Pictoplasma is one of the most impressive, stunning, visually inspiring and overall mind blowing entities out there for publishing, exhibiting, and writing on artistically conceived character design and art and the relationship between the character design and the message behind the piece.
I definitely believe that if you’re into design of any nature, especially logo design or designs meant to represent a larger entity of any sort, then Pictoplasma should be an organization that you are at least somewhat familiar with.
The following is taken from their “About” page..
“As market-friendly branding or its subversive inversion, loveable kitsch or urban art – contemporary character design, abstract and reduced to the essentials, has redefined aesthetic standards of visual communication worldwide. By playfully sampling and remixing visual codes, these characters evade established pictorial norms, confronting the viewer head on, emotionally and regardless of cultural background.”
The Archives..
“The Pictoplasma Archives began in 1999 as the world’s first extensive inventory, collection and showcase of contemporary character design. With the countless images collected, pictoplasma examines the vast array of possibilities characters offer as signs of an independent graphical language. Pictoplasma is a curated public archive of the most daring and outstanding characters in a growing global network.”
Essentially, what this means is that Pictoplasma explores the relationship between characters and what those characters represent. Pictoplasma also archives these characters and their found relationships for the world to enjoy and learn from, and of course to become inspired from.
The Connection
To me, I see a clear and very similar relationship between character design and logo design. As it is, a lot of logos these days have some sort of character branded on them and is meant to be the main focal point of the logo, or rather, the main tendril of design to capture the viewer’s attention and direct their eyes towards a closer look, and hopefully, an enquiry of some sort.
With the fundamentals of all design resting on the concept of visual communication, whether you’re focusing on an extravagant and progressive character-set design such as many of the ones you would find browsing Pictoplasma’s archive, or if you’re talking about a minimalistic approach on a logo with a simple three color gradient framing the perfect juxtaposition of five or so letters to form a word that in turn forms a vision of the work behind it, both character design and logo design begin with the same goals in mind, and at some point in the middle, you’re likely to find them borrowing from each other, whether as an accessory or as a pixel perfect imaginative mock, and one thing is for absolute certain — At the end of the creative process, you’ll find both of them bringing people’s ideas and dreams into an audience of uncertainty but always with due curiosity.
The Collective Consciousness..
Pictoplasma is so well liked and has so much community content to offer anyone that might find themselves interested in the character design process / relationship, or semi-cartoony contemporary art in general, that they have their very own exhibitions and animation festivals. Not only this, but since 2004 Pictoplasma has put together a conference for international character creators and producers from the worlds of illustration, animation, design, street and fine art.
Pictoplasma is also available in print and the latest book has been described as..
“..published on the occasion of the Pictopia exhibition at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in spring 2009, assembles texts and works by international artists, designers and theorists, all investigating the aesthetic principle of reduction and abstraction in the design of anthropomorphic characters. Including work by AJ Fosik, Akinori Oishi, Ben Frost, Borris Hoppek, Daniel & Geo Fuchs, Doma, Doudouboy, Dylan Martorell, Edwina Ashton, Faiyaz Jafri, Fons Schiedon, FriendsWithYou, Gary Baseman, Golan Levin, Hideaki Kawashima, James Marshall, Jeremy Dower, Mark Ryden, Motomichi Nakamura, Nagi Noda, Olaf Breuning, Rinzen, Sam Gibbons, Shoboshobo, Tim Biskup and many more…”
This book was just released in April of this year (2009).
Click here to read more on the Pictoplasma publication.
And if you’re looking for more media via Pictoplasma to spend all your money on, they offer DVDs, other publications and activity books for the children in their online shop.
Note: JungleJar is not affiliated with Pictoplasma in any way. Nor are any of these links affiliate links. We just thought you might find them helpful.
Below you can view the official opening animation for the 2009 Pictoplasma Conference.
The above video was created by animation guru David Oreilly.
Colour Me! Playground
Just for fun, you might also be interested in their web application entitled “Colour Me! Playground”.
“Meet friends, create worlds and leave your mark in CMYK!”
“Colour Me! joyfully presents a new playground topography created by japanese artist Akinori Oishi! The self-confessed ‘drawaholic’ is best known for his typographic design language which seems to have no beginning or end – his wild growing arrangements give a liberating macro-view in which hierarchies have disappeared.”
Oh, and no, I did not do the coloring you see in the image above.
Click here to visit Pictoplasma.com
