Owen Gildersleeve Collaborates with Thomas Forsyth

(second photo taken by Jonathan Green)
Graphic designer and illustrator Owen Gildersleeve is now joining forces with friend and product designer Thomas Forsyth for 'Decked'. The two have decided to collaborate after discussing developments for the project in Berlin, Germany.

Thomas Forsyth is passionate about designing and making. "I need to use my hands to think - it is when I start letting my hands work freely that I can realise ideas".

Whether working on product, one-off pieces, curation, building, or drawings, Thomas believes in "being creative with what you have, and resourceful with what you don't". This exploration of materials and their properties makes him feel most alive.

There is a playful, fantastical theme that runs through his work, and objects are often subject to emergent properties such as secret compartments. Thomas is internationally acclaimed for his Drawing Tops (spinning tops which use a pencil for the spindle), which have attracted attention ranging from Designboom to MUDAM (Museum of Modern Art, Luxembourg). These simple objects can be used to make beautiful and intricate marks, putting children and adults on an even playing field when it comes to creating artwork.

Thomas's success in 2009 has included 'People's Choice Award' at Bristol Design Festival and showcasing his work at the Drawing Inspirations Award Ceremony, held at The British Museum.

More recently his work has been leading towards creating larger scale, functional social/community spaces, that encourage interaction and multi-purpose, interdisciplinary use.

You can find examples of Thomas's work on his website: www.thomasforsyth.com

Aaron Petz selected works!

To get us started introducing some of our artists here at Decked we asked the immensely talented New York designer and illustrator Aaron Petz to kick off with some of his works and a few words on how he created them...Avenged Sevenfold:
This silkscreen was designed for the Avenged Sevenfold All Excess DVD. The Silver is a reversal where you can see your reflection. I used halftones to make the stencil appear to be a real stencil. This DVD went gold. Warner Bros Records.

Boy Malitia:

This illustration was adapted from a National Geographic photograph of boy soliders in Africa. They are 7-18 yrs old in most cases and trained to kill. It was heartbeaking looking through all those images. You can see the expression of carelessness in the boys eyes. Private study.

Love Birds:
A Tribute to Roy Liechtenstein, Love Birds is a new adaptation of a piece of his work. The shirt was created using a direct to garment printing method and was created to look weathered and old. This is a tattoo inspired line with many call outs to classic American style tattoo art. Sweetest Vice Clothing.



Monique Baines:
Singer / Songwriter Monique Baines of of SRC Records debut album artwork called, "Listen". This image was conceptualized by hand, then roughly illustrated digitally for the perspective. Then we took a photo of the artist to plug her in to the composition. Album will be in stores soon.



Our Lady G:
This image was an original graffiti piece I did on the back of my house. From there I made a few sketches of it, scanned them in and the took a few photos and comped them all in using different stylized methods EX: line, halftones, blurs etc. What was left is now the trademark shirt of Fallen Angels.



Soulfly:
This image of Dana was illustrated and placed esthetically around a flock of birds. Soulfly puts on a charity event each year for Dana and will continue to do so. My job every year it to make sure the art looks better and better. This admat was for the Phoenix Newtimes.

To check out more of Aaron's work, take a walk down http://aaronpetz.com/