minimalism

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with minimalism

Illustration

Undulating Lines and Geometric Shapes Comprise a Minimally Illustrated Menagerie

In Surf & Turf, designer Adam G., who’s behind the Santa Monica-based studio TRÜF Creative, transfers his signature messymod style from typography to biology. The ongoing illustrated series melds geometric shapes, clean lines, and squiggly forms into playful interpretations of foxes, roosters, and piranhas.

Varying from stark and abstract to more dense compositions, the minimal creatures are all rendered in the designer’s signature red and black color palette. Each piece has “an emphasis on balance and flow,” he tells Colossal, and the series is “a completely freeform exploration within a pretty strict, self-imposed design language. That contrast between total freedom and total restriction is what I think defines the messymod style. It’s what keeps it consistent and weird or… ‘consistently weird!'”

Prints of the collection are available in the messymod shop, and you can follow Adam G.’s personal and commercial projects on Behance and Instagram.

 

Design

Thin Lines, Dots, and Geometric Shapes Merge into a Minimal Typographic Collection

Designer Adam G. is known for utilizing his signature black and red to define the minimal illustrations coming out of the Santa Monica-based studio TRÜF Creative (previously). He describes his style as messymod, or messy modernism, an aesthetic that manifests as an eclectic array of shapes rendered in a tight color palette. Curved components and thin lines leading to perfectly round dots form his interpretation of the 36 Days of Type project, an ongoing endeavor that asks creatives to imagine their own renditions of the alphabet and numeral system.

Emphasizing balance and flow, the collection incorporates some of the designer’s favorite elements from different styles, whether swashes and serifs or western and classic. “I then try to link it all together by using solid shapes, curvy and straight lines, and positive and negative space. I suppose you could say I really love to see how I can make opposing forces work in concert and still make some kind of sense—or at least communicate the letter that it’s supposed to be,” he shares.

Prints of Adam G.’s illustrative designs are available in the messymod shop, where he also plans to release a few pieces from this collection in the coming months. You can follow his work on Instagram.

 

Illustration

Complex Societal Issues Conveyed in Minimalist Editorial Illustrations by Eiko Ojala

Illustrator Eiko Ojala (previously) tackles complex topics with masterfully simple images. Though his work often appears to be made with layered paper, the artist clarifies on his website that he works digitally, building each image from scratch. Cleverly using negative space, mirroring, and raking angles, Ojala conveys nuances of the human experience within tight creative constraints. The Estonian illustrator works with clients around the world to provide imagery on articles ranging from loneliness to climate change: recent publications include Oprah Magazine, Harvard Business Review, and The New York Times. Explore more of Ojala’s illustration portfolio on Behance. Select works are also available as fine art prints on Saatchi Art.

Design Illustration

New Geometric Creatures from TRÜF Creative

Charming new illustrations by TRÜF Creative (previously) combine a conservative color palette with wildly imaginative interpretations of animals. An ongoing passion project by the Santa Monica-based design studio, the series’s latest chapter is titled “Animals Strike Curious Poses,” (which is a reference to Prince, for fans who are wondering). The TRÜF team describes the project as “our minimalistic and strange interpretation of the animal kingdom that only exists in our heads.” If you’d like to make one of their geometric birds, whales, or fish your own, find prints in their online store.

Design

Bold Line Drawings Layered on Top of Deconstructed Images of Fruit, Flowers, and Animals in Tattoos by Mattia Mambo

Mattia Mambo creates graphic interpretations of his clients’ favorite fruits, celebrities, and animals in minimalist tattoos. The designs use thick, rounded lines to highlight the shape of an object or face, with bold splashes of color creating an abstracted version of the subject underneath. Sometimes the Milan-based tattoo artist transforms the shape of a word into a pictorial representation of an animal, like in his sloth tattoo below. Other designs borrow from classic art historical references, such as René Magritte’s famous painting of a pipe, or Frida Kahlo’s recognizable flower crown and facial features.

Mambo shares with Colossal that he attended art school but was self-taught as a tattooer, and he developed his destrutturato (unstructured) style by chance. “What inspired me most has probably been my passion for graphic designs and logos—I love simple shapes. Every day I’m encouraged by the objective of simplifying each image as much as possible and making it clear and intuitive using only few black lines. But both black lines and colors are fundamental: the colors tell what the black lines can’t do.”

You can see more of Mambo’s two-part tattoos on Instagram.

Illustration

Black and Red Calder-Like Illustrations Combine Geometric Shapes into Spiders, Jellyfish, and Birds

When Adam Goldberg, founder of Santa Monica-based studio Trüf Creative isn’t crafting work for a client, the designer likes to engage his creativity with an ongoing series of minimal illustrations titled FAÜNA. The pieces combine black and red shapes and linework to form stylized versions of animals and insects, such as the one-eyed spider above or polka-dotted fish below.

Although Goldberg is directly inspired by artists such as Joan Miro, Alexander Calder, and Wassily Kandinsky, he is also influenced by the client work he has completed over the years. “The simplicity, geometry, and composure that we try to achieve with our branding work rubs off on the artwork,” he explained to Adobe Create Magazine. “I think more in terms of composition and balance more now than I ever have — and that’s because of the branding work.” You can see more of Goldberg’s agency work on Trüf Creative’s website and Behance.