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Árstíðir
Árstíðir is a self-titled debut album from the band Árstíðir. The band name Árstíðir means seasons (winter, summer, spring winter) when translated to English.
I thought about how I could make artwork for the album that represents the season in Iceland and the rise in their music. In the summertime there is sunshine 24 hours a day and in winter you only see the sun for 3-4 hours when it is the darkest.
I decided to use textures from birds, contrast the dark and the white. Birds are signs for the seasons. They sing in the spring and leave in the fall, except the toughest ones. It also contrasts to the rise in their harmonies of Árstiðir´s music.
I took the photos in the Natural History Museum of Kópavogur, where they have examples of birds from Icelandic nature.
You can read more about the band on there website: www.arstidir.com/ Graphic Design, Photo Illustration, Photography -
To die will be an awfully big adventure.
To die will be an awfully big adventure is the overwriting of my final project from the Icelandic Academy of the Arts. This project is about the deaths in our life. It consist of three pieces. The first one is about childish innocence, second one is about love and third one about death it self.
The idea is that we are supposed to remember the adventures we went through and keep these things close to us while going forward to the next adventure.
To make the ideia come to life I painted the objects black and had paint dripping of them to make them look beautiful but unusable. The black color represents death and the paint drippings that they have been slain.
The sentences “To die will be an awfully big adventure” was said by Peter Pan after he had saved Vanda and she was trying to stop him from going back and kill Captain Hook.
I made each subject personal. It was shown at the Icelandic Academy of the Arts B.A. final show in one of the biggest gallery in Iceland Kjarvalsstaðir.
The project is for sale, as a whole and individual pictures, if interested contact me at hognivalur@gmail.com Graphic Design, Photo Illustration, Photo Manipulation -
Nýló // The Living Art Museum
The project was to update the branding of the Living Art Museum. Make a better whole in the brand. We went through the print material the museum already had and came to the conclusion that we did not need to change the logo but the direction and idea behind it. We stripped the logo of all color, made it black and white and changed the font the museum had been using.
After this first step we looked at what is the core of the museum. Our conclusion was diversity, play full, small funding and a nice collection of art work the museum owns. The museum collection is not shown much so we decided to make it more visual.
We took these four things into the branding. Diversity is in the color use. When the museum is not advertising a art show or a event it´s black and white but when it advertising a show or an event there are no color restricions. The designer is free to play at will. The play fullness is in folding. every printed object from the museum. Everything from the letterhead being folded into an envelope, the business card is made of four business card that can be used in different ways just by the way it´s folded. Invites every where from A4 to A0 have to be folded in one way or another. Because of minimal funding we decided to print on the cheapest paper possible every time and make the museum make most of it´s printed material self. So when they need to print a business card the can do it by themselves. The museum also tries to go it´s own ways in making sings. F.e. paint the logo on their building and making the signs they can by themselves. The museum collection is going to be used on printed material such as letterheads, business cards, envolopes and more. This is to intourduse the artwork in a easy way.
The project was done with Ármann Agnarsson, armannagnarsson.com Creative Direction, Graphic Design, Print Design -
Núna // The Present is Now
A catalog for a art show which was held in the Nordic house.
A collaboration between Icelandic and Finish photgraphers.
The project was done with Ármann Agnarsson, armannagnarsson.com Editorial Design, Graphic Design, Print Design -
Fistful — Andreas Constantinous
Fistful is Andreas Constantinous debut album. He contacted me to do the artwork. I listened to the music and his thoughts and through that I got the idea to use his skin to make weird looking images that stand for the front we put up every day. But then when you go through the album and into the booklet you see images of guts. They stand for the real, the person that you get to see when you get to know someone.
Graphic Design, Photo Illustration, Photo Manipulation
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Varius Times in Johnnys Life —Mummi
A Cd cover I did for a solo artist from Reykjavík Iceland. This was his debut album.
The artist made this album about his imaginary past life. I wanted to illustrate that in some way or from. I found symbols from number theology. The one I used means rebirth. I then illustrated imaginary scene, image´s from Mummi´s past life. Graphic Design, Illustration, Photo Illustration -
Hvalur
Hvalur is short for my full name Högni Valur Högnason. It´s means a whale in Icelandic. I used a font I created called Kvíabryggja to make the logotype. I wanted to use a variety of colors so I can use each one when I feel appropriate, depending on the project I am working on and who the recipient is.
So if I work for you in the future you can look forward to receiving one of these in your mailbox. 2011 Art Direction, Graphic Design, Magic -
Handverksráðstefna
A poster for a handcraft conference in Reykjavík.
The callenge was to use ancient Icelandic sewing patterns and use them in a new way.
The idea was worked with Erna Þorbjörg and Einar Inga who are my classmates in the Icelandic Academy of the Arts. Einar also modeled and sacrificed his hair for the picture.
This project was featured in Die Gestalten´s book Hair´em scare´em. Graphic Design, Photo Illustration, Typography -
Beneventum 2010
A year book for a MH a school in iceland. Every year they give out a book about their year and the intrest of the school body.
The book was done with with Rán Flygering, shehasaplan.com Editorial Design, Graphic Design, Print Design -
Goddur Series
This was a project where I was supposed to design
a 12 books series from diffreent articles written in newspappers in Iceland.
I decided to use a picture I got from him to make the cover art for the books. So each one would be a piece of his mind but together it would reveal the man behind the writing and his full thought behind these writings. Graphic Design, Photo Manipulation, Concept -
Jón Ólafs
This is a TV set I designed with 3 of my friends, Frosti Gnarr, Brynjar and Kiddi, for a music talk show on TV 1 in Iceland. The show is named after its host Jón Ólafs.
We designed a set for a special art related show. All the guests where artist involved in music or musicians involved in art.
Our idea was to design a kind of a floating space, 3 dimensional. We painted the whole set black and then we used tape to make lines that could float down from the walls and onto the floor, up on the stage. It was a very fun project and we used couple of kilometers of tape on it and many man hours. Installation Design, Set Design, Visual Arts
