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Illustrations by Adrian Johnson
| September 20, 2008



The cover for the Monocle Design Directory 2008 featured the illustration work of Adrian Johnson. I really liked the retro quality of his illustration style, and his use of simple color palettes (reminded me of vintage Little Golden Books). And so once again I got side tracked...I found myself smiling often while looking through the pages of his website.



Adrian Johnson's portfolio is diverse, ranging from illustration work for advertising and editorial clients, personal work, and teaming up with animation studios and agencies like Tennant  Studio aka, and BBH to bring his characters to life. His clients have included Disney, The New York Times, The Guardian, Nissan, Sony, The Design Council...
Silvia Baumgart (manager of The Association of Illustrators) summarizes the aesthetics of Johnson's work very well: "...He is indeed very fond of 50s design and illustration and sees his influences there without referring to specific personalities or outlets. His work can be described as collages based on drawings he cuts out from his sketchbooks, potato prints and sometimes photographs he has found. Typography is very much part of the composition and not an element to add on to the image to create meaning. The result is graphic art at its best where the artist acknowledges the medium itself: the shape of the surface within which the image is created, the forms and textures of the elements used to create a composition and the fact that the images is a two-dimensional representation of reality.."

He doesn't include much personal information on his site, but I do know that he is left-handed (like me). His bio by B&A says, "Adrian Johnson reads, thinks, draws stuff, then does the color bit on computer. It's hardly quantum physics."
Most of his clients are UK based, but you may recognize his work from a large Vodafone campaign from last year.



His work was included in the first "Watch This Space" exhibition at The Illustration Gallery back in January 2007. 



Adrian Johnson's work is represented by the CIABernstein & Andruilli in the US, and Tiphaine in France. 

In 2005, Bloomsbury USA published his children's book "That's Not Funny!," which looks adorable. 

But my favorites are his collaborations with BBH for the "Raise Them on Robinsons" commercials for Robinsons Fruit Juice (which also has an extremely fun, illustrated + interactive website). Here are a few animated commercials from the campaign:


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Link:  more illustrations by Adrian Johnson

Tags:  animation, illustration, retro

Topic: Illustration

Creative Dialogue

4 Comments |[ Add Comment ]

d:r feed network
on October 02, 2008

Grain edit did an interview with Adrian Johnson here

 

Pedro Gomes
on October 03, 2008

nice work with the illustrations! like the retro look and simplicity!

keep it on ;)

Pedro Gomes

www.pedrogomes.visit.ws

 

Jeff Fisher
on October 05, 2008

Beautiful illustration style! Thanks for sharing

Jeff Fisher
Engineer of Creative Identity
Jeff Fisher LogoMotives

 

Nicholas Terry
on December 24, 2008

Brilliant. I love this guy already.

 

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