Illustration Intro: Lecture

This is a flier for Logan Square's "Square Affair". It was designed by Chicago Illustrator Mary Charlene. Unfortunately, I cannot find much about her aside from a personal Myspace page.

I really enjoyed this flier for a few reasons. First, I am a big fan of thin, care-free, organic line work. The buildings seem to shake a bit and have an organic feeling to them that reflects the nature of the bushes in front of them. I love the very tangible feeling about this work. It is very obvious that it was drawn by hand with pen at a relatively small scale which really feels like a nice reminder of how awesome it is to doodle.

The colors in this piece are also very satisfying for me. Though I am pretty sure the work was colored in Photoshop, it still maintains a very pleasant screen printed or even paper-cut feeling. The blue strokes over the faceless yellow figures remind me of construction paper cut-out dolls and feels very innocent and fun.

Also, as a long-time inhabitant of Logan Square, I feel that she did effectively capture the feeling of the neighborhood. The two and three-flats are all old and some many are falling apart and the large plane of green reminds me of the grass medians that line Kedzie and Logan Boulevards. However, I think there could definitely be some tangled power lines peaking up from behind the houses.

I am also a huge sucker for big, friendly, hand-drawn type. I enjoy the letter forms...but they could totally be tightened up a bit. Your eyes sort of get lost in there at first.