Luke Lucas analysis

This piece of typography is made by Luke Lucas for a book cover, the name of it is 'Distro'. Luke Lucas is a 36 year old freelance artist, from Australia, working as an art director, illustrator, designer and typographer. From 1996 to 1999 he was a co founder/co creator of Fourinarow magazine and from 1999 to 2011 was a co founder/creative director of Lifelounge. I chose to analyse this piece as I want to use some typography within my final outcome, especially for my poster and mail out. 

I have looked at the artists website to further my understanding of him and his work. The theme of the work is gadgets/technology/computers, I know this because its a book cover for 'ways to please a geek' and the typography is made out of cables and wires. The name of the work 'Distro' could be referring to a computing website called distrowatch, a set of software components or Linux operating system. This represents the theme of the work as it is a computing term. The artist has got inspiration from looking at computers and choosing to make the typography out of wires, USB cables and LED lights. 

The typography has been made on the computer using vector graphics, most likely in Adobe Illustrator. Using tools such as the pen tool, shapes and line tool to create the basic structure of the typography and then applying different gradients, colours and effects to make the final piece. The artist has mainly used colours that are associated with computers, such as black, grey, red and white but has added in some pink to brighten it up. The background colour is kept black so that the typography placed on top stands out so it is easy to read and so there are no clashing colours. The artist has also used texture on the black background, that looks like a speaker or computer fan to show the theme of computers. 

I chose to analyse this piece of typography as it looks stylish, stands out and represent the theme of the book very well. I would also like to use a similar type of typography for my own work. At first I thought the work was a poster for something music related, but after reading it found out it was about computers. I really like the work as it looks very professional and well made, the only down side is that it may be hard to read. It has inspired me to create my own piece of typography for my work that resembles the theme really well and clearly.

Here are some more examples of Luke Lucas' work: