the graphic design school blog.

Luke’s style is an inspir­a­tion to all design­ers. We needed to know what makes this guy tick. His can­did and open approach left us charmed… Thanks Luke!

Wel­come to The Graphic Design School Blog. Tell us a little bit about your­self. A brief bio…

Luke Feld­man, the cre­ator of SKAFFS, is an Aus­tralian mul­ti­me­dia designer who cre­ates for a mul­ti­tude of plat­forms. Inspired by child­hood exper­i­ences and a vivid ima­gin­a­tion, his illus­tra­tions and anim­a­tions are dis­tinct­ive with defined lines, elab­or­ate detail, and intensely vibrant colors.

SKAFFS is a col­lec­tion of work made up of art, anim­a­tion, games, giant vinyl adhes­ives, skate decks and col­lector toys.

Luke’s vast tech­nical exper­i­ence and skills developed work­ing in numer­ous medi­ums. He stud­ied Visual Arts and Mul­ti­me­dia in Aus­tralia and has worked in the gam­ing, edu­ca­tion and anim­a­tion industry; his work ranges from graphic design, illus­tra­tion, com­puter anim­a­tion, Flash inter­act­ive, mobile media, web­site design and func­tion­al­ity, char­ac­ter design, install­a­tions and advertising.

While the scope of his work is extens­ive, it is bound together through his unique and dynamic style; a style that has led to a num­ber of awards, exhib­i­tions and col­lab­or­a­tions with high pro­file artists includ­ing Theodore Geisel and Maurice Sendak and com­pan­ies such as Dis­ney, Coca-Cola, Facebook.

Luke Feldman’s art­work blends the clas­sic styl­ings of 1950s Dis­ney with a mod­ern design sens­ib­il­ity to cre­ate some­thing both cut­ting edge and timeless.

Andrew Far­ago, Man­ager & cur­ator, San Fran­cisco Car­toon Art Museum Gallery

Indeed, one might con­tend that Feld­man is to digital art what Tim Bur­ton is to cinema, or Dr. Seuss is to children’s books, as each artist has a dis­tinct­ive, unmis­tak­able style.

Hans Fink, Los Angeles’ Skin­nie Magazine

Luke Feldman’s instantly recog­niz­able ‘Skaffs’ cre­ations com­prise a heady mix of bright col­ors and razor sharp style mixed with an under­ly­ing, almost tan­gible naiv­ety that make his illus­tra­tions eas­ily iden­ti­fi­able in a world where ori­gin­al­ity is not as easy to find as you might think..

Jo Spurl­ing, author and editor of Desktop magazine

We are a blog for begin­ners and graphic design stu­dents. Can you share with us the most enjoy­able moment, sub­ject or les­son that you had while studying?

Inter­act­ive design was prob­ably my favor­ite sub­ject as I got to learn all about Illus­trator and Pho­toshop and how to ‘mock-up’ designs. One of my most enjoy­able moments was an elec­tronic design pro­ject whereby I had to concept, design, and develop a com­puter game and present it in its fin­ished form includ­ing packaging.

How did that moment, sub­ject or les­son shape what you do now?

This pro­ject helped me see the big pic­ture and demon­strated what is involved in devel­op­ing a product from concept. Being a cre­at­ive dir­ector con­sult­ant, my work today is pre­dom­in­antly tak­ing a pro­ject brief and flesh­ing it out into a concept, then a fin­ished design to a full func­tion­ing product i.e. game, mobile con­tent, Flash advertising.

Describe your style of graphic design in a few words. What kind of advice would you give stu­dents who wish to excel in this style?

My style is based on sym­metry, flow and vibrant col­ours. My advice would be to develop a unique style, per­fect it and exper­i­ment with your style by adapt­ing it to as many plat­forms as you can.

Do you use hand drawn tech­niques to help you develop a design. How import­ant is this in your pro­cess as a Graphic designer?

Everything I do starts off as a hand drawn sketch. It’s very import­ant to be able to trans­late your ideas into phys­ical form. Free­hand draw­ing is an import­ant skill as it is often the first thing you show future cli­ents and you need to win them over with this concept to land the job.

Do you keep an ideas journal? If so can we have a sneaky peek?

I have a trusty sketch book that I carry around with me at all time. Ideas can come to me at any time of the day and it’s import­ant for me to be able to jot these ideas down before I for­get. These books also come in handy when think­ing of con­cepts to pitch to cli­ents. Below is a sneak preview.

What are your favor­ite web­sites at the moment?

My favor­ite web­sites would have to be:

Flashkit

Kirupa

Cold Hard Flash

Vec­tor Tuts Plus

Who are your 5 all time favor­ite graphic designers?

Some awe­some graphic design­ers would include McBess & James Jean.

Mc Bess also fea­tured in The Graphic Design School European websites.

James Jean

What typefaces do you use the most in your designs?

I change fonts depend­ing on the design brief. But, my most com­monly used fonts would be cen­tury gothic, swiss 721 and avant-garde. I have also been known to cre­ate my own fonts here and there to bet­ter com­plete a project.

What about your job do you find the most rewarding?

Devel­op­ing a concept into a fin­ished product would be the most reward­ing part of my job. I also like the chal­lenge of being able to adapt my style to vari­ous plat­forms from print, to broad­cast, to mobile media to wall installations.

I have been for­tu­nate enough to have writ­ten and illus­trated my very own book through San Francisco-based pub­lish­ers, Imme­dium. The book is called “Chaff n Skaffs: Mai and the Lost Moskivvy”.

In this pro­ject I com­pleted all the graph­ics in which each page is a fin­ished piece of art­work, and I did all the text lay­out and graphic design. I have developed giant wall install­a­tions for LA stores and have developed my own product line of skate decks, art­work, col­lector toys, and iPhone applications.

A moment to brag… who are your most pres­ti­gi­ous clients?

I’ve worked with some great com­pan­ies. My most mem­or­able pro­jects and cli­ents would be design­ing the 2007 advert­ising cam­paign for Coca Cola, the 2008 Apple MAC world 1-storey con­fer­ence booth, anim­a­tion design con­cepts for Dis­ney and devel­op­ing Flash con­tent for Facebook.

Where do you see your career in five years?

I would hope to con­tinue to grow as a mul­ti­me­dia designer and to con­tinue to work with great com­pan­ies on fun and chal­len­ging pro­jects. And to con­tinue to develop my SKAFFS line of products.

What advice would you give to graphic design stu­dents around the world. About shap­ing a great portfolio?

A great port­fo­lio is import­ant. Def­in­itely take time out to put together a great selec­tion of work. Ensure that your work has a dis­tinct style but show diversity in how you apply your style. Be con­fid­ent about your work and don’t give up.

A ques­tion on everybody’s mind… Billy Elliot feels on fire when he dances … how do you feel when you are designing?

Design­ing ener­gizes me: It’s as if my design field is fren­zied and the world around me stops; I don’t feel hungry; I don’t feel tired; I don’t feel thirsty.

Thanks for tak­ing the time to share your exper­i­ences with us… any fam­ous last words?

Thank you!

If you would like to learn more about Luke you can visit his web­site Scaffs and Luke’s new book Chaffs and Skaffs

Luke has kindly con­trib­uted a tutorial for you to have a crack at vec­tor­ing one of his ador­able char­ac­ters entitled ’How to Cre­ate a Fin­ished Vec­tor Character“