17 January 2007
Over the next week or two, I will include some of my favorite designers from ID Magazine’s “ID 40″ list of top designers of 2006. It’s a pretty amazing list, so I urge you to pick up a copy of this magazine.
As I mentioned in an earlier post this week about Universal Everything, the word “frenetic” comes to mind when describing the Lifelong Friendship Society(LFS). They are a design collective based in Manhattan whose work mainly falls in the video and print and illustration category. I hate to categorize further, but I will: The more I view their work the more I notice this trend that has crept up in the last 5 years or so that I would call DIY primitivism. For instance, LFS’s sketches are provocative but lack any technical merit. However, the sketches are intended to have this young child quality with the sensibility and wisdom of an adult. The work that comes to mind is the Bigfoot book by Canadian artist, Graham Roumieu. But there are hundreds of other artists who work in a similar vein. In my local zine shop, Needles and Pens for instance, you can find many similar works. LFSs work goes way beyond doodling, though. Their motion graphics has that same spontaneous, insane quality that their sketches do, but with a technical prowess that makes me say, “how the hell did they do that?”. I suggest checking out the MTV Chi video as a good example.
URL: www.lifelongfriendshipsociety.com
