I was invited to a press conference to meet Joshua Davis, the guy behind the “digital kaleidoscope art” which he uses in most of his works. Joshua was shipped over to the Philippines by Motorola to talk in Graphika Manila.
Joshua (quite a fun guy!) is a 100% digital artist who is a programmer, artist and critic all in one. His art form revolves around programs that render digital art based on sets of rules which he has put together. He then randomizes his art work and chooses the BEST among the thousands of random renderings the computer does. This is where his role as critic comes in. Some people may wonder if this is really art — pushing the space bar button while saying nah … nah … nah … oh I like this one (save!) … nah … but then you have to realize that the random effects are all based on the rules and palletes he has preprogrammed into the system, which all came from him. This allows him to churn out such detailed work in a relatively smaller amount of time than “having to draw the whole thing on Illustrator which will take ages.”
A quick tip that he shares with us is that he only shows black and white proofs to clients and only colors them AFTER he gets their signature for the final art. After receiving a signature, he gives back the same abstract work but in several color variations. Clients often get distracted by the color schemes of proofs when in fact this is actually very easy to change. What should matter, firstly, is the concept.
Other small facts:
He is also a Mac user. See? See? Okay, I won’t get into the whole PC vs. Mac war again …
And lastly, if you look closer (click!), he wears Crocs!
7 replies on “Joshua Davis at Graphika Manila”
My lil JP wears crocs, too! And I saw last week that you do too! hehe
wow. agree on the whole concept-before-color tip. anyway, off topic… have you guys heard of gorillapod?
http://www.joby.com/index.html
i was at graphika manila and he’s an amazing speaker and entertainer.
Enjoyed Graphika Manila. Enjoyed his presentation. One thing I wanted to ask, that I ended up not asking: why does someone who seems so drawn towards newness/innovation, mutation, limitless options, and constant change… have so many tattoos? ;p
[…] When it was Joshua Davis’s turn to speak, he initially appeared a bit uncomfortable with the unusually silent media people; little did he know that almost everyone in the room was awestruck with the presence of a design demigod right in front of them! He discussed his use of randomness and kaleidoscope ideas for his recent Motorola work and I was amazed how his art is greatly influenced by his use of programming. Like what Jayvee has also written, this man has basically created a unique design process that makes him his own programmer, artist and critic. His strength in programming has allowed him to accelerate the evolution of his unique designs. Using randomness and chaos within the confines of a predefined environment and set of parameters, he manages to produce designs that are truly unique that cannot be manually drawn/created in illustration/graphic programs. “Unless you’re on crack,” he says in jest. […]
I might just buy myself a pair of Crocs hahaha
[…] I was very much impressed with Joshua Davis’ whose dynamic absraction and mutation is just indescribable and I’m very much impressed. I should also say that this guy is FUN! (some links by bloggers who were also struck with this man: REBELPIXEL PRODUCTIONS and A Bugged Life). Or the interesting collaborations of Inksurge with different international arts and graphic design entities as well as top artists in the country. Their body of work is awesome. […]