So-Me *Graphic Designer/Art Director

So-Me (real name: Bertrand De Langeron) is an emergent Parisian art director who specializes in vernacular typography. His name 'So-me' its originally from how artists always say the phase "That is so me..." when looking at their artwork in galleries.

His work is very colourful, complex, illustrative, bold, playful and a little nutty however it is successful, and because of this he won a lot of awards one of them includes the MTV European music awards with the talented French band called Justice (Label: Ed Bangor). Below is the music video that won this award it was produced by So-Me. The style is very colourful. He uses a lot of solid colours in his work and this is why his artwork is popular with the youths. Colour is always adapted in his work to attract the audience it is particularly presented in this video, it still works even with a background that is in black and white. I hugely enjoyed the idea of the video I feel is was very engaging. What do you think of this video?



Some of his designs are influenced by artists in the past such as Andy Warhol, Manet, Hipgnosis: T-Rex album cover etc.

For instance:
Below is the famous Marilyn Monroe painting done by Andy Warhol, which uses a lot of bright colours. And next to this is the 'Sebastian Ross Ross Ross' album cover designed by So-Me. After looking at this cover I could immediately tell that he was inspired by Warhol previous work. The key give aways to this are the bold red lips and the use of light blue in the eye.

      

Overall I think So-Me is very inspiring to me. I like his illustrative style and use of typography it gives it a personal, friendly atmosphere. I would love for you to let me know what do you think of his work?

*Images from internet and video from Youtube.
Written by Kawsar Ahmed
 

Bill Bernbach Lecture 'Advertising'

Bill Bernbach (1911-1982)


Bill Bernbach was renowned as a advertising executive. He designed many campaigns for Volkswagen cars his mos famous one was 'Think Small'. He was also remembered for being one of the founding members of DDB which stands for Doyle Dane Bernbach around 1950-60s. Bernbach and DDB advertising helped separate Volkswagen from their competitors and help make their products timeless and world renowned. 


Bill Bernbach creative team approach when designing the campaigns had humor, i.e Lemon etc (which was at that time 'Lemon' was an insult). He also took risks and broke the rules. for example the think small campaign, which was simple, clean cut and sophisticating. Bill Bernbach intelligent approach toward the audience was new at that lime compared with other advertising agencies. 


He also worked with Paul Rand which at the time was usual because art director and copy writer kept to themselves and it was wrong to be seen with them let alone work with them, however Bill Bernbach changed that and the advertising industry.  


Examples of his work:

My personal favorite advertisement that DDB designed was the 'pick the right day to test drive a VW and you'll have the road to yourself' because it lets the audience think and search  for the product. He executed this perfectly due to of his creative strategy which was everything in the image is pointed toward the product i.e. the title leads the eye to the car which is faded. I can tell that he was inspired from Leonardo Da Vinci 'The last supper' painting because Bernbach uses perspective in the painting.