This week I'm reviewing the work of Dan Stiles. Specifically his posters. I really enjoy the unique way he includes faces into his work, as well as the colors he incorporates. It doesn't seem like Stiles is afraid of colors and I think a lot of that is due to how well he uses it.

Below I've chosen a poster from Dan Stiles's vault. It's really not my favorite one of the posters he's done, but I like it because of the composition. I think he has a lot of the shapes down really well, but I also think there are some aspects that aren't great. 

Form

Stiles uses a combination of organic and geometric shapes. I think he does a great job drawing in the viewer's attention with the flower in the helmet, but I don't love the size of the crack in the helmet. It doesn't look big enough compared to the other lines.

Color

Stiles uses a combination of warm and cool colors to create this piece. I think they work really well together and create a good contrast. I don't love the colors made to create the wave, but I think the colors for the flowers work well.

Then there's the colors he chose to use as shadows. I think they work well because they are darker variations of the white and blend into the background. You can tell exactly where the light is coming from because of the color of the shadows. 

I think the transition from cool to warm colors in the title itself was also a great, eye-catching use of color as well.

Line

The movement of the lines in the helmet, especially the darkest blue lines, work really well to draw the viewer's attention throughout the poster. The curve of the wave in the helmet also moves your eye around what elements there are, and the shadows on the suit make create a line that very naturally imitates light.

The element of line I don't like that he incorporated was in the typography. I think the combination of geometric shapes doesn't exactly work well here because there is too much of a contrast within the text and compared to the rest of the poster. 

Overall, it was nice to find a piece of work from a graphic designer that I admire, but also that I could find elements I did not like about his work and why I didn't like it.

I encourage all to check out Stile's work through the website I linked earlier in this post. He is extremely talented and I hope I can share more work like his.