Do you know Bryan Chrystie? You've probably see his work. He's quite amazing.
He does a fair amount of editorial, primarily covers, for the New York Times magazine, Wired, GQ and so forth. This one for Newsweek is quite amazing.
You may've seen this one on TV during the Olympics. I don't know what program he uses (its ain't Photochop) but no one can do what he does.
Bryan lives here in Maplewood, NJ. I remember getting a call a few years ago from one of his assistants (at the time he had a staff of FIVE) asking if I could come in and talk to Bryan about doing a logo for his design firm (imagine that, an illustrator calling his studio "design"). But it works. He is a designer or sorts. And a fine artist too. And a bad ass jazz saxaphonist (he plays regularly at one of our local haunts, Cent'anni).
Anyhoo, I was perplexed by the call and I ended up just giving him an au gratis stack of (logo) type. And he returned the favor several times in the form of large format printing (one of which, my Miles Davis portrait, will be up tonight at the Society of Illustrators Advertising and Institutional opening).
I've convinced Bryan to come on out tonight and see what happens at the Society.
Yeah. This is something he whipped out on a napkin.
Good stuff, eh? I was showing someone his stuff the other day and they said "oh I love that clean, infographic type stuff". Bullshit. I think his "work" rises to the level of "art". Sure, its problem solving to a degree but if you've been to the guy's studio (he actually has TWO studios) and see how he works you get a real sense of what inspires him to create these images.
Ironically, one of the pieces he had on his wall was something I had too- this Matisse. It never gets old.
In background are some mini-stretched canvasses from Thomas Fuchs, Gary Taxali, Thilo Rothacker, Joel Castillo, Greg Mably for my 40th a few months back.
OK, thats all. See you tonight at the Society. Say hello to Bryan. Heres his mug. And http://www.bryanchristiedesign.com/index.php is where you can tool around on a website.
