Matthew Leonard : instagram

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Instagram...

Ive been very active on Instagram for a while now, posting photos of what Im doing, the stuff I wear, the things I eat and recently the work that Im doing. I started posting my hand rendered typography a while back and this got me a few more followers and a couple of likes, some of the pieces even getting reposted on inspiration accounts.

I changed the layout of my account and decided not to use the standard square photo frame you get with Instagram, I think this gives my account a little bit more appeal to look at as it doesnt look like everyone elses. My Instagram is definitely the platform that I post on the most and I think its a good way to get my personality forward, a mixture of work and personal photos being posted almost every week.

Follow me: http://instagram.com/matty_leonard4

Jessica Walsh...

A big inspiration to me and a kind of nerdy graphic design crush (if thats a thing) is Jessica Walsh, a designer, illustrator and art director based in the Big Apple as part of the partnership Sagmeister and Walsh. I've looked at her work for around a year now and have become a big fan, especially her hand rendered typography, taking it further than just on paper and applying it onto people and taking her designs to the next level.

Sagmeister & Walsh's work is crazy, the concepts are things I would never think of doing, but its inspiring to see what people at the top of their game can come up with and actually get away with doing, some designers think that the creative freedom that you get with projects in University and my case College stops as soon as a live client is involved, Sagmeister & Walsh prove this isnt the fact and output crazy concepts that meet the brief. I remember watching a video on a live video they made to go onto a screen in Times Square, it was the making of a piece that I had seen before looking through Behance and on thier website and just automatically thought that it was computer generated, I was wrong. This piece spelled out the work MAX, in purple spikes, or thats what I thought. These were actually pencils that had been placed into large cutout letters and then sprayed.

I found the below video when going through a classmates blog to see if I had missed any posts for my PPD unit (inspiration right?!) and found it really interesting, it gives an insight into Walsh and her work as well as a little bit of a back story. In the video she mentions that she got a flat with an ex partner that they could barely afford just to follow a dream and approached Sagmeister for his opinion on her portfolio, he then asked when she could start working. Just goes to show following a dream sometimes works out VERY well.

I will continue to look at Walsh's work and her Instagram is a constant source of inspiration in both hand rendered type and colour, and as I've mentioned in a previous blog post she's actually saw some of my work on there and liked it (crazy). Maybe someday I'll do a Walsh-esque move to another city and land a big job, who knows! Only time will tell...

Icons, icons and more icons...

If you follow my Instagram (@matty_leonard4) you'll have noticed that Ive been posting a lot of Vector icon and digital typography pieces, they've really became an big interest with me over the past couple of months. Artists such as Dennis Cortes (@courtesarts on Instagram) put up high quality, simple work on their profiles and one day I just thought to myself "I could do that", so I did. Knowing the basics of Illustrator and knowing my way round the toolbars made this a little bit easier, I'll admit I wasn't as experienced as I thought I was and have had a lot of mediocre looking things made.

So this is my new little mini obsession at the moment and I'm really enjoying it, I think making these simple typographic/illustrative pieces will help me if I have to design a logo in the future too. Its definitely helped get my head round making more difficult shapes in Illustrator as well as creating balanced pieces. Follow my Instagram for updates on my work and check out some of the pieces I've done below: