Art & Design - Blending the two worlds |

We are witnessing a great revolution in the design world. Art is emerging in designs and the distance between art & design is now a thin line. We can see that big transformation in some products like Atlassian, Slack, Asana and Dropbox. Illustrations rule over stock images and it gives a prominent brand identity to every product or service. As an artist and a designer, I found this as a welcoming change and I would like to share my thoughts around this.

I am Melvin Thambi, Creative Director of RapidValue solutions. I manage a design team under the brand RapidGems.

I live in Houston, Texas with my wife Nimmy Melvin, a professional artist and 8-year-old daughter Teresa Melvin, who is a budding artist.

After finishing my Bachelors of Fine Arts in applied arts, I entered into the digital world of Branding, User Experience, & User Interface designs. I was focused on the digital work for more than ten years when I realised I need to bring back my fine art skills. With some excellent artists colleagues on my team, it was easy for me to bring the fine arts days and create the ambience within my team. We conducted many art camps, sketching sessions, and ended up in doing a painting exhibition called FYI 2015.

FYI Art Exhibition 2015 – More details

This exhibition played a significant role in my life. The exhibition was a success and I was conferred the State Award for one of my paintings and got selection for the state-run exhibition conducted by Lalitha Kala Academy (Kerala, India). This inspired me to do more illustrations and paintings.

I started a daily sketching practice, and later it became my daily routine. I started drawing on a Wacom tablet. I was hooked up to ‘Stranger Things’ on Netflix because of its outstanding casting and the period the series portrays. I was so fascinated by the character of Eleven and one of the shots stuck in my mind with the dominant and commanding face of Eleven. I scribbled her face on paper, and then I drew on the Wacom tablet.

Download wallpapers here

I was using this as my wallpaper for my iMac, and Nimmy suggested it might be a good idea to share my work with the world outside. We were sure that many would be the big fans of Eleven. I uploaded this as a free wallpaper, and then people shared their happiness with me by downloading the wallpapers. I uploaded a photo of my iPhone with that illustration wallpaper, and I trust the piece of artwork got even more popular.

I have seen multiple blogs using this image for iPhone X related content (https://goo.gl/pce3r9).

So it’s these opportunities, passion and love for art that inspires me to concentrate on doing more illustrations.

Why Art?

We live in a world where we have high-quality design kits for free. So bringing an identity to our work is always challenging and I always believe satisfaction comes when you roll up your sleeves and put your best into every design element that we create. So I started exploring the artist in me to bring back that identity and satisfaction.

For me, art is the positive distraction from our daily work. Spending some hours of colours and playing around with scribbles, brings a level of calmness which helps us see our design work from a new perspective. Incorporating the art elements to the digital designs elevate the overall aesthetic beauty and generates a purpose.

Abstracts

The more I started loving art & design, the more I began interacting with other like-minded people around the world. I believe a person is as strong as his alliances. I ended up publishing my conversations in my world as an interview series called the ‘Abstracts’.

Abstracts is a curated perspectives section with seasoned artists from the fields of Design, Art, Photography, Motion Graphics & Advertisement.

Read all interviews here

World of Art & design

Managing time between the design work and art activities have always been challenging. I never consider art as ‘hobby’; it’s a part of my life which makes me what I am. So I spend one hour daily for sketching and dedicate my Saturdays and Sundays entirely for family and arts.

All our family trips and leisure time revolves around art exhibitions and design events. Luckily my wife and the kid share the same passion. So it’s a family thing and they inspire me more.

Attending many design events and art exhibitions help me to see the world in a different perspective, and it pushes me to experiment. Different type of colour combinations and styles of illustration patterns come to me after each of the events I attend.

Why vibrant colours?

When we have high-resolution retina displays and high definition gadgets, why should we limit the visuals in our designs/art? I recommend all designers to embrace those vibrant colours and explore the limits of creativity. I have seen many designers step back to try bold colours because they think their client may not like it. That’s why I tell my network to focus and use all bright colours in their personal projects and try all crazy combinations which would make their life more vibrant and colourful.

Personally, I love all colors that we see in nature and I always try to mimic that color hues in my works. But my favourite yellow and black colours always take the centre stage :).

I have tried a different style of illustration for my new website. I had done this drawing in a single stretch when I was least bothered about the perfection instead I was flowing with the rhythm of colours and lines.