Artistic INSIGHT
Joe Wood
By Ben Nunnally energy that’s especially apparent in the sports images, where each subject looks like they could start moving at any time. Wood has a talent for deciding at the beginning of a project what feeling he wants to communicate and go from there. “My professional work has really strengthened my skills as an illustrator,” says Wood. During his five years as a professional graphic designer, he’s learned about targeting his work for audiences, evoking certain feelings and making a unified statement in his work. It translates into his personal creations, as well: for projects like the sign he made for his wife’s third grade classroom, Wood took his wife’s suggestion that he
“Growing up, I always drew in class when I was supposed to be paying attention,” jokes Joe Wood, a Jacksonville local and professional graphic designer.
While he’s at work, he makes slick, professional graphics for marketing and branding. By night, he creates his personal . The process, says Wood, is to start with a subject or reference model and illustrate. Then he scans his work into a computer, where he’ll handle the coloring and adding flourishes like typography and digital effects. It’s the same process a comic book artist would use to create page and cover art. “I always loved comic books, and I always drew from them,” he says. It’s easy to spot the influence in his vibrantly-colored, thick-lined images. His football players, ballerinas and fantastically dangerous-looking goblin are ready to pop off the page. There’s a kinetic
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September 2013
INSIGHT