Three #MastersofPrint celebrated in our Pucci x Orlebar Brown project

Date
25 March 2015

The glorious coming together of pattern, shape and colour makes for a joyous experience and that’s why print designers are held in such high regard. Last week we commissioned Animade to turn three eye-poppingly good Pucci x Orlebar Brown patterns into trippy GIFs, this week we’re turning our attention to profiling creatives we believe are among the best around when it comes to working in this area. We are proud to present these #mastersofprint.

For Spring 2015 Pucci and Orlebar Brown have created a 20-piece swimwear collection that reimagines a set of prints from the Pucci archives. You can see the range and buy the Orlebar Brown + Emilio Pucci collection here

Lynnie Zulu’s work is all about energy. It leaps from her illustrations, whether they appear on fashion prints, album artworks or from the walls of a gallery. Born and bred in Scotland, Lynnie was strongly influenced by her mother, who is an also an artist and was brought up in Tanzania. These African influences resonate throughout her portfolio, from the choice of colours to the dynamism she strives to create. It was only really after leaving Kingston University that her style started to come into its own. “ I found a way of working which was much more expressive and spontaneous,” she says.

One of her first commissions was for the fashion label Fanny & Hessy and she remembers it felt like being thrown in at the deep end. “I had zero experience in this field so there was a lot of experimenting, I remember completing the print and being totally baffled about how I got there! But the commission was the perfect launch-pad for me as it revealed a way in which my work could have multiple functions in ways which I hadn’t realised at the time.”

She describes her creative approach as “kind of haphazard” and the starting point is always her sketchbook that she keeps on her at all times. “It’s where all the ideas develop and there’s always an organic quality. My more recent print work integrates this sketchbook quality – using the individual illustrations and building them into a print. This technique may not be as complex but it brings out my style of illustration in an expressive and playful way.”

"When I'm working I aim to be somewhere between being utterly focussed and completely unaware."

Lynnie Zulu

Colour and pattern are at the core of her work and Lynnie likes experimenting with different materials to see how they affect the application of her style. “I’ve found using bigger bolder materials have made me loosen up, making my style more relaxed,” she explains. This idea of being loose or relaxed is clearly very important for Lynnie, and might be the font of that ever-present visual energy.

“For me more interesting things happen this way, without any premonition, allowing me to create it as I go along. It’s important that I’m not precious with my process. When I’m working I aim to be somewhere between being utterly focussed and completely unaware.”
www.llynniezulu.com

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Lynnie Zulu: Wild Things

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Lynnie Zulu: Wild Things

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Lynnie Zulu: Untitled

Nan Na Hvass & Sofie Hannibal met while studying for their masters in Visual Communication at The Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen and technically formed their studio in 2006. “In the beginning, when we were searching for our ‘artistic voice’ we tried everything from dance performances at night clubs to street art, but later found ourselves happy and content in the world of graphic design and illustration,” Sofie explains.

They now work across the creative spectrum from book covers to textiles, identities to installations and their client list includes the biggest names from the worlds of fashion (adidas, ASOS), technology (IBM, Sony and Google Play) and publishing (Wired magazine, Random House).

Sofie is very honest about the challenges of creating print patterns that work. “Our process is research, idea generation, sketching, back to research, forward to implementing, back to sketching again, then panic, research, sketching, talking to the client, then some more panic and then we’re done!” Clearly the refined final results give little clue to the work that goes into them, but maybe that’s because Hvass & Hannibal take what they do so seriously and won’t compromise.

"Our approach is trying to create amazing work every time, and to do that we have to keep pushing our boundaries."

Hvass & Hannibal

“Our approach is trying to create amazing work every time, and to do that we have to keep pushing our boundaries. It’s actually quite egocentric, but in order to make the work exciting for us, we want to keep an explorative approach, keep looking for new materials, ideas, techniques and so on.”

It’s interesting – and instructive – that Hvass & Hannibal take most of their inspiration from the art rather than the design world and you can see those references recur in their eclectic portfolio. While clearly aware of design trends, they are led by these artistic sensibilities rather than trying to regurgitate whatever trope is trending at that time. This gives their work a vibrant timelessness and their prints in particular a sense of self-confidence.

“It gives us a great immediate pleasure to put colours and patterns together and just look at them,” Sofie says. “We often talk about graphics as appetising or mouth-watering.” Even a cursory flick through the work of this dynamic Danish duo and you can see what they mean; it’s very hard not to drool.  
www.hvasshannibal.dk

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Hvass & Hannibal: Secret 7 sleeve

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Hvass & Hannibal: Concrete Image

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Hvass & Hannibal: Screenprint

Australian born, New York-based artist and illustrator Karan Singh understands the power of pattern and repetition. Particularly interested in depth and dimension, his bold, bright and colourful work is ridiculously gratifying. What he loves about creating print is that colour and pattern are so malleable.

“There are infinite combinations and often the subtlest changes in scale, position or rotation impact the entire pattern for the better or worse,” he says. “Further, creating and appreciating a pattern in two dimensions is one side of the coin, however the application of a pattern on an object gives it a whole new life and meaning. While you can always try to predict how patterns will translate, one of my favourite aspects is not knowing what will happen once it’s applied. You can create a beautiful pattern which translates horribly and vice versa.”

"I've found the best results coming from just diving straight in and playing because I find pattern work a little more forgiving."

Karan Singh

Now Karan is highly sought after by clients like Adobe, IBM and Heineken but it could have all been so different. He initially studied interaction design but started to get interested in image-making when he was happened across the Adobe Creative Suite. “This evolved from an interest, to a hobby, to a profession over the course of my uni years and by the end found myself with a degree I wouldn’t be putting to use and instead, a hunger for a profession that I’d mostly taught myself. Oh the irony!”

Although their work is very different, like Lynnie, Karan believes in the power of being spontaneous. He says: “While I usually plan out my illustration work, I can’t say there’s a recipe I use which works every time for patterns. Maybe I’m a horrible chef but I’ve found the best results coming from just diving straight in and playing because I find pattern work a little more forgiving. Sure, I might doodle a little at the start, however, I like the journey that pattern work takes me on. Inspiration comes from anywhere. Its role too varies, sometimes it’s the basis for the artwork, however, more often than not, it’s the push you need to get going.”

Asked to sum up his creative approach he can do it very succinctly words – “Keep It Simple, stupid. It’s mean but it works.”
www.wakeupmrsingh.com

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Karan Singh: The Hills

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Karan Singh: The Bully Project

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Karan Singh: Merry Stripemas

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About the Author

Rob Alderson

Rob joined It’s Nice That as Online Editor in July 2011 before becoming Editor-in-Chief and working across all editorial projects including itsnicethat.com, Printed Pages, Here and Nicer Tuesdays. Rob left It’s Nice That in June 2015.

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