Often times our previous aspirations can mold our professional works.
Aaron Avila, a second-year graphic design student, is no exception. His love for film is proudly portrayed in his works.
Avila’s love for art began at a young age. His mother works at a library, which gave him endless access to books.
“I was a nerd who read a lot,” said Avila.
He would read Captain Underpants as a child. In elementary school, he made a rip off of Captain Underpants, which he named Super Toilet. Super Toilet was a toilet with super powers. All of his classmates loved it, which made Avila realize that people seemed to enjoy his creative endeavours.
This epiphanous moment sparked a creative light bulb moment for the young artist. Ever since then, Avila has worked to sharpen and mold his artistic skills.
More recently, Avila has worked at a movie theater for the past three years. When he was young, he aspired to be a movie director.
As he grew older, he realized that path would not be financially viable which led him to pursue graphic design as a career path.
“My love for movies still remains, which is why I work at a movie theater. I love my job and I love movies,” said Avila.
That, self-proclaimed, love for movies has been at the forefront of many of Avila’s works.
The Thing Minimal Movie Poster
This piece is a poster for John Carpenter’s The Thing.
Avila created this piece using Adobe Illustrator.
For this piece, Avila coupled his love for movies with his passion for art.
“I particularly like science fiction and horror movies,” said Avila.
Avila’s older brother was very influential to his artistic tastes.
His brother introduced him to a lot of science fiction movies, which peaked his interest.
“Watching movies with him at a young age gave me insight into what movies and music I like. He was very inspiring to me,” Avila said. “In graphic design, you want to have the concept down before you do anything. I really wanted to capture the feeling of the movie and some of the themes of the movie and put it into the piece.”
The themes he focused on were assimilation, identity and transformation.
He tried to portray those themes through this piece.
“We see that with the light coming from a single source, the mystery of where the arm is coming from, the shadows and the layered equality of the title,” Avila said. “This is my favorite piece because I feel like I nailed all the themes.”
Glen or Glenda? Minimal Movie Poster
This piece was also created using Adobe Illustrator.
Avila spoke with pride when discussing this piece.
“I like this piece because it took so long to get it right. I went through so many drafts to get this particular final piece here,” Avila said.
When going through peer critiques, many of his classmates did not understand what the piece was supposed to relay.
This movie was not science fiction or horror so it did not fit in with the other posters he made.
“Trying to get the theme, the quirkiness, and the qualities of the movie across was difficult. I was finally able to get everything down in the final piece which is why I am really happy with the way it came out,” Avila said.
Avila described this movie as “so bad it was good.”
He really wanted to capture the goofy and awkward characteristics of the movie.
“In some of my work I forget to be funny. I started as an artist doing comics but when I go into graphic design mode I get too serious. That is another reason why I like this piece so much, because I remembered to have fun with it,” Avila said.
The Antichrist
This digital photograph was taken with a Nikon D3400.
“I love abstract and stream of consciousness pieces. I believe you get the truth of something when it is intuitive rather than when you are sitting there thinking about it. This is not true all the time, but it is something I really like to explore through reading and the art that I enjoy,” Avila said.
Avila took this photo for a photography project, which was supposed to be modeled off of the Byzantine Madonna and Child paintings.
“As a photographer you continue taking photos and I found that my best pictures were those in between moments,” Avila said.
Avila aims to continue to grow as an artist. He hopes to consciously better his works while remaining true to his childhood passions and interests.
Show Comments (0)