Two of the artists that I looked at in part 1 of this unit were Roy Cranston and Sofia Clausse. Their work is very similar in the fact that they both create books showcasing their work but their work couldn’t be worlds apart.

I have been a fan of Roy Cranston now for a few years, (as I have wrote in several previous posts!) in about 2019 he rose from being a student designer practicing layouts and designing a poster a day to eventually being recognized within the design industry and going on to complete work for Nike among many others. After he completed the year designing his posters and layouts he then decided to turn them into a limited run zine, (which I had no idea what that was then!) and he collaborated with PRINT in New York to print and distribute them. After advertising them on his Instagram and with only a small limited run I had to have a copy and gladly paid the £30 ish. I was more devastated that I waited 6 months ish for it to arrive because this was just before COVID struck and the world shut down! Roy Cranstons zine is a professionally bound book filled with all of his digital poster designs. This is where he very much deviates from Sofia Clausse in the fact that her work is very hands on, handmade, traditional and mixed media.

I like the fact that although Roy Cranstons work is digital, there are elements that have been photographed, scanned and imported in from other places to help create the content for his digital designs. He is very alike to David Carson in that different textures interest him and he is able to bring that handmade element and use it to trigger a handmade/digital approach.

I used to be very hands on and traditional but I have to admit that it is through artists such as David Carson, Roy Cranston and Chris Ashworth that I love taking handmade/found elements and using them to help create something greater digitally.

Sofia Clausse work is not digital at all! Her work consists of mostly ideas through mixed media. She paints, weaves, uses different types of paper to complete very abstract pieces of art. A lot of her sketchbooks are hand drawn and hand made and not professionally produced at all! She spiral binds a lot of her work which is a technique I had never thought of using in handmade pieces! Typography that she produces is all hand drawn and hand produced lettering unlike Roy’s digital catalogue of typefaces at the ready! What I would like to achieve in future work is a mix of the 2 artists – Roy’s handmade/digital approach but with the raw, uniqueness of Sofias hand produced art.