10 Digital Artists I Study and Follow

The following digital artists are ones that I’ve consistently followed over the years. They motivate me to create more, and I can’t stop staring at and studying their work. It helps that some of them actively post on Tumblr and Instagram and produce prolific amounts of work. Creating and publishing daily while displaying consistency in their craft. My current top 10 digital artists are listed below:

Michael Paul Young

I’ve been following Michael Paul Young’s under his moniker Designgraphik before Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr and have been a customer of his graphics licensing platform youworkforthem equally as long. I feel like he is the godfather of glitch. His maximalist rendered digital compositions blend his skills in programming, 3d rendering, photography and graphic design. At 23 he was nominated for a Chrysler Design Award, exhibited as an artist worldwide, and most recently his animations visually accompanied U2’s 360 tour on 500,000 LED pixels. Even though most of Young’s graphics skew heavily toward digital abstraction, they still maintain a sculptural quality that makes you feel like you can step into his compositions and walk through them. (1)

View more of his work here: http://www.michaelpaulyoung.com/ https://www.instagram.com/designgraphik/

Alain Vonck

What caught my attention of the Paris based graphic designer Alain Vonck, is the influence of 90s inspired internet graphics and his cut and paste ethos. Vonck acts as a digital archaeologist while assembling graphics of the past into new compositions. His graduate project “Ruins” was a visualization of the past internet before web designers and social networks. It was his in-depth research into the visual remains of what existed as part of the 1.0 version of the internet. The archived data is used as an editorial object.

In 2016 Vonck founded the design studio Irradie with his brother Laurent Vonck. Their clients include Channel, Nike, Moncler, Vice and countless others. Vonck still maintains a heavy internet inspired aesthetic that can be traced back to his “Ruins” project. The use of generative inspired visuals, digital collage, maximalist techniques, patterns and contrast is what keeps me coming back and further exploring the visual elements of Vonck’s work. (2)

View more of his work here: http://irradie.com/en
http://alainvonck.tumblr.com/

Julien Pacaud

The Paris based French Illustrator Julien Pacaud mixes vintage photography and illustrations with geometry in a clean and polished way. I enjoy Pacaud’s aesthetic and graphic nature he uses to create his surrealistic narratives. I’m also pulled in by his use of sci-fi themes and retro-future depictions of arcane technology that may still work in an alternative universe. He also carefully balances humor and mystery in his pieces.

Unlike myself, Pacaud has been smart enough to scan loads of images that he can source when he’s ready to construct a piece. (3)

View more of his work here: http://www.julienpacaud.com/
https://www.instagram.com/julienpacaud/ http://julienpacaud.tumblr.com/

Tyler Spangler

The Seattle based Tyler Spangler creates imagery that he describes as, “A rainbow popsicle dipped in the ocean and placed on a rock to melt.” (4) Spangler holds a BA in psychology but is an art school dropout from the Art Center College of Design. He ran an illegal punk venue in California for about 13 shows before it got shut down by police.

I enjoy a lot of things about Spangler’s work including his humor and his mixture of both illustrative and photographic elements to produce a style that’s uniquely his own. His sheer output is phenomenal and I’m thankful he posts daily activity which keeps my feeds full of psychedelic imagery. Spangler like a lot of artists on this list committed to creating daily, and it’s helped further his craft.

Another element which is motivating to me, is he’s guided by internal creative compass and his visuals to have a sense of attainability which drives others to create in a similar vein.

He currently freelances with clients in the music, surf, and textile industry. (5)

View more of his work here: http://tylerspangler.com/
https://www.instagram.com/tyler_spangler/

Baugasm aka Vajsen Katro

I found Vajsen Katro’s work indirectly through his skillshare courses. The Albanian based designer started the Baugasm project as a commitment to pushing his craft to the limit by creating something every day, from scratch. His poster series gained traction in its first year that he’s now undertaking the project for a consecutive year. I’ve gained some insight into his process from his skillshare videos. And what I enjoy most about Katro’s work is that he creates every graphic from scratch. He may use a gradient mesh in illustrator, then liquify it in photoshop and morph it into a 3D object in Cinema 4D. I hope he keeps making skillshare courses. He’s not a bad photographer either (6).

View more of his work here: http://baugasm.com/
https://www.instagram.com/baugasm/?hl=en

Slimesundy

Boston based Mike Parisella aka Slimsunday creates a lot of colorful photo manipulations, but I also like his use of 3d and animation. He started with mobile editing and then moved to using Photoshop and Cinema 4D. Parisella is a self-taught artist and committed to publishing daily. One of the things I like about his edits is his use of contemporary fashion editorial photography and how he mashes them up. Neon tears and volcanic explosions coming from people’s heads always make me do a double take when I see them show up on my Instagram feed. (7)

View more of his work here: https://www.slimesunday.com/
https://www.instagram.com/slimesunday/

Andy Gilmore

I started following Andy Gilmore’s work when I came across it on the music label Ghostly International’s site. You’d think that Gilmore’s geometric kaleidoscopic compositions were done by a generative algorithm due to the complexity of the patterns he puts together, but that’s not the case. There’s no automation involved. Gilmore painstakingly assembles his compositions by hand in Photoshop. (8)

View more of his work here: http://www.agilmore.com/
https://www.instagram.com/a__gilmore/?hl=en

Chad M. Knight

Another digital artist that kickstarted his output with a 365-day challenge to produce a piece of art per day is Portland-based Chad M Knight. By day he’s a 3D design manager at Nike, and when he leaves the office, he opens up cinema 4d and experiments. Knight creates surrealistic compositions with sculptures that could be cult statues rendered in pristine landscapes in Cinema 4d. (9)

View more of his work here: https://www.instagram.com/chadknight/

David Mcloud

The New York-based Australian David Mcloud conjures up stunning 3D imagery. What I enjoy about the images Mcloud produces is that the textures and lighting he uses to give the objects in his compositions a realistic texture on an unrealistic object. His use of lighting and textures display his 3D prowess. (10)

View more of his work here: http://davidmcleod.com/
https://www.instagram.com/david_mcleod/

Chris LaBrooy

I’ve first started following the Scottish based digital artist Chris Labrooy based on his Porsche series and the cars he’d render out like hovercrafts, and other hyperreal contortions of cars. He creates hyperreal digital simulations and animations of realities that could never really exist.

View more of his work here: http://www.chrislabrooy.com/
https://www.instagram.com/chrislabrooy/

References

1. “YWFT Michael Paul Young.” YouWorkForThem, www.youworkforthem.com/designer/89/ywft-michael-paul-young/.

2. “Meet Alain Vonck, the Multifaceted Designer Inspired by 90s Digital Culture.” It’s Nice That, 18 May 2015, www.itsnicethat.com/articles/alain-vonck-art-director-and-designer.

3. “10 Questions with Julien Pacaud.” Gestalten, news.gestalten.com/news/10-questions-julien-pacaud.

4. “Digital Art Specialist Tyler Spangler Is Here to Blow Your Mind.” Rooster Magazine, www.therooster.com/blog/digital-art-specialist-tyler-spangler-here-blow-your-mind.

5. “Tyler Spangler.” Howl Magazine New York, www.howlnewyork.com/single-post/2016/10/26/Introducing-Tyler-Spangler.

6. Campbell, Colin. “Life of Design: Vasjen Katro — Life of Thought — Medium.” Medium, Life of Thought, 1 Nov. 2017, medium.com/lifeofthought/life-of-design-vasjen-katro-5164c86e99e9.

7. “Featured Artist: Mike Parisella (@Slimesunday).” Stock&Render, stockandrender.com/blogs/news/featured-artist-mike-parisella-slimesunday.

8. “Andy Gilmore.” Electric Objects, zine.electricobjects.com/interviews/andy-gilmore.

9. Bruney, Gabrielle. “This Surreal Digital Art Is a Visual Journal.” Creators, 1 May 2016, creators.vice.com/en_au/article/bmya9m/chad-knight-digital-art.

10. Ltd, Netki Pty. “David Mcleod.” The Design Kids, thedesignkids.org/interviews/david-mcleod/.