"APD Talks blog" on WeChat

I am pleased to share with you that I am one of the three designers interviewed by the APD Talks blog. APD (Asia-Pacific Design) Talks is a graphic design blog on Weixin (Wechat). This particular post is about posters, and it's featuring, among others, my poster designs and the Tolerance Poster Show.

You can read the interview and see more images here.

 

News from Sina, China

I am very happy to share with you that today, Sina, one of the largest and
most influential websites in China, published an article about me under the title "World-Class Artist Mirko Ilic Signs With Modern Sky | Tolerance Poster Show Will Be Arriving in Shanghai in 2022".

If you read Chinese, you can read more about it here.

 

 

Blast From the Past

In April of 2020, I printed and arranged for posting my Corona awareness posters throughout New York. I did that to raise awareness among my fellow citizens.

In the following months, I designed the translated versions of the poster, and they were posted in 8 different countries around the world. You can see more about that here.

Today on my way to my studio, to my total surprise, I saw some of those posters on the scaffolding in the construction site on 21st Street. I don't know how, but they survived for more than a year and a half, moving from one construction site to another.

 

POLITICAL CARTOONS part 5: MIRKO ILIĆ

"I met Ilić in 2013. I had just finished a rousing discussion with Milton Glaser about art and he said, "You know, you should really meet Mirko. He's right upstairs." I'd never heard of Mirko, but when Glaser picks up the phone and tells someone you're coming, you don't say no."

From the Illustration Arts blog by David Apatoff. 

A Poster for All Seasons

In the fall of 2019, I started to design posters for JDP-Yugoslav Drama Theater. Currently, this is the fifth season in designing posters for them. When I started in the fall of 2019, I made the decision to make my life more complicated than needed. I decided to design each season in different styles/with different looks. The only thing that will stay the same is the typeface TyponineSans Pro designed by Nikola Djurek. I chose this typeface not only because of its beauty and legibility, but also it is one of the few typefaces that have both Latin and Cyrillic versions. 

The fifth season is not over yet, but here below you can see all the posters I have designed so far. Unfortunately, as you can see, the third season was interrupted by Covid-19, and that's why 2 posters are missing. 

You can see more about my JDP poster designs here.

The book "My Place Under the Sun" in the kindergarten

Today, December 6th, foundation Zaklada Vincero bought and donated 240 books to kindergarten Potok in Rijeka, Croatia. The book was created to raise awareness and funds for the non-profit organization Moje mjesto pod suncem (My Place Under the Sun).

I came up with the idea of creating a children board book that's based on the idea of a horizontal split of a logo. When one flips through the pages, one is not only exploring different combinations of faces, but also a variety of combinations of words written on the top and bottom pages. For the textual part of the book, I acquired help from famous Croatian writers Slavenka Drakulic and Rujana Jeger. They wrote the text in a way that in every possible page combination, the words always form a sentence that empowers and educates the kids. Altogether, 12 top and 12 bottom pages offer 144 different possible visual and textual combinations. 

All three of us, together with Bodoni publishing company from Zagreb donated all the profit from the book to Moje mjesto pod suncem.

Here below are a few photographs and videos of kids receiving the books. 

 
You can read more about this project here.

 

"Palos: Counterspy" comic by Nestor Redondo

My recent acquisition, Palos: Counterspy by Nestor Redondo, published in Redondo Komiks in the ’70s.

Nestor P. Redondo (1928 – 1995) was probably the most famous Filipino comics artist. He is best known for his work for DC Comics, Marvel Comics, and other American publishers in the 1970s and early 1980s. In his native Philippines, he is known for co-creating the superheroine Darna. 

 

You can find out more about Redondo here.

 

 

"Masters of the USA" La Paz, Bolivia

I am very pleased to announce that 3 of my posters, including Pylade designed with Nicky Lindeman, were selected to be shown at the Masters of the USA show. 

The show is part of the Bolivia Poster Biennial BICeBé 2021, in La Paz, Bolivia. It's an honour to be in the show with some of the best US designers.

 

You can read more about the poster here.

 

You can read more about the poster here.

 

You can read more about the poster here.

 

 

 

 

My Poster Design for the play "Zagreb–Belgrade via Sarajevo"

Latin and Cyrillic versions of my poster design for the play Zagreb–Belgrade via Sarajevo for JDP-Yugoslav Drama Theater in Belgrade, Serbia.

 

"In this play, we follow two young writers Ivo Andrić and Miloš Crnjanski on an imaginary train journey from Zagreb to Belgrade. Shortly after the end of the First World War in which Crnjanski fought on the side of Austria-Hungary, and Andrić was imprisoned in Maribor as one of the suspects in the Sarajevo assassination, the two meet in Zagreb at the moment when the Southern Slavonic people decide to live together in one country called the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. Strongly influenced by the pressures and euphoria of a victory and a defeat, the disappearance of a number of countries and the creation of several ones, breaking away from the past and embarking on something entirely new, this journey in 1919 takes us on an emotional and intellectual journey through the lives of these two young authors who discuss a number of interesting issues – questioning what has been and anticipating what is still to come."

 

You can see and read more about my poster designs for JDP here.

 

 

My Poster Design in Asia-Pacific Design No. 17

APD/Asia-Pacific Design is one of the most authoritative professional design yearbooks in the Asia-Pacific region, and it has published 16 volumes by Sandu Publishing since 2005.

I am very pleased that the new 2021 volume features my poster design for the Ulysses Theater in Croatia. This is the third time that my work has been selected for the APD yearbooks.

The Ulysses Theater was established in 2001 by one of Croatia's most famous contemporary actors Rade Šerbedžija along with his project partner, the writer Borislav Vujčić. Nearly all summer performances take place beneath the open sky in the 150-year-old Austro-Hungarian Fort Minor in Brijuni National Park. Despite a classical repertoire, their productions can be very grunge, partly because of their environment.

When I was invited to create the posters and billboards for the 20th anniversary of the theatre, I decided to create something in that style, classical / grunge. To get the appropriate typography I chose my go-to hand-letterer Nicky Lindeman.

You can see more about the project here.

  

The Poster Design for the Play "I Saw Her That Night"

Latin and Cyrillic version of the poster for the play "Te noci sam je video" (I Saw Her That Night). The play is the most ambitious artistic project in the region and is co-production between the JDP-Yugoslav Drama Theatre in Belgrade, the Slovene National Theatre Maribor, Burgtheater Vienna and Cankarjev dom Ljubljana.

"I Saw Her That Night, a love story in time of war, is a story about a few years in the life and mysterious disappearance of Veronika Zarnik, a young bourgeois woman from Ljubljana, sucked into the whirlwind of a turbulent period in history. We follow her story from the perspective of five different characters, who also talk about themselves, as well as the troubled Slovenian times before and during World War II; times that swallowed, like a Moloch, not only the people of various beliefs involved in historical events, but also those who lived on the fringes of tumultuous events, which they did not even fully comprehend―they only wanted to live. But “only” to live was an illusion: it was a time when, even under the seemingly safe and idyllic shelter of a manor house in Slovenia, it was impossible to avoid the rushing train of violence."

More of my theatre posters for JDP you can see here.

The Board Book" My Place Under the Sun"

The non-profit organization Moje mjesto pod suncem (My Place Under the Sun) originated in Rijeka, Croatia. Their program's primary goal is to provide children below the poverty line with activities that will enable them to grow and develop based on their abilities rather than on the severe social context surrounding them. They offer these kids quality extra-institutional education in the hope that it will boost their self-esteem and self-reflection and help them realize their full potential.

When I was asked to volunteer my services and create a logo for My Place Under the Sun, I decided to create something child friendly and also something empowering, that's why I created this image of a child as a superhero.

After creating the logo, to raise even more funds for the organization, I came up with the idea of creating a children board book that's based on the idea of a horizontal split of a logo. When one flips through the pages, one is not only exploring different combinations of faces, but also a variety of combinations of words written on the top and bottom pages. For the textual part of the book, I acquired help from famous Croatian writers Slavenka Drakulic and Rujana Jeger. They wrote the text in a way that in every possible page combination, the words always form a sentence that empowers and educates the kids. Altogether, 12 top and 12 bottom pages offer 144 different possible visual and textual combinations. 

With everything mentioned, we were able to make a very simple and inexpensive interactive book that's suitable for both parents and kids. Although it's very hard to understand the full concept of this book by only looking at the pictures, hopefully, you can get the gist of it.

All three of us, together with Bodoni publishing company from Zagreb donated all the profit from the book to Moje mjesto pod suncem.

You can see more pages of the book here.

PosterFest 03

The prestigious PosterFest 03 in Budapest, Hungary included two of my posters in their selection/show.

The poster 10th Festival Miroslav Krleža was created for the festival in Zagreb, Croatia, and the poster Moj muž (My Husband) was created for Yugoslav Drama Theater in Belgrade, Serbia.

My Work Featured in Book "Graphic Style"

I just received the Ukrainian version of the book Graphic Style: From Victorian to Hipster by Steven Heller and Seymour Chwast. 

I am honoured that my animation, design and illustration are featured in it.