The designer I chose to look at is Neil Beech a graphic designer based in London, who has over 12 years experience designing for UK based Companies and some international ones [1]. My reasons for choosing Neil Beech were because of his varied work that features typography and illustration combined in a continuous and thematic way.Beech was born in 1979,and spent the beginning of his life in the south of England. The beginning of the 80s may have been a big time for graphic design but this era of graphic design barely influenced his overall illustration work.

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Beechs relevance in the graphic design world is to create a mixture of media including branding but based around a range of previous vintage styles of graphic design from many different eras.He then places a contemporary twist on them, in a continuous way.

The placement of typography is similar to BMDs Empire series. Beech has produced work for many different organisations. such as Predator Publishing Limited: designing magazines on Film releases and reviews, as well as Headworx Limited.

He also designed T-Shirts for a surf brand:Saltrock Surfwear and currently works at Next sourcing limited.The overall work he has produced is commercial and fine art based around previous graphic trends for UK and international retailers.

The second piece of work I looked at was a green VW illustration [11], which I also looked at previously for the design museum brief, it has the same purpose as the previous piece, to promote surf wear.The use of quite subtle and earthy tones of colour link with the choice of the VW which is commonly associated with hippies/surfers from the 1960s surfing era.

These two pieces have the same techniques of using a textured background and a digital illustration.The beach hut and union flag have been used in this image to visually display the companys origin. However this piece differs the rest of the pieces I have chosen to look at because of its illustration style that is a little fantastical which is seen with the curved edges of the van,

which would, in reality be straight. This piece could be considered as a outlier in the perspective of all of his work as it is less formal and has no text except for the signature.This piece of work is similar to the previous piece as it uses a darker, more distinguishable, rough texture for the background, which adds more depth and dimension to the image.

The reason I chose this piece of artwork was because I previously looked at it for the design museum brief, as it was a Morris miner, the function of the piece is to promote Saltrock Surf wear. This piece was made in 18.2.2013 as part of a series of illustrations and typographic pieces which could be adapted into T-Shirt prints and other merchandise. The formal elements used in this piece are a duotone image set on a grey textured paper, the colours chosen sharply contrast each other as they are binary opposites

the choice of an off white background is to symbolize the British origin of the company. The negative space of this image enhances the choice of the bold colours.

This image would also appear much flatter if there wasnt a subtle shadow casted underneath the car, drawing more of a focus onto it and bringing the vector from the page.This print unlike the VW illustration is suitable for a variety of production material. The car has been specifically chosen as it doesnt fit with the concept of a VW being used for surf brand, the result of using an unfamiliar car allows the voyeur to understand the location of the company through colour, a classic car, the purpose of the surfboards is to identify the type of company. The reason why I get

inspiration from Neil Beechs work is because he has an auteurs signature throughout his work although he varies from full typographic pieces to branding ideas. The reoccurring elements in his work are a variation of three vintage fonts and usually a banner, or symbol such as an anchor or crossed arrows.As well as this, he retains his style throughout different mediums, which is something I aim to do. This is seen in the Athletic Division piece and Hammer and Tongs Blackwood, although two different brands and pieces there are curved type, a thin and masculine font for the heading, as well as the retro diamond symbol used in other pieces of his work, the athletic division doesnt have this, instead it has a hand rendered banner.

The reason why I get inspiration from Neil Beechs work is because he has an auteurs signature.

The third piece of Beechs work [12] was a registered trademark for Saltrock surf wearThe colours chosen for this piece are quite dark and rustic, avoiding the more vibrant colours seen in the previous pieces. The main typography has been discoloured as if being eroded by salt; this differs from the past two images because the texture has been added to the typography, although this has been done digitally. The eroded typography adds a visual age to the company and signifies its heritage.The background remains extremely dark with a small amount of subtle hand rendered texture, in comparison to the other pieces I looked at. The meanings created with the use of rustic fonts and overall theme is a trust worthy brand associate with age and quality.

This was created for a Canadian clothing company, I chose this piece because it was for a non-British company and I wanted to see the difference between the designs.The overall image appears much colder and cleaner cut but has techniques based around the first two pieces of artwork. It also contains the crossed arrow symbols seen in the trademark symbol. Beech has produced work for many different organisations such as Predator Publishing Limited: designing magazines on Film releases and reviews, as well as Headworx Limited and Saltrock Surfwear and currently works at Next sourcing limited. The overall work he has produced is commercial and fine art based around previous graphic trends for UK based retailers and some international retailers.His work has been exhibited for the Hello Poster Show in second

place for vintage graphics. Which has probably been inspired from his British origin, his contempories are Kasil Workshop, Michael Vilayvong and Dan Blackman, who all work in vintage style package media.The athletic division has a hand rendered banner, all of his work appears in the same medium and colour mostly with the exceptions of a small amount of pieces.

my findings I discovered that using Neil Beech for my personal study would develop my personal style more than the other artists I looked at such as Alan Fletchers Mind over matter.These artists focused on expressive type, use of colour and hand rendered practices. Most of the artists I looked at focused on one or two of these elements throughout their work and didnt experiment or vary

their work. This effected my personal study as I thought looking into an artist which varies his work but still has subtle elements of his own style would be the ideal artist to look at. My findings from my personal study were details into his history of academic study and work experience, through his LinkedIn profile, after looking at the places he studied I found that his work is mostly local and around the Torquay area with the exception of Nova Scotia, which is in Canada. I also found that the style of work always has some form of texture. The connotations arising from his history of work and work experience are traditional and well established with the use of traditional fonts and for example triple stitched to emphasise the quality of the Canadian brand.The new ideas I will take through from researching into Neil Beechs work are new approaches to my colour and limiting the tones throughout my work as a whole to be less vibrant and instead use variants to create an over all cold or warm colour theme. The illustration techniques he uses.

The last piece of work [13] slightly moves away from the surf wear although it doesnt state the brand because it has been made for is a generic example, or to add to his portfolio. This piece appears to be more of a nautical style graphic with the symbol of the swallow and anchor, which still has a link between the last few pieces I looked at.The background for this piece is plain with no added texture but has a digital lino print texture in a dark off-white colour, which has been shaped to be slightly curvaceous digitally. The use of a digital lino print smartens the image so that it appears as more of a vector but the hand rendered elements still remain.Like the majority of Beechs contemporary work, this piece is also a duotone as Beech rarely uses more than 4 colours as too many make overcrowd the image and the image loses its minimalist nature. I chose to look at this piece

as he continues to take inspiration from where he lived, this piece has an anchor for the main focus but a rough-cut lino print texture on a textured background to appear more rustic. There is finer detail in this piece using a line drawing style to make the image more gritty. The line drawing detail has been transferred digitally to visually appear as erased out of the watercolour background. This is again for a British company, which appears to be the majority of Beechs clients. His work has been exhibited for the Hello Poster Show in second place for vintage graphics. Which has probably been inspired from his British origin, his contempories are Kasil Workshop, Michael Vilayvong and Dan Blackman, who all work in vintage style package media. [8]Neil Beechs work is mostly consistent of vintage Styles of typography from around the 1940s and retains his

style throughout different mediums,which is something I aim to do. This is seen in the Athletic Division piece and Hammer and Tongs Blackwood, although different brands and pieces there are curved type, a thin and masculine font for the heading, as well as the retro diamond symbol used in other pieces of his work.

His work also inspires me as it can be interpreted as multimedia as his design could be used in merchandise, posters as well, which allows further development into different textures, seen in the design museum projects which I experimented with transparency and different opacities.

Strong Concepts-Damasso Sanchez

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[1] Beech, N. (2012). Behance. [online] Behance.net. Available at: https://www.behance.net/neil-beech [Accessed 5 Jan. 2015].[2] Beech, N. (2013). Neil Beech | LinkedIn. [online] Uk.linkedin.com. Available at: https://uk.linkedin.com/pub/neil-beech/58/886/632 [Accessed 5 Jan. 2015].[3] Beech, N. (2014). No.2 winner. [image] Available at: http://www.pinterest.com/pin/277956608226492022/ [Accessed 5 Jan. 2015].[4] BMD, (2014). Empire. [image] Available at: http://www.pinterest.com/pin/462322717970430097/ [Accessed 5 Jan. 2015].[5][online] Imgkid.com. Available at: http://imgkid.com/1970s-graphic-design-style.shtml [Ac-cessed 5 Jan. 2015].[6]Pepsi, (n.d.). [image] Available at: http://designspiration.net/image/617336203515/ [Accessed 5 Jan. 2015].[7] Velhagen & Klasing Monatshefte, (1938). [image] Available at: http://svapicsandmags.com/2011/04/27/magazine-covers-1930-1939/ [Accessed 5 Jan. 2015].

[8] Blog.SpoonGraphics, (2012). 30 Modern Examples of Vintage Style Graphic Design. [online] Available at: http://blog.spoongraphics.co.uk/articles/30-modern-examples-of-vintage-style-graph-ic-design [Accessed 6 Jan. 2015].

[9]Lubalin, H. (2015). Herb Lubalin - Gertrude Snyder,Alan Peckolick. [online] Anobii. Available at: http://www.anobii.com/books/Herb_Lubalin/9780847808809/01058ac844e42ea016 [Accessed 6 Jan. 2015].

[10] Beech, N. (2012). Behance. [online] Behance.net. Available at: https://www.behance.net/neilbeech [Accessed 5 Jan. 2015].[11] Beech, N. (2013). Neil Beech | LinkedIn. [online] Uk.linkedin.com. Available at: https://uk.linkedin.com/pub/neil-beech/58/886/632 [Accessed 5 Jan. 2015].

[12] Coroflot, (2012). Even more VIntage by Neil Beech at Coroflot.com. [online] Available at: http://www.coroflot.com/neilbeech/Even-more-VIntage [Accessed 6 Jan. 2015].

[13] Behance.net, (2015). Behance. [online] Available at: https://www.behance.net/gal-lery/5766031/Even-more-Vintage [Accessed 12 Jan. 2015].

Saltrock, (2015). Saltrock Perspective. [image] Available at: https://m1.behance.net/rendition/modules/41589405/disp/c9dda5ebf6f177b02f429a395bfdac1c.jpg [Accessed 9 Jan. 2015].