Alida Sayer

 

Sayer's work is inspired by the world of illustrative and experimental typography and gives a different dimension to illustration and visual design. 

"Much of my work begins as hand-drawn images or letter-pressed prints which I usually then scan and manipulate digitally. I also often work across several sheets of semi-transparent paper to plan out or structure work in order to create a relationship between layers of information. I also use a lot of paper cutting techniques, which I do by hand with a scalpel. The forms are created very much instinctively. Although I do have a general idea of how I want it to look, much of the layered cutting grows naturally with each piece informing the position of the next.
 

The prevalence of mundane digital fonts is forcing designers to cast their nets wider in order to create typography with a unique voice. This includes experimenting with more unusual or 'analogue' materials and processes before re-incorporating them into a format suitable for dissemination across the rapidly advancing digital communications channels. I feel that this is a very exciting time for design, where traditional craft methods are not only being revisited but are also combined with complex digital processes in order to create truly innovative and astounding, yet still very tactile, work. The key to truly forward thinking design is to harness both the capabilities of digital technology and the important lessons we learn from traditional materials and processes and combine them using our own unique creative personality. Computers are tools to be used. They do not create beautiful design - people do. 

I have always tended to stick to a more monochrome colour palette, I suspect due to the influence of my photographer father who works predominantly using black and white film. I adore colour but often find it difficult to use in my own work. Perhaps it is because I always end up thinking about it far too much! I often find that the times when I use colour most effectively are those when it appears accidentally."

Find more on her blog.