was born and raised in Northern Delaware where he has lived and drawn most of his life. he is a freelance graphic designer and illustrator under the name 'K3N' he is best known for his extensive work with the grammy nominated heavy metal band 'Lamb of God' though he has worked with hundreds of companys, organizations and bands over his career.
Ken has been a freelance designer for over 15 years he has created logos illustrations merchandise advertising packaging and print pieces for companies and individuals. he is also very skilled and experienced in screenprinting.
INFLUENCES: Ken Adams has alot of influences but some of his biggest have been: 50s and 60s "rubber monster" movies, the Simpsons, Pushead, Salvador Dali, Dr. Seuss, Derek Riggs (iron maiden cover artist), Hieronyms Bosch, Tim Burton, Edward Gorey, National Geographic, Starblazers, Soviet Iconography, skateboard art of the 80s, Jim henson / the dark Crystal, George Lucas and the first three Starwars movies, classic mMarvel and DC Superhero comics, H.R Giger / Aliens, Area 51, Punk Rock flyer art, the Millenium Falcon, and The Brains that wouldnt Die.
COMPOSITION: Ken Adams is a free lance designer so his work depends on the progect. however Adams does a lot of work for metal bands such as Lamb of God Kens work reflects the comic style of design his main images are always hand drawn. and are done in a with a lot of thin lines this gives a comic or almost detailed cartoon look a good example of this is on the 'Burn the Priest' album below. he uses a wide range of colour schemes mostly not very contrasting but more matching. the Suicide Silence album 'The Black Crown' is a good example of Adams using a contrasting colour the albums main image and background colours are a mixture of dark and light greys but the title is warm yellow this makes the album look very appealing and is one of my favourite album covers.
COLOURS: Adams is strategic with his colour schemes he places them in a way that gides the eye really nicely for example the album below the yellow of the of the title on they left side flows across to the fire in the nuns hand and then across further to the fire surrounding the priest and then back again. this means that your eye moves across the album cover in a really straight clear direction allowing you to clearly see everything that's going on with out confusing you. the 'Wrath' album is really nice because your eye is drawn imediatly to the centre of the page with the logo placed vertically in the middle of the page. although simple its still really effective.
MAIN IMAGE: all of Adams main images are hand drawn and then edited and coloured on the computer the position of the image depends on what the client wants so every piece of his work looks different. his main images are drawn with simple thin black lines and then simply coloured on the inside this gives his main images a really comic/cartoon style of design. this is one of the few similarities between most of his works.
TEXT/TYPE: Ken Adams is very minimal with text and type since he is mostly a illustrator and since he mainly designs albums not a lot of text is needed Ken will only use the name of the band and the name of the album on his covers and sometimes not even the band name. but when the band name is used its always the band font or logo, something that is put on all of the bands merchandise its something that people will remember and reconise.
(LAMB OF GOD - WRATH ALBUM)
(SUICIDE SILENCE - THE BLACK CROWN ALBUM)
(PINSTRUCK TATTOOS - WEBSITE)
No comments:
Post a Comment