I’m thrilled to bring you the third entry in the High Five series – an absolutely bumper sized edition featuring two of Australia’s very best illustration and design talents, Sonny Day & Biddy Maroney aka. We Buy Your Kids.

Sonny and Biddy combined their formidable talents in 2006, and began creating screen-printed tour posters for Popfrenzy Records. Since then their client list has exploded, they’ve exhibited everywhere, and they’ve applied their unique aesthetic to record covers, shop fit-outs, gallery walls, merchandise, websites, music videos and just about any other medium you can think of. Represented by prestigious Australian illustration agents Jacky Winter, WBYK continue to produce dozens of gig posters each year in between work for clients as diverse as Tourism Victoria, Mecca Espresso and XXXX Breweries.

There’s something truly special about their work. It’s rich, symbolic and masterfully created. It often contains elements of 70′s psychedelia, Hammer Horror aesthetics, vintage comics and 80′s skate punk style – and yet it still feels completely fresh and new. There’s just something innately likable about it, and whether that’s due to the humor they often inject into their illustrations or the obvious passion they have for the work shining through, WBYK continue to surprise and delight with every new creation.

One of the motivating forces behind starting this series of articles was to examine just how people can take a myriad of visual influences, and then reinterpret them into something entirely new and unique. You can definitely see some serious design alchemy occur where Sonny and Biddy’s personal tastes and individual design histories collide as WBYK.

I’ve tried to showcase as many different project types and disciplines in my selections here, but it’s really just the tip of the iceberg. WBYK’s portfolio is simply one of the best this country has to offer, and it’s not hard to get lost in all all the beauty and craziness they’ve produced over the past 5 years.

Dungog Film Festival
2009 Identity & Poster

I can’t quite put my finger on exactly what it is that I love about this poster so much. It could be the leather-like patchwork of textures on the cow. It could be the colours and the vibrant sunset beaming out from behind the township of Dungog. Or it could be the sheer scale of the thing, with the cow literally tall enough to have its head in the clouds. Whatever it is, I just find this to be one of my favourite pieces of Australian design produced in the last few years.

It’s an exceptionally beautiful poster. The amount of detail and craftsmanship invested into the artwork is quite staggering, from the cow, to the sky, to details in the city and landscape, right down to a scale version of the old Dungog cinema in the middle. There is attention paid to every aspect of the image, and in my mind it truly captures the atmosphere of a rural Australian sunset – in an wonderfully surreal way.

The work that WBYK produced for the festival extends beyond the poster art and includes the stunning ornate typography which makes up the festival’s 2009 identity (designed to be cow-like in appearance), as well as a variety of secondary materials which were co-produced by Frost in Sydney.

Paul Dempsey
Everything Is True

Drawing inspiration from classic Penguin science fiction paperbacks and the work of the great Bob Pepper, WBYK created a stunning piece of design with a palpable sense of mystery and ambiance for Paul Dempsey’s solo album.

“The great thing was Sonny went into the first meeting with Paul and he explained what the album is all about and had some references of his own – they came to the idea that the sci-fi covers were an exact an appropriate reference. The album is all about ideas of fusion of man and machine – its got some pretty layered references in there. And Paul not only knew of the artists Sonny mentioned to him but also introduced us to some more we didn’t know. So its not like we just slapped this aesthetic on top, its entirely appropriate and we got to make graphics pertaining directly to lyrics. It was a perfect fit.”

This cover is a great example of how WBYK are able to create completely mesmerizing work, and to tell such a complete story, using just a few elements. Their expert use of texture serves to create tone rather than “artificial vintage”, and the way that the illustration and design is carried across the album art, singles, merchandise and music video is just amazing

For those playing at home – the typeface is H&FJ’s Verlag ”the affable modernist”.

If this isn’t at least nominated for a 2010 Best Artwork Aria, I’ll be stunned.

The Everything Is True artwork was brought to life in the music video ‘Bats’, which was animated by the powerhouse at Mighty Nice under the direction of Darren Price.

“There was a team working on that there, and it was a new experience for us – we are used to building the clip from the opening second to the last, where as they built that from a skeleton frame upwards. Adding as much special-sauce skin as they could in the short time available. We had storyboarded and illustrated every scene, but they took our layered illustrations and deconstructed them, then rebuilt them in 3D, put some pretty bullshit camera moves on and even animated a lot of the textures. That was pretty cool for us to see them do that.”

Nelson Beer

I think that Beer branding and design is generally pretty good in this country. Most breweries (particularly the small to medium variety) seem to truly value the importance of design and illustration and often aim to cultivate and support local creative art. Discerning drinkers generally expect quality (if not innovation) and so to do something truly memorable, original and just plain awesome with a beer brand presents an interesting challenge.

WBYK and Nelson knocked it out of the park with this label, with what is essentially some type of interstellar monkey demi-god, with six arms, cowboy boots, a massive chest-piece tatoo and a floating top hat. It’s simply one of the most flat-out excellent beer labels that I’ve ever seen, and I have to say I’ve seen a few.

It’s primitive and modern at the same time. It somehow evokes both Hannah Barbera cartoons and Indian deities. It’s just so playful and unusual that you can’t help but be drawn to it.

The execution of the whole thing makes it even more special, with the illustration screen-printed in white straight onto the bottle, which is topped off with a signature white cap. There’s a lovely hand-crafted feel to the design and the bottle, and yet it still evokes a premium quality. Really excellent stuff.

Purple Sneakers continues to be one of Sydney’s most popular club nights, outlasting dozens of nights large and small that have been promoted over the last 5 years. This is no mean feat considering how many trends have come and gone in those short years, and how quickly the demographics of these things shift and change.

Part of the success of this night must be credited to WBYK’s identity and iconic poster designs. While many club nights don’t seem to put much care or consideration into their posters, WBYK have produced an ongoing series of unique and well-branded posters, which find a middle ground between 50′s cartoon-modern style and urban gig poster aesthetics.

Last year they gave the franchise a bit of a facelift too, revising the identity from a grunged-up Clarendon to a bespoke Baby Teeth inspired logo.

The approach to poster artwork has been revised too, with a more streamlined template and design that is closer to the current WBYK aesthetic.

Clementine by Megan Washington

I’m not going to say too much about this particular piece – it’s simply the art of WBYK brought to life and it’s brilliant.

“Clementine was a job we started intending Biddy to animate a whole video in After Effects herself. Sonny story-boarded the whole thing to be super simple with minimal movement. The idea was most of the action could be drawn in frames in Photoshop. So Sonny drew the poses of the panther running etc and we illustrated them and just looped the frames. About 20 seconds into the clip we realised we just didn’t have to time to draw and animate it all. So we roped in our dear friend Adnan Lalani (who Biddy had worked with at Mathematics and has animated loads of her / our stuff before. He graciously took it on and finished the whole thing. He added some subtle camera moves and elements that added a lot without compromising the idea it should look like an animated gif.”

Sonny Day’s High Five—

Aqua Teen Hunger Force

I love this show, I love the characters, I love the fact that there is a TV show about a milkshake, meatball and a man made of french fries living in a tract home in New Jersey with their neighbour Carl who usually dies or gets horribly maimed in every episode.

Does that make me a sicko?

James Jarvis

I used to be a big fan of Jarvis’s illustrations in The Face.

I kinda forgot about him until I saw his stuff again in Relax magazine from Japan.

I really loved these really loose B/W drawings he would have in the back of the mag.

Definitely a big influence.

Steak Mountain

I’m trying to remember where we came across Steak, I remember seeing covers for a band called Combat Wounded Veteran of which Steak was a member.
It was awesome stuff, but I think what really blew me away was a cover for a band called The Draft.

After that we both became regular visitors to his site and his stuff just got better and better.

Alien Workshop

Alien Workshop has been one of my favorite skateboard companies.

They have always had an amazing aesthetic based around aliens (of course ), conspiracy theories and generally amazing artwork. I never used to ride their boards because I didn’t want to ruin the graphics.

The two artists I’ve responded to most over the years are Neil Blender ( one of AWS founders ) and Don Pendelton. Neil did a lot of the earlier graphics like the comic strip below while Don was responsible for the more Geometric/Symetrical graphics that drove AWS graphics trough the late 90′s early 00′s.

Ed Templeton
Toy Machine

Along with the Graphics of Alien Workshop the other influence I had that showed me that there was more to drawing than just making comics was Ed templeton and his company Toy Machine.

I first discovered Ed in an issue of Transworld Skateboarding in 1994. Along side the interview and the photos were all of these amazing illustrations, little characters and slogans. Ed is very vocal about what he beilives in and this showed in these illustrations as much as the words in the interview.

Long story short Ed is the bomb, he more than any thing else showed what was really possible and got me to start looking at things in different ways. An amazing photographer as well, Ed is a very successful fine artist.

Biddy Maroney’s High Five—

Eightball
Daniel Clowes

I grew up in a house surrounded by comic books and a lot of other rad things – my Dad’s collected comics and movie posters since he was a boy, and I was lucky enough to be surrounded by all this amazing stuff growing up.

Eightball was the first comic book that I followed myself, rather than having the interest passed down to me, and collected from the time I left home in 1993… till the other day when I picked up the last Dan Clowes masterpiece – “Wilson”. I even managed to lose most of my collection in a pub once… but re-bought many of the issues on Ebay. It’s still my favourite comic book.

I think all the aspects I love from my Dad’s stuff (Wally Wood / EC comics / Dick Tracy / The Spirit) is there – the amazing draftsmanship, great big black shadows, that 1950s American aesthetic. Men in hats. But it has a dry sad humour to the storytelling that I love just as much as the imagery. And a lot of misguided ’90s teenage idiots – which I guess I was at the time too.

It started out a little whacky – with “A Velvet Glove Cast in Iron” and a bunch of weirdo one-pager gags. I love love love how he’s gotten older and matured through the series. His later longer pieces are just so right to me. “Wilson” is so old and grizzled. He’s not writing about douche-bag teenagers now – its douche-bags approaching a mid-life crisis. Sometimes I worry Sonny and I will turn into the creepy supermarket satanists from “Ghost World”. I love his subtle, masterful style. Am I gushing? Dan Clowes is rad.

Sonic Youth – Goo
Raymond Pettibon

This is another teenage throw-back. More specifically throwing back to 1990 when this came out and blew my tiny, 15-year-old, small-town mind. It’s such an iconic album cover there’s not much point saying more stuff about it – but it just makes me think of being a smitten teenager and redrawing it on everything with Artline pens and texta.

Also, before internet-amazingness-availability-unto-me, I was walking through that exhibition they had at the MCA (in 2001?) and they had a whole room Lee Ranaldo filled with Sonic Youth paraphenalia. I looked up and there was a Dinosaur Jr. flyer using the photo the Goo cover is based on. I thought it was some super cool rockstars from the 50s! Then another 3 or so years passed and I watched a documentary on Myra Hindley – and there it was again! It was actually from the late ’60s and it’s her sister being driven off to give evidence against her, so much more grave than I had thought from craning my neck up at it in the MCA.

It took me a few years to get to squeeze into a world with internets and money to buy art books to see more of Raymond Pettibon’s work. I’m sure I’ve seen an interview of him working in his studio on the internet somewhere, recklessly stepping on messes of amazing artwork, spilt ink dribbling off the table kinda thing…. I love that he doesn’t seem precious about anything, but still seems very intense. It’s all so loose, but totally spot-on. The drawings look like they are done quite hastily, but his skills are out of control. The text always leads you in for something extra as well. It was all whirlwind, heat and flash! (Sorry, that was lame.)

Oh, and regardless of what Sonny might try and convince you, the best song on Goo is “Mote“.

(According to Sonny it’s “Titanium Expose” – played here over some footage of Ed Templeton skating.)

Crime Suspense Stories
EC Comics
Russ Cochran

This one just goes back again to all those comics in the house, when I was a kid. This was always my favorite cover. (Though Johnny Craig was never really my favorite EC comic artist – that was Jack Kamen – he drew the best sexy ladies.)

There was a re-issue of the entire EC library by Russ Cochrane, which must have spanned the mid-late eighties. Every few monts a new volume would turn up at the house. They are oversized, and just reprint the beautiful black inkwork; there’s no colour except for the covers. And I think the image below (axe-man with disempodied head) is a hell of a cover. Her eyes rolling back in her skull is just the icing on the cake of hammmmmm.

These comics are just truly beautiful to me. It taps into that morbid aesthetic I guess I’ve inherited from the cool stuff around when I was kid. I call it “Camp-Goth”. I would pore over all the Twisted / Crime / Suspenstories, the horror / mystery comics. I was never really into the Science Fiction numbers. Its all a bit gross and scary and stupid and hammed up and funny. And awesome.

Selected Film Posters:
Barry Lyndon – Richard Amsel
Rosemary’s Baby – Bemis Balkind

I’ve combined these two things into one thing for a few reasons:

1. Again they represent the stuff in my house when I grew up and the appreciation / collection of / obsession with movie posters my Dad’s alway had.

2. I don’t really know that much about either of them. Heath told me who both of the designers are, and they’re amazing, but are not really part of my make-up. Just the posters are.

3. I reckon I Google one or the other of these about once a fortnight, just to have a look at ‘em.

4. The Webuyyourkids logo font and the Barry Lyndon poster walk into a bar. WBYK logo looks up with big watery eyes and asks “Are you my Daddy? Barry Lyndon poster slaps it on the back of the heads and orders an Old Fashioned.

5. How good is Rosemary’s Baby?!?!

Chris Ofili

I had a hard time trying to pick number 5, between Shary Boyle and Chris Ofili. (So I just copped out and named both!)

Chris Ofili won out for his use of animal poo, and because I’ve known about him longer.
I think I have only ever seen his work in the flesh (and poo) at a Biennale at the good old MCA agin. Thanks MCA! (Now I think about it the only real life Raymond Pettibon I’ve seen was in there too.)

I just think these are beautiful again – all the massive colour and those Blaxploitation Psych-Out pieces are huge and jam-packed with shiny glorious body-parts. I found it hard to walk away from them cos you really can just stand there and soak it up for ages. I really loved his Afro-Muse profile portraits of couples too – I think they are ink or watercolour on paper. I’m a big fan of the profile portrait, and his take on it is one one of my favourites.

*****

I’d like to extend a massive, warm thank you to Sonny & Biddy for participating in this. Truly some of the nicest, most talent folks I’ve had the pleasure of meeting. As always, I can’t wait to see what they produce next.

I’d also like to thank you for reading. If you’ve enjoyed the article please tell your friends about it.

High Five will be back soon, but in the meantime you can check out some of the previous entries:

Magnus Voll Mathiassen
Wallzo

My involvement was to create an editorial illustration in response to the topic “Should we end factory farming?”

All 52 illustrations produced for the project will be exhibited from Monday 5th – Friday 16th July at the Dreamspace Gallery in London.

The quality and diversity of the work is really quite amazing, so if you’re in London during the exhibition times I strongly urge you to get along.

If you can’t make it to the show you can still purchase prints from the online store.

Mine is avaliable directly from here.

In the last couple of weeks I’ve contributed to three excellent projects which I’m very happy to be involved with.

The first is one called They Draw & Cook – which is run by Nate Padavick. The idea behind it is to get artists, illustrators and designers to contribute a piece based around one of their favourite recipies. There are some really exceptional entries up at the site, and I highly suggest getting involved if you have the time.

Mine is a little more abstract and less illustrative than most of the others, and is for Basil Pesto. My wife and I recently got a herb garden going which is what inspired this particular piece. The typography is all scanned from packaging and hand-set. The circles are hand-drawn, re-coloured in Photoshop and placed on a scanned piece of vintage Letraset halftone texture.

Next up I contributed to the second Visual Response project at the shiny and new Australian INFront. The theme for this VR is Black. My take was 25 Songs About Black. The song titles are all set in Adobe Caslon, and are placed across two vinyl records, which themselves form a ‘B’ for Black.

And finally I have contributed to Richard Smith‘s Dollar ReDe$ign project, which aims to revitalize the American currency, and stimulate discussion over its financial and cultural value.

For my submission, I considered the value and integrity of the current design, and looked for a way to update it in terms of its image, security and the perceived worth of the note itself. My concept is largely inspired by the thought that perhaps part of our debt troubles are the fact that we don’t truly give money the reverence it deserves – that perhaps we don’t see money as a symbol of our hard work, and more of an ephemeral means to an end. We often transfer our money for junk and meaningless items, and thus truly devalue the lengths we’ve gone to to get it. My rationale is that perhaps if money looked more like a luxury item itself, we’d be less inclined to spend it on meaningless things, and choose how we invest it more wisely.

The design removes the need for all non-functional decoration, and focuses on security and meaning. Both the $1 and the $100 would have the same security features. Polymer base. Customized metallic inks. A holographic image of a bird in flight. Transparent seals and a bespoke dot matrix font either embossed or printed in raised ink.

The $1 concept features a bald eagle, a symbol of American strength and pride. It’s presented here in an elegant and powerful way, more concerned with beauty than overt patriotism. That patriotic element is definitely in there, being the more commonly used note it’s designed to be “for the people”, however the symbolism is not in-your-face.

The note uses green metallic inks as a tribute to the previous iteration of the note, and the currency still widely being refered to as the “greenback”.

The $100 is printed with gold ink, clearly representing value and wealth, and also giving that gravitas to the note. The bird featured is a dove, which is used here as a symbol of peace. This note is most likely the one to be used internationally, so its purpose is to be a message from the US to the rest of the world, one that seeks to put the past behind us, and to co-exist in harmony. Beautiful, hopeful and powerful.

These are both from the Dreamtime 79 series and are currently limited to a run of 25 of each

These A3 posters are printed on 225 GSM stock with custom inks. They are all hand-pulled and as such they all unique, containing lots of lovely off-resister detail.

Each print is priced at $60 (plus postage & handling) or you can buy both for $100, giving you a saving of $20 on the total.

These will also be numbered and signed, and they’ll look superb when framed. Once they’re are gone, they’re gone, so get in quick!

Jump over my new online store to purchase.

Incredible use of colour and scale, with flawless composition. All Australian native flora and fauna too.

Enjoy.

Download iPhone wallpaper versions here.

*(sorry trees)
Vince Frost

A chronicle of Frost’s journey from London to Sydney, and from Pentagram associate to international design icon. This is a fantastic book with the right balance of eye-candy and information, exploring case studies spanning from the mid 90′s to the present day. Simply one of the best and most inspiring designers working today.

Not sure what stock used was, but it feels incredible and is unlike any other book I’ve held. I can’t recall any other book typeset in Franklin Gothic Bold either, but it works.

Love the black on fluoro-orange cover too.

Cover Art By: New Music Graphics
Adrian Shaughnessy

One of my favourite books. Cover Art By is an indispensable guide to some of the best in contemporary music design, and features the likes of Julian House, Kim Hiorthoy, Rune Mortensen, Steve Byram, Jeff Jank and Grandpeople.

It’s great to just flick through and enjoy the hundred of images, but there’s actually some quite in-depth interviews with the artists and designers profiled, as well as detailed information on all the images.

Typeset in Lineto’s Simple— which is a personal favourite.

Made You Look / Things I Have Learned In My Life So Far
Stefan Sagmeister

If you don’t own both of these books, stop reading and purchase them immediately.

Sagmeister’s two books compliment each other nicely, and not just because they are identical in size. Made You Look doccuments Sagmeister’s life (literally from day one) and professional development, and provides one of the most honest & candid accounts of the design business you’ll ever read. Things I Have Learned… is more of a design exercise than an autobiography, but it still essentially picks up where Made You Look left off, and examines where Sagmeister’s journey has taken him and where it might go next. Very inspiring.

Both books are also incredibly rich in content and detail too, with visual gags and little anecdotes hidden throughout.

Vaughan Oliver: Visceral Pleasures
Rick Poynor

The amazing, inimitable Vaughan Oliver. Poynor’s book chronicles almost all of Oliver’s career, and provides plenty of images and insight into his work with 4AD. This is one of my most read and beloved design books.

display copy only, a book of intro work
Intro

This is extremely hard to get hold of, but it’s well worth hunting down, particularly if you’re as huge a fan of Julian House & Mat Cook as I am.

There’s a great forward by Intro founder Adrian Shaughnessy, followed by another great forward by John O’Reilly, but beyond that there are very few words. This is no bad thing when you’re treated to the beyond-brilliant work the studio has done for Stereolab, Broadcast, Primal Scream, and Depeche Mode to name just a few.

Plastered. The Poster Art of Australian Popular Music
Murray Walding / Nick Vukovic

Like Symbols of Australia this book is the result of a labour of love, and it too is a must have for any lovers of Australian design. It features an abundance of music related poster art collected from the 1950′s to the present day, and is an absolute feast for the eyes.

There’s plenty of information about each period, interviews with selected designers and artists, and almost all the posters are annotated.

Perfection.

Perverse Optimist
Tibor Kalman / Peter Hall

This book will make you a better designer and a better human being.

Mmm Skyscraper I Love You
John Warwicker & Karl Hyde

A non-musical collaboration between one of my favourite studios Tomato and one of my favourite bands Underworld. This book is essentially a typographic map of New York, taking in the architecture, culture and movement of the city and translating it into designs built from abstract illustrations and fonts.

It’s part concrete poetry and part experimental sketchbook. A dark, dense and hugely compelling exploration of the city that never sleeps.

I haven’t been able to get my hands on a copy yet, by John Warwicker’s new book The Floating World looks incredible too.

Non Format Love Song
Non Format

Who doesn’t love Non Format? Their work is big, bold and incredibly sexy. It’s what the future should look like. The sheer volume of incredible images makes you forget that it’s pretty light on written content. It contains quite a few images that are only available in this book too, including a selection of fantastic typographic experiments.

Pure, unadulterated, and delicious eye candy.

The End Of Print
David Carson / Lewis Blackwell

Carson is probably the most contested and debated designer of all time. Few designers inspire such extreme positions of love and hate within the industry. Whichever side of the fence you sit on, there’s no denying his influence, particularly during the 90′s where his gritty, digital, rule-breaking designs changed everything.

There are a number of books by and about Carson, but this is my favourite. It contains mini essays on Carson by luminaries such as Tibor Kalman and Douglas Coupland, and covers some of his best work, including the groundbreaking designs for Ray Gun Magazine

Town Of Mirrors
Robert Pollard

While I don’t listen to Guided By Voices much these days, they provided much of the soundtrack to my high school years. Singer Robert Pollard composed not only most of the band’s music, but also the artwork for their album covers.

Pollard’s collage art is sublime, quite surreal and mostly quite minimalist. There’s a great deal of humour and fun (as well as some darker material) in there, and you can see Pollard’s love for vintage film and animation in almost every image.

As well as all the artwork for Guided By Voices, there’s a huge amount of content from Pollard’s personal sketchbooks and collections, some of which is published for the first time in this book. Great stuff.

Jazz Covers
Joaquim Paulo / Julius Widemann

Of all my many Taschen books, this is my most prized – a bumper collection of Jazz record covers, from the iconic cool of the 50′sBlue Note era to the explosion of colour and psychedelia inspired by the jazz-fusion records of the 70′s. The book also contains interviews with design giants like Rudy Van Gelder.

I bought this one while in New York last year, and I pick it up and flick through at least once a week. Superb.

I’d love to know some of your favourite art and design books, particularly some of the more obscure and vintage in your collection. Feel free to leave a note below.