Stav Assis blends graphic design and illustration to create simple yet playful artwork

Simplicity is at the coronary heart of Stav’s artwork. But it can be not a reductive simplicity that does absent with appeal and character. As an alternative, his simplicity is meticulously calculated to produce effect and humour. Getting his lead from artists these kinds of as Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, and Frans Masereel – just about every learn of simplicity in their have way – Stav aims to observe in their footsteps by generating illustrations and designs that simply extract truth of the matter via their misleading complexity.

This isn’t really to say his get the job done, which seems in photo publications, editorials, posters, comics and a lot more, is hung up on intellectual considerations. The topics of his art array from cycling sharks to his beloved canine, revealing that Stav is a lot more than cozy expressing his playful aspect. “I often tend to rely on geometric styles and straight lines, but on the other hand, I enjoy participating in with point of view, coming up with humorous people and utilizing vivid color operate,” he tells Creative Boom.

Stav’s exclusive eye for type and color has developed from an early age, as he claims to have been drawing and illustrating at any time because he can don’t forget himself. Following lending his skills to learning and working as an architect in Tel Aviv, he realised that his accurate passion lay in illustration. “I determined to return to my student times and review illustration in the visual interaction office at Shenkar college or university,” he adds. “Right now, I am a freelance illustrator and have been operating with all sorts of shoppers (e book publishing, graphic structure studios, hello-tech marketplace and journals).”

All through these studies, Stav set up a sturdy foundation in graphic design, which can obviously be viewed in the composition of his illustrations. Even organic and natural subjects these types of as the sea and canines are rendered with variety and colour at the forefront and in a way that transcends standard illustration. Talking of how the two disciplines perform with each other, he clarifies: “I assume they finish each other into anything increased, each individual of them delivers a distinctive factor to the visual conversation field.”

Mixing these techniques allows Stav to develop unusual and amusing characters with exclusive appearances, like soldiers on the lookout, a suspicious-hunting spy, or a seaside scene populated with outlandishly proportioned holidaymakers. When generating these people, Stav has a few go-to approaches in thoughts. “I constantly try to extend the ordinary determine proportions and make diverse variations of the exact character right until I uncover some thing that I like,” he suggests. “I also try to get motivated as a lot as attainable from other artists and get new strategies.”

For his very first work as a photograph book illustrator, Stav was tasked with drawing Rish Rish the shark, a exceptional denizen of the deep who traverses the ocean on a bicycle. Stav admits to acquiring the commission tense but fascinating as it pushed his abilities as an illustrator. Having not approached the task of drawing for a storybook prior to, he made a decision to tackle it methodically.

“In advance of I commenced illustrating, I go through the story and considered about my point of view on it,” he clarifies. “I tried to determine out the evident items to illustrate and what I could say as an illustrator. I also imagined about: what would be the aspect tales. What is being claimed amongst the traces that are well worth illustrating?”

Apart from sort, color is yet another crucial ingredient Stav provides to his illustrations. And offered how confidently he works by using them in his get the job done, it is a surprise to learn that he always struggles with colors. “Sometimes I make many versions of the similar illustration and transform the colours to see which variation is the greatest just one,” he says.

“I try out to comprehend the ideal atmosphere I want the illustration to have. I get the concept of colours as an additional educational component in my performs. My colour palettes occur from all sorts of inspirations but primarily from practising in matching colours to just one another.”

Most likely the finest case in point of Stav’s operate is his matchbox collection, FETCH! Established purely as a individual challenge, these idea items not only mix his passions for illustration and layout but are also centred about his most important really like of all: canines. However irrespective of owning two Belgian Malinois himself, Stav selected to experiment with different breeds as he draws his possess a good deal.

“I desired to make a smaller and memorable merchandise, these types of as a matchbox, and give it some bold branding and illustrations, one thing pretty straightforward yet colourful and playful,” he suggests. “I am genuinely joyful with how it turned out and hope to make it a true brand name men and women can get someday.”