illustration seen here ?
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- dyspl
I have seen a nice illustration maybe 30 ago, and can't find it anymore....
it's a type illustration made from ketchup, cheese and some sort of vegetables.
I think I've seen it here.
- dyspl0
*30 min ago
- Horp0
Wow, what with this, the Depthcore piece on Editor's Choice, and various others things around and about, it looks like its Alex Trochut's turn to see his unique style getting appropriated by all and sundry until it eventually becomes meaningless background noise. Not slagging Alex off mind you, I just see a lot of Trochut Meetoos springing up now.
Mustard and Ketchup, above, look really great, but WTF is it with Cheese and Lettuce?... and that fly!?!?! Oi Vey.
- aye.Mau
- Looking at their site archive though I wonder if maybe Trochut was inspired by them not the other way around.Horp
- hater.thizzbobby
- Explain the alleged hate element to me please?Horp
- dyspl0
I see what you mean about the alex trochu style. This has happen many times ( reminds the nopattern glow, the abstract3D, the deer, the crests&flourishes etc...). And will infortunatelly happen many times again.
This type treatment is seen everywhere now -at least in the small graphic designer world- and I guess it will go even more meanstream and by the way completely meaningless.
...working for a clothing label at the moment, I'm asked to develop some future illustrations, and as they are intented to be no more than trendy and aestetically appealing, we will make some props close to this style... as many other brands focusing on selling trendy pieces not necessary meaning anything clever...
- Horp0
To Dyspl... Aye. I wasn't criticising you by the way, I was just commenting on the bourgeoning Trochut clone scene. I have often thought I would quite like to be a sort of Louis Theroux character for the creative industry and spend a week with different people at certain times in their career to get an idea of how they feel. Like when Si Scott first started seeing his shining star waning, and know if it goes that way for Alex. It would be interesting, I think, to document the kind of emotional journey one must have to go through and whether in the end you come to a sort of acceptance and fade away, or whether you get tied up in knots trying to come back, or whether you just don't give a shit and keep on doing what you do regardless of whether its still considered hot or has become yesterday's style, today's fodder.
- jimbojones0
Do you feel bad for Alex? He didn't invent this style by the way, his work just got so much attention (it is great work though) online. Good illustrators/designers evolve, so he'll just move on when the style becomes irrelevant or not profitable any more.
- Horp0
Jimbo... I decided not to include my thoughts on whether Alex Trochut was the originator of his signature style or not but I am aware that he has merely drawn on a massive amount of material from other sources to create the look that has served him so well. Likewise Si Scott et al. The point is though that certain elements conspire together and click at the right time and so Alex Trochut can be credited for being that person.
Do I feel bad for Alex? I'm not weeping on my knees for him, but I have some compassion and I can sympathise with someone who has done the work and got it into the public realm only to see his remuneration and reputation diminish. People are very quick to forget where trends such as this started and its never possible to look back in hindesight and appreciate the work that started it all off.
As for good illustrators evolving and moving on... nice idea, but I think a lot of the signature style players do not manage it. Si Scott is not moving on, Jasper Goodall has not moved on, Flatliner has not moved on, Jason Broookes has not moved on, Vault 49 did not move on. These are all previous stylists who have been hailed in the past for their original direction.
I think the people who manage to keep adapting and moving on are not necessarily the people who have their moment of glory in the limelight. They are there, but they are not the creative industries Elvis Presleys.
- jimbojones0
Yeah, but that's basically the sirvival of the fittest, and I don't think Jason Brooks is a fit illustrator. Again, his work got carried away in all the blogs and stuff, and of course the fact that he did a long going series of those covers, but do I feel "seen one seen all" looking at his stuff? Yep.
Alex does move on I think, he also has a benefit of clients (read art directors) who push him further. It's so easy to say: I want the exactly same style that you did for XY. It takes time and effort to create something new and the art directors (sometimes) deserve just as much credit as the illustrator. Do they get any? Nope.
In the creative business you either follow trends or set trends, but neither can go on forever.
- Horp0
^ Any time I see something genuinely fresh and interesting happening, I consider that an art director that made it possible.
I personally suffered, but with financial profit, from three years of commissions that were asking me to just repeat what I'd done previously. I can no longer recall an occasion when somebody actually challenged me to push myself and my work into a new area. 99% of my experience as an illustrator has been that I am brought in to a project very late, when everyone's panicking, and there just isn't time, so they say "do what you did for that band and I've got a shitload of other things to clear off my desk so I need it tomorrow and I'll just sign it off and forget about it because I'm massively overworked and very stressed out".
Thats the point though I think. You are either an under radar grafter like myself and are always there bubbling away in the background on a fairly even and anonymous progress line, or you hit gold with a style, have a stratospheric rise followed by a stratospheric fall and that's your lot.
You say Jason Brookes is not a fit illustrator, but I think you maybe lack the benefit of hindesight in recalling that what he did was pretty seminal at the time. Again, it wasn't pure originality, it was a distillation of previous styles from other sources, but it hit the sweet spot and changed the game completely, to the point that MOS are unable to ever escape from it even now.
But you wouldn't commission him now, would you, because you would assume that all he has to offer you are anatomically impossible cartoon girls in ski pants. If you are a strong stylist you can never escape your past.
- Oddly enough though I have a challenging project on right now.Horp
- good luck :)jimbojones
- LOLHorp
- jimbojones0
The trick is to keep the core of the style but move to new levels. Alex can, Brookes can't. Also, Brookes' stuff just isn't good. Ok, it's my opinion of course, but many, many illustrators told me the same. He had so much luck.
You don't say that there weren't any stylized sexy girls at that time, do you? So what Brookes did wasn't really innovative. The tools got more advanced, that is all. Me thinks. Maybe he is capable of producing fantastic stuff if he's asked for it, but the point is, he didn't.
As an illustrator you have to whore a little to get the clients you want. I mean buy yourself a few Lurzer's pages, do free work for agencies that win lots of gold, send art directors your new work etc. And of course try to get FFFound et al to showcase your work. And if your commercial stuff isn't very bookmarkable you have to fake jobs. Or make a book or something.
Succeeding in this business has a lot to do with luck. Not even that much with talent. Craftmenship, yes. Talent...
- Just out of interest what do you do Jimbo?Horp
- everything but motion stuffjimbojones
- dyspl0
No worries Horp, I did not took that as a criticism.
Following trends for a company is also a way to reduce risk, and loss, the same goes for agencies etc.... by the way the original reason which lead to a particular style is lost and the trend is oversued until a new one goes one....As many of you said, I also have been asked to redo things I had previously done for another client.
Frustrating but in an other hand, people ask you things they now you can do, or things they like from your work, and well I think I would act the same way if I had to comission someone on a job.
- Horp0
True Dyspl. I think for me, on a personal level, I have found that frustrating. I have done things in the past that I have disliked yet the client really liked, and it always seems to me to be those things that become popular and I'm sitting here secretly hating them and hating myself for doing them over and over again.
Bling. For some reason, I did one piece of 'bling' just once, in 2005, and I must have got maybe 40 more commissions for it after that, the most recent was in January of this year. Now, the fact that I hated it the very first time I did it meant that I hated it more and more each successive time I did it. But my bank account liked more than the work I really liked doing that was earning me nothing.
Its always a sell out to some degree. Especially when you find yourself doing 'bling' once a week.
ARRRGHHH.
- jimbojones0
It's the same thing with every creative thing, be it design, cinema, music, writing, if something is successful it WILL be copied. Be it for financial success, or because the original is so inspiring it doesn't really matter. And the trend itself will evolve, the question is if the originator of the trend moves on, or stalls in the shock of being robbed of his deserved credit.
- Horp0
^ Bit if we just keep running, then we can't create a consistent body of work, because everything we do will be about dropping something and then moving away from it in the knowledge that its now out there in the public realm and to dwell upon it will be to stagnate and fall behind the constant rapid ceaseless evolution of pop cultural artifacts. The zeitgeist becomes a swirling tasmanian devil with a voracious appetite that cannot be satisfied and we all run around frantically trying to keep up with it whilst maitaining equidistance to each other or risk doing the same things.
It will all end up like plasticine soon. Once vivid coloured strips, now an indistinct ball of malleable grubby beigeness. Its already happening in fact. There is little value in originality any more. The winner is the one who best emulates Alex Trochut, or Si Scott, or tomorrow's people.
- Horp0
In fact the whole thing falls apart very soon when the next big thing who everyone is inspired by (copying) was only copying (inspired by) the previous next big thing that he/she displaced/superceded.
- jimbojones0
The copycat is not the winner. When the style goes out of fashion, he didn't invest the time to improve it, and since it's the only thing he can do, he will just go under. Or get fucking rich before that
- jimbojones0
In fact, I only loathe copying if it doesn't add up anything to the original. But there are some clients...
Here's an example, Underware's Dolly has been around for years, excellent font for any purpose. Then, Linotype Ginkgo comes out, to my eye it is a blatant copy (improvements? well, let's say *changes*) but the end customer doesn't care: he just gets a good font.
- Horp0
I disagree Jimbo. Often the copycat is able to bypass the discovery and development stage and just start working on copying what is already established, so zero investment there, but then its often true that the copycat will, by virtue of not having the long and intimate relationship with the process, be more free to make arbritrary improvements that to the originator would not have felt like they were within the rules of the style.
Even the piece in this thread (in the top half where it works) seems to be more rounded, more fruity, more rich and syrupy then Alex Trochut's work.
And of course, being copy cats, once the style goes out of fashion they simply get to work copying the next one that emerges and exploiting it in the same way.
So I think ultimately it is the less ideologically precious copyist who wins and the 'creator' / 'artist' who is left to wrestle with feelings of betrayal and rage.
- jimbojones0
But that's the point, I think the originator just shouldn't invest time in the feeling of betrayal (unless it's a copyrights issue, well you get me) and develop instead.
The piece in this thread is great! Did I think it was by Alex? Yes! Do I care much? Hell no!
On a side note, I'm glad that playful type treatment gets the attention it deserves, but really, it has been around since day 1.
It also takes time for a copycat to establish himself as someone who has mastered the style. And if he improved the style far enough, is he still a copycat?
