Rob Ryan

British Artist Rob Ryan specialises in creating intricate, romantic cutouts and prints. His unique designs are printed on everything from mugs, to Greetings cards, even Rulers and cushions! Rob is a modern artist, born November,1962, and still works currently on his popular pieces of artwork. Rob Ryan has also worked for respectable clients such as Vogue, Elle and Stylist magazine. 

These handmade gifts were sparked by Rob's detailed cut-outs. Many of these are created from memories and events in Rob's life, especially with his wife. His style is delicate and feminine as he uses imagery such as birds, flowers and hearts, accompanied by curly writing that spells out a story, quote, or thought. 

The artist himself states that he works in a London studio with three other artists, Dan Holliday, Hayley Johnson and Stuart Smith and admits that an A1 piece can take around three days! (his work hours being about 8am-6pm)
This painstaking, but rewarding technique is done using a cutting knife/scalpel and cutting each tiny shape out of the card or paper. In an 'MagMA' Interview, Rob Ryan talks about his technique saying; "I generally make notes in sketchbooks and work the picture out there, then I draw it out on paper – then cut it out. It's a medium that does not lend itself well to improvisation. I don't work from photos and I use 15 or 10a Swann Morton scalpel blades" He also talks about using Laser cutting for Shows when using materials such as wood and acrylic. 

Rob states that he takes some inspiration from 'Post-war, pre 60's, English Illustration' and describes his work as 'decorative' and has a 'timeless quality'. 
Personally, I really enjoyed looking at Rob Ryan's work and using it as inspiration for my own cut-out. I mostly appreciate the personal, heartfelt input in every piece, and his use of simple illustrations and patterns. 

Handmade vs. digital Typography Analysis

In groups the class thought about how to research and learn about Artists. We referenced our learning packs and made categories such as 'context', 'meaning', 'Aesthetics' and 'Personal Response'
Each group looked at a Typography Artist. We researched artist 'Matt.W Moore' whereas the second group researched 'Hennie Haworth'

Group Typography

In groups we had two objects that we had to use for typography. The task was to create a word or phrase from our objects, that relates to them.

Our first object was some children's building blocks, we thought about what they're used for, such as playing, building, fun etc. As we didn't have many pieces I suggested that we used the word 'learn' as it is short and helps children develop skills such as coordination and puzzle solving thus building their knowledge.

We made sure to add the left over pieces to the ends of the letters so that they were easy to read.

I think that this was successful as the word was easy to read and illustrated the meaning and purpose of the object itself.



Next we had a box of ties, as there were a lot of them so we thought about making a short phrase such us 'dressed up', 'suit and Tie' or 'business'. Someone in the group thought about making "All tied up" as it is a long phrase and uses a range of different letters, to show how the ties could be manipulated in different ways. 

We thought about trying to group the ties in colour and pattern categories so that it would be easier to read, as their were a lot of ties, we thought that might be too time-consuming to do. Instead, we made sure that each letter was large and clear. The group also added small details such as folding the ties to make the letter thicker and even rolling up a tie to dot the 'I'. Doing this insured that our typography was easy to understand, but also displayed our creativity with the objects. 

I also enjoyed a piece from another group in the class who used post-it notes against the wall to make the word 'Stick'. I found it interesting how they managed to make a clear word with the material they had and how they grouped the notes into colour.