design tavern

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Australian artist, Erin Smith, is pretty much your average young woman. The 27 year old artist moved to melbourne from Queensland to study graphic design and only just moved back to her home state this year. Graphic design didn’t turn out to be the career for her – “I find it difficult to sit in a chair inside for any period of time…and I’m hopeless at deadlines so I wasn’t very good.”

It was during her studies, however, that the fascination with typography really began.

“A few years ago at uni we were learning about typography, how different weights of a font can help create emphasis etc. About a year later, I was looking at the intricacy of the engracing of a smith and wesson pistol (on the computer, not my own) [and] I thought about this image in relation to typography then started using the computer to creat the image. I did a series of these for a project”

This penchant for letters and words, however, stems from a deeper interest in linguistics. In her pieces she used academic journals to “create the ‘palette’. The images themselves now stemmed from the underlying texts in which they are created,” she says.

“A few years ago at uni we were learning about typography, how different weights of a font can help create emphasis etc. at the time we created simple images with letraset. about a year later i was looking at the intricacy of the engraving of a smith and wesson pistol (on the computer not my own) i thought about this image in relation to typography then started using the computer to create the image. I did a series of these for a project.

as uni progressed and we began looking at linguistics, chomsky and the like. I thought about the technique again, this time using journals to create the “palette,” the images themselves now stem from the underlying texts in which they are created from. i have a strong interest in the human body and like learning about it. the work to me isn’t straight forward and literal. its interesting to observe others and how they see the images. the images are symbolic of the texts. i could go on and on but i still find it difficult to put into words.

“language is really interesting, sometimes what we dont say can play an imperative part in communicating, where there a no letters forms a negative space within the image which too plays a critical part in the formation of the image.”

Erin suggests that her inspiration comes from, well, everything!

“sounds corny but i have this thing where i want to learn everything, it gets a little crazy sometimes as there isn’t enough time. There’s heaps of amazing artists and designers. my partner jo pole is an artist who’s work i think is amazing, ex de medici, michael zavros, rosalie gascoigne, buro destruct anyone and everything.

Erin Smith’s work is always floating around Australia and readers elsewhere can view her amazing collection of works at her website http://www.erinsmith.com.au