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Example of Rian Hughes' art.
Example of Rian Hughes' art.

Rian Hughes is a British graphic designer, illustrator and comics artist, noted for his work on 2000AD, where he illustrated Robo-Hunter, Tales from Beyond Science, Really and Truly and Dan Dare, among others. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom, the UK or Britain,is a Sovereign state located The term graphic design can refer to a number of artistic and professional disciplines which focus on visual communication and presentation Comics (via Latin from the Greek "" kōmikos, of or pertaining to "comedy" from kōmos "revel" Robo-Hunter is a recurring strip in the British Comic 2000 AD, initially written by John Wagner and illustrated by Ian Gibson Dan Dare is a classic British Science fiction comic hero created by illustrator Frank Hampson. His work was highly distinctive, wearing its design influences on its sleeve, daring to be two-dimensional and bold in its use of large expanses of flat, bold colours. This stood out particularly during the early 1990s, when British comics were leaning ever more towards fully-painted art. Unusually, Hughes preferred to be his own letterer, and designed several unusual fonts for this purpose. A letterer is a member of a team of Comic book creators responsible for drawing the Comic book 's text In typography a font (also fount) is traditionally defined as a complete character set of a single size and style of a particular Typeface.

Since leaving comics illustration, Hughes has become a successful advertising artist, graphic designer and font designer. He runs his own company, Device, with clients including Virgin Airways, Penguin Books, DC Comics, Eurostar the BBC and a range of magazines and newspapers. Virgin Atlantic Airways Ltd (operating as Virgin Atlantic) is a British airline which is owned by Richard Branson 's Virgin Group (51% and Penguin Books is a British Publisher founded in 1935 by Allen Lane. DC Comics is an American comic book and related media company Eurostar is a High-speed train service in Western Europe connecting London and Kent in the United Kingdom, with Paris Hughes prefers to design his own fonts for new projects usually giving them humorous and occasionally rude names. The font Knobcheese was marketed as "A typeface in the Swiss (cheese) tradition. With knobs on. "

Contents

Early days

Hughes graduated from London College of Printing and was employed at various advertising agencies where he worked for ID magazine, Smash Hits and Condé Nast. The London College of Communication (formerly the London College of Printing, and briefly London College of Printing and Distributive Trades) is a constituent ID ( The International Design Magazine) is a magazine covering the art business and culture of design This article is about a magazine For the compilation album by Jimi Hendrix, see Smash Hits (album. Condé Nast Publications Inc is a worldwide Magazine Publishing company He arrived late at his very first job interview at an advertising agency with a lump of dog excrement stuck to the bottom of his portfolio, managed to transfer some of it on to the white shirt he was wearing and the rest onto the meeting-room table. Directors had to open windows to let the stench out. Despite this, he got the job. At the same time he was drawing his own comics, released as small press minicomics in editions of around 20 copies. See also Alternative media Small press is a term often used to describe Publishers with annual sales below a certain level A minicomic is a small creator-published Comic book, often photocopied and stapled or with a handmade binding Three issues of Zit were published between 1983 and 1984 and through these he got involved with the British small press comics scene of the time based around the Fast Fiction stall Paul Gravett was running at the Westminster Comic Mart in London. Year 1983 ( MCMLXXXIII) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link displays the 1983 Gregorian calendar) Year 1984 ( MCMLXXXIV) was a Leap year starting on Sunday (link displays the 1984 Gregorian calendar) British small press comics is a term used to describe Comic books self-published by Cartoonists and Comic book creators within the UK Fast Fiction was a market stall magazine mail order distributor and news sheet that played a key role in the history of British small press comics. Paul Gravett is a London -based journalist curator writer and broadcaster who has worked in comics publishing and promotion for over twenty years London ( ˈlʌndən is the capital and largest urban area in the United Kingdom.

Hughes was a regular contributor to Gravett's Escape Magazine from 1983 to 1989 with strips including Norm and The Inheritors. Escape Magazine was a landmark British Comic strip magazine founded and edited by Paul Gravett and Peter Stanbury. Year 1983 ( MCMLXXXIII) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link displays the 1983 Gregorian calendar) Year 1989 ( MCMLXXXIX) was a Common year starting on Sunday (link displays 1989 Gregorian calendar) In 1987 his first graphic novel, The Science Service, co-written with John Freeman, was published by Belgian publishers Magic Strip in seven languages. A John Freeman is the name of John Freeman (editor, British writer and editor John Freeman (Georgian poet (1880–1929 British poet The Kingdom of Belgium is a Country in northwest Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts its headquarters as well as those The UK edition was co-published in 1989 by ACME press in the UK and Eclipse Comics in the US. Eclipse Comics was an American Comic book Publisher, one of several influential independent publishers during the 1980s and early 1990s

Design and logo design

From the mid 1980s through to the present day, Hughes has been involved with design work for a wide range of comics publishers. He is responsible for the distinctive look of the Knockabout Books line of collected underground comics and periodicals from 1985 to 1992. Knockabout Comics is a UK publisher and distributor of underground and alternative Comic books. By the early 1990s it seemed like every aspect of the British comics industry had Hughes' stamp on it, from the carrier bags at Forbidden Planet to the logo of Mega City Comics. Forbidden Planet is the trading name of two separate Science fiction, Fantasy and horror bookshop chains across the United Kingdom, Ireland Mega City Comics is an independent Comic book store based in Camden Town, London In 1990 the strip Dare was drawn by Hughes, serialized in Revolver, a magazine he designed, and written about in Speakeasy, a news magazine he'd also redesigned. Dan Dare is a classic British Science fiction comic hero created by illustrator Frank Hampson.

At Fleetway he did influential work, designing a new display font for their weekly comic 2000 AD, under the supervision of innovative Art Director Steve Cook. Fleetway, also known as Fleetway Publications and Fleetway Editions, was a publishing company mainly producing comic magazines for the UK. Steven Cook is a British Artist, Photographer, and Graphic designer Biography Best known for his work in the comics field he was art director When the adult comic Crisis was launched it featured a radical Hughes design and he continued to spearhead Fleetways identity with the launch of Revolver and their graphic novels line. A

For Titan Books he was given the task of designing books that repackaged American comics for the UK market. Titan Publishing Group is an independently owned publishing company established in 1981 Most notable was his work on Love and Rockets, a personal favourite of Hughes. Love and Rockets (often abbreviated L&R) is a black and white Comic book series by Gilbert Hernandez and Jaime Hernandez His design was considered daring but the American publisher, Fantagraphics Books, was impressed and used similar concepts in their own collections. Fantagraphics Books is an American publisher of Alternative comics, classic Comic strip anthologies Magazines Graphic novels

For DC Comics Hughes has designed numerous logos and covers, initially for the Vertigo imprint where many British creators were working. DC Comics is an American comic book and related media company Vertigo is an Imprint of the American Comic-book publisher DC Comics. Here he continued his collaboration with Grant Morrison, writer of Dare and Really and Truly, creating covers and identity for The Invisibles. Grant Morrison (born January 31 1960 is a Scottish Comic book writer and artist Dan Dare is a classic British Science fiction comic hero created by illustrator Frank Hampson. The Invisibles is a mature readers Comic book series that was published by the Vertigo imprint of DC Comics from 1994 to He has also worked on covers for DC's superhero lines, notably the Tangent series of Elseworlds comics. A superhero (sometimes rendered super-hero or super hero) is a Fictional character "of unprecedented physical prowess dedicated to acts of derring-do Elseworlds is the publication Imprint for a group of Comic books produced by DC Comics that take place outside the company's canon

Other notable design work for the comics industry includes the 1986 MTV Europe Awards booklet Outbreaks of Violets, possibly the rarest Alan Moore title, late-era issues of Deadline where he worked on the entire magazine on a minimal budget in three days, and the retro covers for Flex Mentallo produced with artist Frank Quitely. MTV ( Music Television) is an American Cable television network based in New York City. Alan Moore (born November 18 1953 in Northampton) is an English Writer most famous for his influential work in Comics, including the acclaimed Deadline was a British magazine published between 1988 and 1995. Retro is a term used to describe denote or classify culturally outdated or aged trends modes or fashions from the overall postmodern past but have since that time become functionally Flex Mentallo is a Comic book character who first appeared in 1990 in issue #35 of Grant Morrison 's run on Doom Patrol as a member Frank Quitely (born January 18, 1968) is the professional Pseudonym of Scottish Comic book Artist Vincent Deighan

Hughes design output has broadened into work for clients in the music industry, advertising, toy industry and publishing.

Illustration

Hughes' discovery of the Mac in 1993 pushed his illustration work in a more stylised graphic direction. Adopting first Freehand than Adobe Illustrator, he utilised expanses of flat colour and texture in asymmetric and dynamic layouts, his characters became more elegant and exaggerated, and the type, generally custom designed for each illustration, became an integral part of his imagemaking process. This very influential flat vector style has been dubbed "Sans Ligne" in reference to the European "Ligne Claire" school by artist Will Kane. Though enabled by the Macintosh, Hughes' considers his combination of design, illustration and typography to be a return to the working methods of the poster artists of the early 20th century, a period when artists like the Stenberg Brothers, Cassandre and Jean Carlu combined type, image and layout to achieve a dynamic, integrated whole.

Hughes illustration work includes title sequences for The Box, poster designs for Tokyo fashion company Jun Co. ’s Yellow Boots chain, the animated on-board safety film for Virgin Airlines, Eurostar's poster campaign, a collection of Hawaiian shirts, a range for Swatch and the BBC's CD edition of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy.

Now widely copied, the influence of Hughes' illustration style can be seen in advertising, on covers for mass-market women's paperbacks, children's books and editorial illustrations worldwide.

Type design

Hughes' has described typography as "the particle physics of design". Hughes' interest in letterforms began at an unusually young age thanks to a Letraset catalogue his architect father had lying about the studio. At 15 he visited Letraset, where he saw Rubylith being used for the first time to create type.

This is the technique he used in the early days of his career when producing custom type for his design work. Early fonts like Crash Bang Wallop and Revolver (originally designed for Speakeasy and Revolver magazine respectively) were digitisations of fonts originally done in this old-fashioned method of Rubylith on board.

His first fonts were released back in 1992 as part of the FontFont range, while subsequent designs have been released via his own foundry, Device Fonts. [1]

Many of Hughes' fonts were created for specific design commissions, and their names reflect their application or the circumstances of their conception. The chunky no-nonsense Judgement family was commissioned for 2000AD, home of Judge Dredd. Metropol Noir, which was created specifically for the BDA Gold Award winning 1996 MTV Europe Music Awards programme is named after the Paris hotel Hughes was put up in for the event. Others are more descriptive; Knobcheese suggests a knobbly Swiss Cheese; Foonky and Laydeez Night derive from a kitsch 70s aesthetic.

A retrospective catalogue "Ten Year Itch" was published in 2005 and features all Hughes' font designs up to that point.

Bibliography

Comics

Cover to Device, a retrospective published in 2002
Cover to Device, a retrospective published in 2002

Comics work includes

Collections

A limited edition volume from Knockabout Comics collects together Hughes' work including Dan Dare and Really & Truly, that he produced with Grant Morrison. John Freeman is the name of John Freeman (editor, British writer and editor John Freeman (Georgian poet (1880–1929 British poet Dan Dare is a classic British Science fiction comic hero created by illustrator Frank Hampson. Grant Morrison (born January 31 1960 is a Scottish Comic book writer and artist Future Shocks is the name given to a long running series of short strips in the weekly comic 2000 AD. Mark Millar (born December 24 1969 is an award-winning Scottish Graphic novelist born in Coatbridge. Alan McKenzie is a British Comics Writer known for his work at 2000 AD. Mark Millar (born December 24 1969 is an award-winning Scottish Graphic novelist born in Coatbridge. Alan McKenzie is a British Comics Writer known for his work at 2000 AD. John Smith is a British Comics writer best known for his work on 2000 AD and Crisis. John Smith is a British Comics writer best known for his work on 2000 AD and Crisis. Mark Millar (born December 24 1969 is an award-winning Scottish Graphic novelist born in Coatbridge. Mark Millar (born December 24 1969 is an award-winning Scottish Graphic novelist born in Coatbridge. Really & Truly was a 2000 AD comic strip created by Grant Morrison and Grant Morrison (born January 31 1960 is a Scottish Comic book writer and artist Robo-Hunter is a recurring strip in the British Comic 2000 AD, initially written by John Wagner and illustrated by Ian Gibson Peter K Hogan was editor of Cult political British comics Crisis and Revolver in the late 1980s and early 1990s Knockabout Comics is a UK publisher and distributor of underground and alternative Comic books. Events January January 10: Superman & Batman vs Aliens & Predator released Knockabout Comics is a UK publisher and distributor of underground and alternative Comic books. Dan Dare is a classic British Science fiction comic hero created by illustrator Frank Hampson. Really & Truly was a 2000 AD comic strip created by Grant Morrison and Grant Morrison (born January 31 1960 is a Scottish Comic book writer and artist It also includes and adaptation of Raymond Chandler's "Goldfish", by Tom DeHaven and, with co-author John Freeman, The Science Service. Raymond Thornton Chandler ( July 23, 1888 &ndash March 26, 1959) was an American Author of crime stories and novels John Freeman is a British writer/editor/designer who began his media career editing the Lancaster University student newspaper Scan in Only 3,000 copies will be printed. [1] An extra limited run of 350 is available from Forbidden Planet International, housed in a slipcase and signed and numbered by the author.

References

  1. ^ Down the Tubes.net News Archive: March 2007

External links

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