires him/her. Check out the forty-sixth part in the series, featuring Paul Sahre, Bráulio Amado & Tracy Ma.
Tracy Ma is inspired by …
Steph Davidson
She has an amazing sense of humor and that joie de vivre comes through in all her work.
I love the online Bloomberg BusinessweekGlobal Tech issue that she art directed with James Pants. It’s a perfect mixture of irony and lighthearted playfulness and you can clearly see that a lot of love went into making it. Also none of it hinders the actual reading experience once you get into an article—the whole site is just a hilarious overblown Table of Contents.
I also love this cover that she designed because it’s fun and engaging and gets straight to the point.
Steph Davidson is inspired by …
Scott Gelber
He is a fountain of inspiration, and he has a lot of technical skills and has a huge output rate. A lot of net art has moved into commercial gallery/post net art territory, but I think Scott still just creates for the joy of the process. He is currently doing animation and illustration for Wieden + Kennedy and previously worked for MTV/Adult Swim etc. He updates his Instagram most frequently. This is a music video he did for Toronto band New Fries, I’m a fan of stock footage + CG.
Here are some really nicely rendered illustrations for New York Times.
This was a really cool installation for Museum of Moving Image, it had a really wide aspect ratio so it’s not on vimeo I guess. It cycled through several floors of a building, each floor lifted a lot from renaissance and neoclassical paintings. It also had a custom score.
Scott Gelber is inspired by two people …
Mason Lindroth
Following Mason on tumblr is like watching a world get built. Even his work-for-hire stuff seams to add to his world’s landscape. I’ve always liked when people’s work all seems to exist in the same world (think Stephen King), something I try to do and fail at regularly. His work is in this perfect zone between mastery and the best parts of child’s art. It’s like Bruce Bickford on Super Nintendo, and you can’t really pin down exactly how it’s made.
It’s hard to pick specific works because they ignore the scope of his work, but I picked this album cover because it’s a good intro to his work.
Working in 3D animation can make you start to think in a sort of rigid way. Mason is a good reminder of a different way to do things.
Tune in next time to see who else inspires Scott Gelber!
Online Course: Color Theory for Designers
