Marc Valli

A comprehensive, up-to-date collection of the most exciting new graphic-design in the United Kingdom. What design scene is as diverse or cosmopolitan, more rich in influences and references, as packed with new trends and original ideas, as teeming wi th talent and ambition than the UK? To stand out in this competitive arena, British graphic designers have had to make their work ever more clever and polished, better informed. This fuels the distinctive, refined styles of such artists as Mark Farro w, Sea, Spin, Browns, Fuel, James Joyce, Zak, Studio 8 and Bibliotek. The UK (especially urban hotbeds like London, Manchester and Sheffield) is also a greenhouse for new musical styles and youth trends, and a fertile ground for eccentric visual arti sts like Non-Format, Ben Drury, The Designers Republic; and of course, also a major financial nucleus for studios like William Paul, BB Saunders and Saturday marking their styles and brands across the world. The main question in compiling a book on t he best of new British design is not what to put in, but what to leave out. Stylistic novelty and visual distinctiveness are our key parameters. RGB features artists from highly diverse backgrounds, at all different stages in their careers, from hous ehold names to the newest young talents. RGB captures the UKs explosively vibrant and unpredictable realm of graphic design, in over 400 pages packed with exciting visual material.

This book reveals how all kinds of visual artists (contemporary artists, street artists, photographers and even product designers) are using miniatures and miniaturized worlds in order to create startling situations and memorable images. Miniatures a nd miniaturized settings induce a disquieting experience of distance, and artists use it to explore very contemporary feelings of alienation, displacement and estrangement. But if seeing things from a great distance can make you feel cut off from the m, and make you feel lonely and insignificant, it can also encourage awe and contemplation. The miniaturized strategy plays many tricks with the viewer. It generates distance not just in terms of space, but also in terms of time. Miniatures make us r elive the world (and the viewpoint, the perspective) of our childhood, a time when the world was filled with toys and figurines. 'Miniaturized' does not necessarily mean 'idealized'. Shrinking a particular scene only seems to increase its pathos, int roducing a haunting atmosphere of theatrical drama. Miniaturized worlds seethe with narrative potential, intricate story lines, suspense: car crashes, hunting accidents, walks in the woods, a mugging in the snow, a father and a son mowing the lawn, n ativity scenes. The small people and small worlds depicted in this book give us a new sense of perspective, transporting us to a new dimension, an enchanted new city where people can take lifts on the back of a slug at rush hour, put up wall-sized po laroid posters, or shoot down bumblebees at the weekend.

Drawing has always been a fundamental skill and good drawing skills allowed artists to grasp the reality around them. At the turn of the millennium, however, the general impression was that with the wide availability of computers, scanners, digital cameras and image software, drawing would dwindle into a marginal activity. In fact, the opposite happened: the enthusiasm for digital imagery died down and the ability to draw has become a treasured skill. In the art world, attitudes to drawing have also changed. Drawing became a way of making a statement as an artist, of showing masterly skill something that up to then had been most commonly associated with painting. After centuries in the shadow of its more illustrious fine art relatives, drawing started to be appreciated for its own sake, as an art discipline, an end in itself, an art form. Walk the Line: The Art of Drawing includes interviews with the international selection of artists, as well as examples of their work. It will appeal to anyone interested in contemporary art and illustration.

Why painting today? In the digital age, with its powers of instant recall and infinite reproduction, why are we witnessing an unprecedented revival of figurative painting? A Brush with the Real presents a survey of key contemporary artists who have each embraced painting and are working within a realist tradition. Through individual interviews the book peers into the life and work of each of these artists, discussing their methods, motives and sources, from art history to the internet and the language of film. The book celebrates the work of 51 artists who are each taking the medium in a new direction: from those who work with appropriation and found images, to those trying to get as close as possible to contemporary reality and first-hand experience, to artists who are simply using painting as a door to parallel or imaginary worlds. The book makes the argument that, since perhaps the early Renaissance, the role fulfilled by painting has never been so vital or timely: in our image-saturated culture, digital technology has given painting and its slow, full-resolution images a new lease of life.

Artless presents some of the most compelling images created by contemporary artists and illustrators using the simplest of tools, such as colour pencils, crayons, watercolour, scissors and glue. Work produced in this manner represents a growing and particularly resilient trend in the visual arts world. Through individual interviews with over 50 artists, Artless looks at how and why these particular artists find the intimate connection between the unassuming tools they use and the art thus created so enthralling. For creator and viewer alike there seems to be a particular kind of pleasure to be had in short-circuiting the sophisticated and often elusive strategies of contemporary art in favour of something disarmingly uncomplicated.