Tricked by Yuki 7

The color and 60's style of Kevin Dart's Yuki 7 illustrations makes me all happy and warm inside. I've posted the link everywhere I can think of, check out the series, they're totally cool. When I first ran across the slideshow through notcot.org I truly thought they were examples of old Japanese movie posters. I've only figured out after doing a little more research that the art is a representation of a fictitious spy character. I suppose I should've realized right away based on the Shag, Ed Fotheringham, Glenn Barr clean modern quality that it was current, although I'm glad I didn't. I was able to go off into imagination land and think about this series of films that I'd never heard of and how could it be that I hadn't run across this artwork somewhere? What a discovery! Alas even though it's new it still presents the same level of excitement and anticipation... this is only the beginning.

I talk a lot about illustration as a major part of the graphic design cocktail and less about "design" per se but to me it's all smooshed together. As an illustrator and a designer I don't know how to separate the two, art is an integral part of how I approach design. Not only is it a way to maintain control of the project and my vision of the outcome, but it's also an absolutely essential tool for composition and inspiration. Not too many things can stop me in my tracks like a beautiful, thoughtful, well drawn, masterfully executed piece of illustration can, I am mesmerized, temporarily paralyzed by it... good thing galleries don't appear in the roadway, I would have been squashed long ago. Maybe it's due to the nature of illustration which is often representational, I can easily get lost in the color and the style without being bogged down in interpretation. This isn't always the case of course, much editorial art is quite conceptual but it's meaning is generally grounded in the story it seeks to represent and not so much wrapped up in the artist's personal manifesto. Color and skill alone are enough to dazzle me, art does not require deep meaning to be called art. I'll stop by the MOMA for a dose of concept and vision when I need it, but I will continue to appreciate art purely for art's sake.