News / Illustration

Kingsley Nebechi creates artwork for BuzzFeed to celebrate Black History Month

Words by Laura Snoad, Thursday 03 October 2019

Kingsley-nebechi-buzzfeed-black-history-month-illustration-itsnicethat-02 — Kingsley Nebechi: BuzzFeed Black History Month

London-based graphic designer Kingsley Nebechi has created illustrations to accompany Buzzfeed’s Black History Month content. Featuring a series of portraits, vibrant patterns and a red, yellow and blue colour palette, the artwork will appear across the site this October.

“The composition was inspired by the duality and richness within black culture,” Nebechi told It’s Nice That. “I wanted the artwork to embody vibrance, uniqueness and unity. I love creating art that celebrates black culture. It’s a great way to honour and pay tribute to the amazing heritage that continues to hold us together.”

Born in Nigeria and raised in Italy, Nebechi has worked for clients including Nike, the BBC and Island Records, as well collaborating with musicians such as Beyoncé, Stormzy and Lauryn Hill.

Nebechi’s design also features the typeface Jubilat by New York-based Joshua Darden, one of the few black typeface designers working in the US. Darden published his first typeface aged just 15 and has clients such as Sky, Time Warner, Lego, Penguin Random House and Save the Children on his portfolio.

Every year Buzzfeed commissions an illustrator or designer to develop artwork to mark Black History Month, which is celebrated in October. In 2018, the media company commissioned Dale Edwin Murray, whose illustration featured portraits, peeping out around central type.

More like this:

Features / In Conversation “No one had seen faux fur like it and people went mad”: Shrimps’ founder Hannah Weiland in conversation with It's Nice That

The British womenswear and accessories label began by making cruelty-free, faux-fur outerwear back in 2013, but today, it’s a brand more well known for its playful designs dreamed up by its founder.

Jyni Ong — 21 October 2019
Work / Illustration Let Salvador Dalí tell your future in a new edition of tarot cards

German author Johannes Fiebig, a writer with a particular interest in tarot decks and other similar symbolic imagery, has a new book with a dream collaborator of his: Salvador Dalí.

Lucy Bourton — 18 October 2019
Work / Animation Lucas Zanotto on his seamless animation loops and his journey into the digital

The Italian designer, director and animator, now signed to Nexus Studios, discusses how his practice has developed from the analogue to the digital.

Jyni Ong — 18 October 2019
Work / Illustration Feel like you’re floating with Takanari Tazaki’s velvety illustrations

Be wowed by the Yokohama-based illustrator’s attention to detail. He creates an airy feeling of floating through his velvety technique, oozing colour palettes with an exaggerating sense of perspective from above and below.

Jyni Ong — 18 October 2019
Work / Illustration “Being open to different influences helps drive experimentation”: Dalbert Vilarino on his restless style

The Toronto-based illustrator talks us through his recently published zine documenting his favourite sketchbook drawings from the past two years.

Jyni Ong — 17 October 2019
Work / Illustration Hunter French packs movement and meaning into his almost-innocent illustrations

A certain chaotic innocence born from an all-too-observant illustrator plays out in Hunter’s scenes, who builds on his ideas in a maximalist manner “until it goes awry or is somewhat satisfying.”

Alif Ibrahim — 16 October 2019

Work / Animation An angry doughnut faces off with a timid computer technician in Megacomputeur’s latest film

The French animation collective returns with another side-splitting short that leaves us wanting more. “We wanted to leave the audience confused at the end, going away still wondering about what the hell they just watched,” Megacomputeur tells It’s Nice That.

Alif Ibrahim — 22 October 2019
Work / Digital Exploring the space between humans and computers: Coralie Vogelaar on bin-packing algorithms

The Amsterdam-based artist has created a new visual language by using bin-packing algorithms on classical sculptures. She often uses mathematical formulas, recipes or enumerations to predict a result relating to the formation of bodies.

Jyni Ong — 22 October 2019
Work / Photography From South Korea, Ghana to Berlin, Alexander Beer captures the people of the world

With clear determination and an enjoyment for photographing people in their environments, Alexander’s work in unmistakably raw. “The most important thing to me is a narrative within a photographic story,” he says. “I love documenting people within their lives.”

Ayla Angelos — 22 October 2019
Work / Photography Natalie Keyssar captures Guyana on the cusp of dramatic change

The New York-based photographer discusses her extensive body of work capturing Guyana’s rapidly changing landscape, as international oil companies rush to build offshore drilling apparatus.

Jyni Ong — 22 October 2019
Work / Graphic Design Nizar Kazan’s Lausanne typeface is a product of his analytical design approach

“I like to create a coherent contrast between programmatic, dark materials and more poetic materials,” Nizar says. Here, we chat with the Swiss designer about his approach of breaking down design problems to smaller parts.

Alif Ibrahim — 22 October 2019
Partnership / Dropbox: Call for Collaboration Your chance to work with María Medem on an illustrated calendar for 2020

For this month’s edition of our partnership Call for Collaboration with Dropbox Paper, graphic designers are being offered the rare chance to work with Spanish illustrator, María Medem.

Lucy Bourton — 22 October 2019

Work / Film Captain Beany is a short about Barry Kirk, the 64-year-old who’s dedicated his life to baked beans

Having produced hard-hitting documentaries for the BBC and Channel 4, this short film marks Sophie Perrins’ first foray into directing. By juxtaposing reality and fiction, Sophie explores what exactly led Barry to fabricate an alter ego, while also investigating the masks many of us choose to adopt as a form of escapism.

Ruby Boddington — 22 October 2019
Work / Graphic Design Symbols of freedom "and the struggle for it": a look at the Polish School of Posters

Over recent years this pair of friends and design fiends have been keeping their eyes peeled for coveted pieces of graphic design history from Poland. Collated together in their joint venture of Projekt 26, the pair’s efforts provide insight into an area of graphic design rich in history and undoubtable creative flair.

Lucy Bourton — 21 October 2019
Work / Art Soft and pastel-hued, Coline Marotta’s paintings draw from our relationship with tech

Curious about the use of colour and how she can apply it within her paintings, Coline aims to expand her hues wherever possible. “Painting through colours is a big part of my process,” she says, “and it’s an organic movement.”

Ayla Angelos — 21 October 2019
Work / Digital Fyre Festival’s digital designer Tokyo tells its story, two years on

While festival-goers ate sad cheese sandwiches and wondered how they’d ever get home, Billy McFarland’s scam luxury event also left a trail of design industry victims including British studio Tokyo, which finally shares its work.

Jenny Brewer — 21 October 2019
Work / Photography Jump Ball celebrates the relationship between basketball and the African diaspora

Bronx-based photographer Joshua Kissi, in collaboration with the Toronto-based Sunday School Creative, highlights the relationship between young Africans in America, and from the diaspora, with basketball.

Jyni Ong — 21 October 2019
Work / Photography Stephen Milner’s new series re-contextualises surfing and porn mags through collage

Presenting sunlit imagery that pre-dates the 1990s, A Spiritual Good Time is awash with salty skin, sensitive moments and the photographer’s desire to “convey the psychological undertones of surfing and gay identity.”

Ayla Angelos — 21 October 2019

Work / Animation How Amanda Bonaiuto’s animation for Chocolate Moon turned into a piece of personal reflection

In teasing out ideas for the music video, Amanda started to resonate with the project more and more. After a move to New York, she tells us: “I notice plastic bags floating through the air nearly every other day, which feels so surreal in contrast to my experience living in Pasadena, where I would see squawking flocks of parrots more often than a plastic bag.”

Alif Ibrahim — 21 October 2019
Regulars / Double Click Double Click's back-to-school edition provides inspiration for anyone prepping a degree show

Across the UK in October, students make their way back to their desks and studios to undertake another year at university. For some, this month will have seen them starting their final year of studies, and for anyone enrolled in a creative course, that only means one thing: degree shows. So, for all of you around the world who this applies to, we’ve pulled together a little inspiration in the form of some of our favourite degree show and exhibition sites, all created by students (at the time).

Ruby Boddington — 21 October 2019
Features / In Conversation “No one had seen faux fur like it and people went mad”: Shrimps’ founder Hannah Weiland in conversation with It's Nice That

The British womenswear and accessories label began by making cruelty-free, faux-fur outerwear back in 2013, but today, it’s a brand more well known for its playful designs dreamed up by its founder.

Jyni Ong — 21 October 2019
Work / Illustration Let Salvador Dalí tell your future in a new edition of tarot cards

German author Johannes Fiebig, a writer with a particular interest in tarot decks and other similar symbolic imagery, has a new book with a dream collaborator of his: Salvador Dalí.

Lucy Bourton — 18 October 2019
Work / Animation Lucas Zanotto on his seamless animation loops and his journey into the digital

The Italian designer, director and animator, now signed to Nexus Studios, discusses how his practice has developed from the analogue to the digital.

Jyni Ong — 18 October 2019
Work / Photography Simon Lehner shows us how truth is constructed in a war simulation subculture

The Vienna-based photographer encountered a subculture that simulates war zones as authentically as possible, producing a surreal scene of war fetishisation that distils the hypermasculine aspects of war, separating it from its grim and deadly socio-political realities. “The lines between perception and reality start to blur as the events on the ground develop into their own form of social reality,” Simon tells It’s Nice That.

Alif Ibrahim — 18 October 2019

Work / Photography Denisse Ariana Pérez’s photography shows us the tender potential of masculinity

Instead of straightforward portraits of individuals highlighting their individual attributes, the Dominican photographer takes a different approach. She finds beauty in the interactions of her subjects with others, human or not – whether its the roosters they hold, other men they pose with, the water they’re immersed in or the plants that obscure their faces.

Alif Ibrahim — 18 October 2019
Work / Illustration Feel like you’re floating with Takanari Tazaki’s velvety illustrations

Be wowed by the Yokohama-based illustrator’s attention to detail. He creates an airy feeling of floating through his velvety technique, oozing colour palettes with an exaggerating sense of perspective from above and below.

Jyni Ong — 18 October 2019
Work / Graphic Design Fed & Watered is a new studio with a specific output: all things food, drink and hospitality

Co-founded by Orlando Lloyd and Oliver Hilliker, the Edinburgh and Glasgow-based studio saw “a huge gap in the market for good design within the hospitality sector,” and so started Fed & Watered as a way to provide exactly that. A studio still in its infancy, Fed & Watered’s portfolio already boasts several impressive projects, which the duo chat to us about here.

Ruby Boddington — 18 October 2019
Work / Graphic Design Masoud Morgan on creating a sense of destruction and suspense in 3D typography

The Berlin-based designer from Iran tells us about the influence of growing up immersed in calligraphy and his accidental entry into graphic design. Masoud says: “3D elements come into my work when I want to destroy the form of design structure and its elements. 2D elements don’t show the feeling of destruction and suspense as perfectly as I’d like.”

Alif Ibrahim — 17 October 2019
Work / Photography "I felt I saw the world with different eyes": Jaimy Gail on photographing the concept of normalcy

Born and raised in The Netherlands, Jaimy’s photographic series Normaal Doen was borne out of a comment made by the Dutch prime minister and grew to discuss the wider topic of visual normalcy too.

Lucy Bourton — 17 October 2019
Work / Illustration “Being open to different influences helps drive experimentation”: Dalbert Vilarino on his restless style

The Toronto-based illustrator talks us through his recently published zine documenting his favourite sketchbook drawings from the past two years.

Jyni Ong — 17 October 2019

Work / Graphic Design Daniel Stuhlpfarrer melds phonetics, architecture, and iconography in his variable typefaces

“The projects I love the most are those where I can combine my enthusiasm for type design, graphic design and the accompanying technical components,” Daniel says. The Berlin-based designer, therefore, finds a home in the possibilities of variable fonts.

Alif Ibrahim — 17 October 2019
Work / Photography Mike Osborne’s images of Washington DC are a darkly comedic glimpse at American power

The Austin, Texas-based photographer chats to us about his recently-released book Federal Triangle. Produced over three years while Mike was equipped with a press credential, the series provides a brief insight into how “the proverbial sausage gets made.”

Ruby Boddington — 17 October 2019
Work / Digital Cigarettes, bums and plenty of stone: Meet digital artist Diego Sanchez Barcelo

Humorous and playful, this London-based artist’s 3D designs and animations can be seen on music videos, MTV.uk’s social channels, as well as starring in commercial work for HSBC, Chloé and The Arc.

Ayla Angelos — 17 October 2019
Sponsored / Found in Adobe Stock Keith Rankin explores the archetypal man vs machine story using Adobe Stock images

We’ve commissioned the Ohio-based illustrator to explore the world of Adobe Stock and make a new series of works using Adobe’s vast library.

Jyni Ong — 17 October 2019
Work / Events The design conference masquerading as one huge party: This year’s Us By Night got personal

Think back to the last time you experienced some serious FOMO, or experienced a bloody great time because you were there, at Us By Night. We take a look back at the festival’s highlights and how, this year, it was all about personal stories.

Jyni Ong — 16 October 2019
Work / Graphic Design Motion designer Peter Steineck wants creative communities to show up and make time for each other

The Minnesota-based creative’s work often features cheeky illustrations and eye-catching loops for editorial, live projections, and television. “I’m starting to think: how do I make physical objects that people would want to have and not just throw in a storage closet or on a bookshelf?”

Alif Ibrahim — 16 October 2019