Ian (Swifty) Swift is a lone wolf graphic designer and is
very focused on urban art. He was very interest in art in school at an early
age, but had always planned on going to work to fight for the country and work
in the army. He had never planned on doing anything in the art sector, as his
father had always wanted for him to be an officer in the RAF, as he was from
the army himself. When he was 15, his father died, meaning he did not have any
pressure to join the RAF anymore. He
went for a foundation course in a college in Warrington for two years. By the
end of the first year, Martin Dutton, his graphics tutor, gave him a copy of
The Face and told him this was the future. He also met Neville Brody later in
life and was offered a job by him. By 1995, he had done everything on his list,
and had acquired his own studio and employed a few people. He left the studio
in the late 90’s and lost a big client, and realised the dynamics of graphic
design was changing. Since then he has been working freelance, and has been
creating his own style of work for clients.
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| "Talkin' Loud" Album Cover |
This is an album cover for Talkin’ Loud, and is in the style
of urban street art. I like the use of the paper background and the colour
scheme works well. The colours used are green, purple and an off-white colour. The
purple works well with the dark green and stands out against it. The first letters
of the words, such as the T and the L, are outlined and filled with purple, and
are a bigger size than the rest of the letters. It is inside a circle, and
outside of the circle is a square filled with the same shade of purple, which
is crammed full of text in white. As it goes behind the circle you can only see
it from the edges. This is a simple yet effective album cover and catches
attention because of the white on green.
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| Soul Tree Logo |
This logo is called the Soul Tree Logo design, and is a much
more modern approach to logo design. Swifty usually experiments his logos with
an urban style to his work, so this is quite different to his work. It is a good
combination of text and image and the style and choice of font has been picked
very well. What I noticed about this image was that what I originally thought
was a tree is actually a male with an afro hairstyle, and is made to look like
a tree, as there are roots coming out of the bottom. The font is a modern
stencil-style font and goes well with the overall image. I think if you invert
the colours the image still works well.
