For the comparison to tow practitioners I have chosen Motion Graphics artist and designer Tal Rosner and Textiles and Space Artist Tracy Kendall. My reason for choosing these two is that they come from complete opposite ends of the create world more of less.
To begin with I think it is important to say that both people come from not to dis similar backgrounds. They had a love of art and perused this by taking a coarse at a art college. This seems to be the beginning of a lot of designers and defiantly a starting sentence from nearly all the guest lectures we have had visit us at Stockport.
One thing to bare in mind at the stage is the age difference between Tal and Tracy. Tracy is a fair bit older than Tal had and started creating and deigning way before Tal's medium even existed. This fact alone already starts picking out the differences between the two and it goes to show that Art and Design coarse have been around for years but its what's current and fresh that has an effect on what new designers will become. Who's to say that if computer technology was what is today when Tracy was studying she might have been a motion graphics artist like Tal.
Comparing someone who makes abstract films to a world class wallpaper designer may seem a little strange as there are a lot of differences between the two and they do seem a world apart. However there are lot of similarities as well within their work.
Tal films the world around him, searching and looking for interesting visual statements with the urban environment in which we inhabit. He goes to the most depressing and mundane places within the urban sprawl of London and find the most amazing visuals. It's only when you take something out of its original context and apply it to something new like Tal does, does it take new and exciting meaning. Tracy as well works in a not to different way. She takes not photos and footage but items themselves, real objects considered to be boring or not important. Taking these and reapplying them to a wallpaper design, all the objects work together as one visual message that is much more than just buttons glued on paper, or in Tal's case footage of a industrial estate. Through their creative process however different their idea and ethos I think remains very similar.
Another thing to consider when talking about Tal and Tracy's work is the colour pallet used by both of them. In Tracy's lecture she mentions that she used black and white a lot as it is a masculine colour and as nearly all the architectures and clients she has buying and looking at her work, it makes sense to her to appeal to them. If we take that idea and look at some of Tal's work Such as Doppelgänger then we see that minimalist approach to colour, is for a design or is a built in appeal for men to like those colours and therefore use them and find them visually pleasing.
This leads me onto to their working practice in regards to clients and running a business and at the end of the day how make money. Tracy clearly loves what she does as not only does she just create her wallpapers for purely commercial purposes but she exhibits them as art in galleries. However underling this the fact that what she does make is sold for massive amount s money, and she did quote some figures in the lecture which were jaw dropping. It makes me wonder if she wasn't making the amount of money she does would she have another job and still push her wall paper as art. My thoughts are that she wouldn't, Tracy came across in the lecture as having a very instinctive business mind, and talked lot of about her clients and sub contractors leaning me to think at least that she runs a very successfully company and turns a good profit, however I do think she thinks of her wallpaper more as a job than a creative release.
On the other hand Tal is the opposite. To peruse what he wanted to do he had to leave a well paid job in post production and take a gamble on his own ideas and he very much treats hid work as personal projects in which he can pour is style and creativity into, no matter how big or small the client or if there isn't a client at all. Tal came across in his lecture as a very reserved character, he didn't say a great deal but what he did say was very insightful. He draws you in as being this enigma that everyone wants to understand and get inside his head, but I doubt he even shares his creative secrets with his closest friends. For Tal taking a chance and producing the work he wants and gaining complete creative control (apart from the clients decisions) has paid off, and he now creates the work he loves and earns money for it. Not only that he has done work for some very large clients such as channel 4. Tracy as well has achieved that great position in life where your doing what you love and getting paid for it. I think with Tracy the client comes first and she is always thinking of new ways to get her product out there, and she genuinely enjoys every aspect of her work.
Both Tracy and Tal have done what I think every student dreams of doing..... exactly what they want and getting paid for it, and I think they have proven that anyone can do it no matter what your speciality is as long as your demerited and put the work in.
