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What's All This Then?
This is Layer Tennis, a live, weekly series of design competitions, presented by Adobe® Creative Suite® 3. It was created by Coudal Partners. We've made lots of other stuff too.
What's All This Then?
This is Layer Tennis, a live, weekly series of design competitions, presented by Adobe® Creative Suite® 3. It was created by Coudal Partners. We've made lots of other stuff too.
While last week’s match featured a battle between contrasting styles—the cerebral vs. the visceral and the designer/programmer vs. designer/illustrator—consider this week’s line-up a battle of the beguiling and bewitching Brits.
Both Neil Duerden and Mathew Star Thomas are self-described illustrators who combine organic vector art with fairy tale photography. Both create balmy, breathy work that teeters between the real and the surreal. But that is where the similarities stop. Look a bit closer and you'll see where Thomas is naively dreamy and hallucinogenic, Duerden packs a power punch of provocation.
Perhaps this match will be more than a raunchy, rancorous volley to and fro, but rather a timeless test of wills. Either way, behold the empyrean challenge between the Master of Sublime and the Hot and Hungry Wolf and remember: one man's quest is another man's conquest.
The Man: Neil is a self confessed Mac monkey based in a rural miners' cottage 20 miles north of Manchester, UK. He creates work that combines elements from mixed media and photography with complex, interlacing vectors to create pieces for multi-national clients, all over the world. He's always on brief, hungry for commissions and looking for the next big thing.
The Mood: Manic
The Man: Couscous Kid is the work of Mathew Star Thomas, an illustrator and designer based in Bath, UK. Impossible to pigeonhole, Couscous Kids' dream-like, innocent style compels his audience to dance eerily through life. At first glance, all is as it seems (with hints of sixties abandonment) but upon closer inspection, his work reveals 21st century humor and physical freedom hidden among the sublime and ridiculous forms and characters.
The Mood: Panic. (Psych) Limber. Yeah, that's right. Limber.
Debbie Millman is a partner at Sterling Brands and a writer for Print Magazine and the design blog Speak Up. She is also the author of How To Think Like A Great Graphic Designer (Allworth Press). She teaches at the School of Visual Arts; she is a National Board member of the AIGA, and host of the Internet talk show, Design Matters.
Here's how the game works. Jump into the Layer Tennis Forums, we'll be taking the pulse of the conversations there to declare a winner. You can also subscribe to our Layer Tennis RSS feed and follow along via Twitter.
Congrats to totopromo, the in-forum contest winner, and Operator, the remix winner. We have some Jewelboxing and Swap Meat items to send out to you. We're also sending packs of Field Notes to reo5th, BMB and naamyo. Email your shipping info to dawson at coudal.com.
Today is your last chance to sound off about who won Friday's Layer Tennis Matches and to post your remix/contest entries too.
On the last Friday of the season we played two matches at the same time, Koxvold vs Hutchinson and Glass vs Inman. There was a lot of action on the court and a lot in the forums too.
All matches took place on Fridays, live at 2pm Chicago time or GMT-6.
January 25 - Match 1 | View Match
Chris Glass vs Shaun Inman*
Commentary by John Gruber | Forum
January 25 - Match 2 | View Match
Jason Koxvold* vs James Hutchinson
Commentary by Rosecrans Baldwin | Forum
January 11th | View the Match
Veerle Pieters* vs Cindy Li
Commentary by Kevin Guilfoile | Match Forum
December 14th | View the Match
Matt Owens vs Jason Gnewikow*
Commentary by Joshua Allen | Match Forum
December 7th | View the Match
Jason Koxvold* vs Bran Dougherty-Johnson
Commentary by Matt Haughey | Match Forum
Match was played using Adobe® After Effects®
November 30th | View the Match
Trevor Van Meter* vs James Hutchinson
Commentary by Bryan Bedell | Match Forum
This match was played using Adobe® Flash®.
November 16th | View the Match
Aaron Draplin* vs David Nakamoto
Commentary by Steven Heller | Match Forum
November 9th | View the Match
Scott Hansen* vs Rob Cordiner
Commentary by Alissa Walker | Match Forum
November 2nd | View the Match
Marian Bantjes* vs Armin Vit
Commentary by Heather Armstrong | Match Forum
Match was played using Adobe® After Illustrator®
October 26th | View the Match
Brian Taylor vs Jason Santa Maria*
Commentary by Matthew Baldwin | Match Forum
October 19th | View the Match
Naz Hamid vs Chris Glass*
Commentary by Rosecrans Baldwin | Match Forum
October 12th | View the Match
Steven Harrington* vs Chuck Anderson
Commentary by Jason Kottke | Match Forum
October 5th | View the Match
Neil Duerden vs Mathew Star Thomas*
Commentary by Debbie Millman | Match Forum
September 28th | View the Match
Kevin Cornell* vs Shaun Inman
Commentary by John Gruber | Match Forum
* =winner
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Layer Tennis was created by Coudal Partners in Chicago. We also created Jewelboxing for making awesome disc packaging and The Deck, an ad network targeted at creative folks.
