Are you feeling the love today? I am. And so too are our two competitors. Steven Harrington and Chuck Anderson both self-identify as artists & designers and share one other trait relevent to our business here today: they love to collaborate.
In pre-match comments made to this reporter, Anderson looks on this match as a chance to "collaborate live and make something really cool;. Harrington agreed, saying that he's "really looking forward to making something of quality with Chuck".
So what we're looking at here may be less of a competition but a doubles matchup with Anderson and Harrington against the clock and, er, the clock's doubles partner. Or is this just gamesmanship on the part of these young-but-savvy competitors? Will one "could you give me something that doesn't glow" comment from Harrington send Anderson off the rails? Will the folks in the forums, always hungry for blood, rebel against all this hand-holding comraderie?
Lots of open questions for sure, but one thing is certain: today's match will not be drab or minimalist. Both of these artists love to blow up the canvas with high contrast, bright colors, and layer upon layer of detail. Harrington draws his influence from the psychedelic 70s while Anderson skews slightly earlier; his copy of Photoshop seems to have dropped a lot of acid and hasn't come down yet.
Just moments ago, I spoke with both players as they warmed up for the match. When buttonholed about the short turnaround time, Harrington replied that he's "been looking at Chuck's work over the last couple of days and I'm really excited to see how he reacts/vibes to the imagery that I'll be playing with. I think a lot of inspiration will be based on building off each other's imagery." I asked Anderson about his setup for the match. Photoshop sits at the center of his creative process, but that "most of what I do actually originates elsewhere -- photography, drawings, illustrations, vector/Illustrator".
And with that, let's see what these two young powerhouses will churn out for us today. Quiet, please, for Harrington's serve.
Steven Harrington is a designer and artist from southern California. After attending Art Center College of Design, he hooked up with fellow graduate Justin Krietemeyer to form National Forest, a design firm that works on projects from interior design to art direction to web design.
Chuck Anderson is a 22-year-old designer and artist from the Chicago area. Not wanting to wait through four years of design school, he dove full-time into the working world right after high school. Since then, he's accumulated quite a reputation and a client list to match. You may have heard of some of them: Microsoft, Dolce & Gabbana, Pepsi, and Adidas.
Jason Kottke hails from NYC and has been the editor of kottke.org since approximately forever ago. In a perfect world, kottke.org is about a wide variety of topics like photography, graphic design, economics, and movies, but funny YouTube videos and Star Wars ephemera inevitably creep in. In a previous life, Jason worked as a web designer and hopes he remembers enough about design to comment adequately on these proceedings.
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Naz and Sam Peeling Back the Layers on last Friday's amazing photographic and musical live Layer Tennis Match. No Tennis this week by the way, we'll be back live on the 19th
Layer 10 is up. And that's a wrap! Big thanks to Sam, Naz, Mark, and all the fans. No voting this week, but be sure to sign up for Season Tickets and be the first to get match info and learn how to play in our qualifying matches. Layer Tennis is taking a week off, we'll see you back here on March 19th for our fourth exhibition match.
The coin-flip and Match Preview are up for today's live Photographic Exhibition Match. We're almost set to go. Tweet your comments and include #lyt and then follow the chatter on our Crowd Page. And if you don't have 'em already, sign up for Free Season Tickets for news, contests and maybe even a chance for you to take the court this season.
Mark Simonson shares his insider's view of Friday's typographic battle, including a nifty chart of all the glyphs created during the match.
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