If you don’t know who Keith Haring is you must’ve been living on a deserted island far far away for about 30 years now. Even if you don’t recognize the name, you’ll definitely know the work. Haring doesn’t need an introduction, so instead I’ll tell the story of my first encounter with his work and how it’s directly responsible for me actually doing what I do nowadays. And everything I did along the way. My roommate calls this the story that will be the intro scene to my biopic… if I’ll ever become famous enough to have one ;).

When I was about 9 or 10 I had been messing around in class one day which ended up in me having to stay for detention. My teacher gave me a book to read and at the end of detention I had to tell her what it was about. The book she gave me was a book on Haring which sucked me right in from the first page. Ofcourse his work with it’s bright colors and simple shapes is very accessible, on top of that I occupied most of my spare time with drawing (usually comics/cartoons) so the work was inspirational even at that age. I ended up reading the whole book and telling my teacher exactly what it said too. And from there on I carried that inspiration with me, unconciously.

I’ve always been someone who obsesses over information. I can spend hours, if not days, on sites like Wikipedia and IMDb just going from page to page absorbing the information. I think reading the Haring book is one of the first instances I can remember of me doing this. I took up all the information and throughout the years looked for any/everything that connected with it. Back then in the pre-internet days it was a lot more work too. Whenever I would be at the library I would always end up by the Haring books and later on also the Pop art books.

When I got older I got more interested in graffiti and eventually involved in it too, which is a whole story on it’s own. Due to that interest and my love for art I stumbled upon the work of another huge inspiration of mines, Jean-Michel Basquiat. And while I was obsessing over all available information on him I automatically ended up back with his friend & colleague, Keith Haring.

It wasn’t until I got into art school that I actually realized the influence of his work on my way of thinking and ultimately my life. Funny enough his work has always come back to me in cycles ever since I read that book. First upon finding Basquiat and later when I attended the Utrecht School of Arts, where I often seemed the only one who was excited about the fact the school has a real original Haring illustration spraypainted on it’s elevator. It also wasn’t until then that I really started looking at his work not only with a trained eye, but being older and understanding the topics behind it better. Seeing the simplicity with which he raised awareness for and gave his opinion on social issues such as Apartheid and AIDS. As a kid the childlike innocence of his work spoke to me, but when I got older the genius behind it made me realize why it’s so appealing.

The thing that really interests me is his earlier work and the evolution into his well known “Radient Baby” stuff. Although everybody is probably familiar with the work he did in the last few years of his life, I doubt most people have ever seen his earlier stuff. As a young artist it’s really appealing to see this transition he made from simple drawings to simplifying it even more. I like being able to see an artist/designer find his/her style throughout experimenting and it’s very nicely documented on Haring’s website.

Sadly Keith Haring was diagnosed as HIV positive in 1988 and passed away at the age of 31 on February 16th 1990, which for those who don’t know is my birthday and was the first reason I felt connected to his work upon reading the book in school as a young kid.

I’ll leave you with some of the work I personally find the most interesting out of his career. The work he did at the very beginning of his career and the work he did at the end, after being diagnosed with HIV. If you like his work make sure you check out his official website, Haring is amazing.

The text on this one (image of the left) comes from William Burroughs’ “The Valley”:

Soon the rot sets in. They wake up spitting teeth and blood and pus. It is time for them to learn the ancient songs and music, time to start making their instruments. They also make a moon-corn beer to be used at the festivals. The Death Beer is lethal, one cup can kill in three days… three days of agonizing bone aches, and hemorrhaging through the skin, literally sweating blood. To avoid this horrible death, the Corner chooses some one to kill him at dawn. This is done by thrusting a knife under the rib cage and into the heart.

Escape from the valley occupies our life. We could tunnel out, perhaps. Such a tunnel was undertaken, but after five years of work there was no way to supply air and the tunnel workers suffocated. The tunnel has long since fallen in, but you can still see the entrance. It’s a good place

For years I grew up with Saul Bass’ work surrounding me but had never conciously heard of Saul Bass. It wasn’t until I was studying multimedia design at the Graphic Lyceum that I ran into his “Man With The Golden Arm” poster and went and did my research. For those who don’t know, Saul Bass was a graphic designer and Oscar-winning filmmaker, best known for his animated movie title sequences. With this work Bass’ completely changed this aspect of filmmaking, taking it from the regular listing of cast & crew to concept driven animations. Or as the Design Museum puts it:

When the reels of film for Otto Preminger’s controversial new drugs movie, The Man with the Golden Arm, arrived at US movie theatres in 1955, a note was stuck on the cans - “Projectionists – pull curtain before titles”.

Until then, the lists of cast and crew members which passed for movie titles were so dull that projectionists only pulled back the curtains to reveal the screen once they’d finished. But Preminger wanted his audience to see The Man with the Golden Arm’s titles as an integral part of the film.

Apart from his numerous title sequences he’s also responsible for some of the best graphic design work ever, influencing many designers worldwide.

I can’t exactly tell why I have an obsession with minimalistic work, most of my own work is as minimal as it can be and I absolutely hate it when a client wants me to add more and more, but most likely it comes from plain laziness and trying to see how simple yet effective you can make something.

This simplicity is exactly the reason I’ve always been drawn to Bass’ work too. I’ve always liked it when there is a nice looking image that can pass for just that, a nice image, but at the same time when you look closer it has depth too. Think of, for example, the arrow in the FedEx logo. Something that people still discover on a daily basis while they’ve been familiar with the logo for years. Bass’ work is a perfect example of that, it’s detailed without being detailed. On top of that it’s timeless, something that must be one of the hardest things to nail in this craft.

When I later on ended up studying at the Utrecht School of the Arts, one of my teachers was Max Kisman. Max Kisman is one of the best graphic designers/illustrators ever to come out of this country so naturally I was very excited to have the honor of being one of his students. In the near future I’ll definitely write on his work too as he’s one of my biggest and most recent inlfuences for both my work itself as well as my work methods. And that is exactly what resurrected my love for Saul Bass’ work… work methods.

In Kisman’s class we were limited to working with a pen/pencil and a piece of paper. Wheter you could draw or not didn’t matter, it was what you saw and what you put down on that paper that mattered. Or more so HOW you put it down. Having grown up in this computer age and as a designer always being used to having that computer around it was definitely a challenge to let go of everything. When I look at old(er) design work and think of the work it took back then as opposed to the possibilities of our beloved Illustrator® these days, I often almost feel as if we’re cheating on ourselves and our craft.

Bass’ work functioned as a huge inspiration when it came to simplifying my methods of working. The simplicity with which he often got the point across is pure genius, for example this page from the 1962 children’s book “Henri’s Walk To Paris” written by Leonore Klein and illustrated by Saul Bass (image courtesy of Grainedit.com).

All you see throughout the book is all that’s ’said’ by Henri. When Henri mentions the thousands of buses you see buses, when Henri mentions his house, the trees and the one squirrel there that’s what the illustration shows too. But all without much detail, in Bass’ trademark minimalistic and playful style. A rectanglish shape with two circles below it and four squares in it is all that’s used, but I doubt there is anybody that doesn’t recognize a bus in it. That is exactly the power behind his illustrations, his ability to simplify something yet keep it very recognizable. Or like Martin Scorsese said referring to Bass’ title sequences:

“An emblematic image, instantly recognisable and immediately tied to the film”

Bass passed away at age 76 in 1996, leaving behind one of the most impressive portfolios ever and still inspiring many artists, filmmakers and designers today. To show why he’s such a big inspiration to me there’s some more of his work below and check here to watch the majority of his title sequences.