UCLA student uses creativity, graphic design skills to create zines
"Early in the Morning," a hand-made 18 page zine that Venkov describes as "filled with a mix of collage, illustration, typography, all kinds of scanner mischief, and some poetry as well... partly conceived as a reflection of early COVID-19 induced melancholy." Philip Venkov is designing his dreams into a reality.
After years of practice, the first-year design media arts student is showcasing and selling his art on his Instagram account and website. Launched Nov. 13, his website “Philip Venkov” features zines and prints, kick-starting his business journey with art, Philip Venkov said. The difficulty with creating a business, however, is facing the conflict of pricing artwork while still finding a way to make it affordable, he said.
“It’s definitely difficult to find balance in terms of charging people for rates and then also pricing hard work,” Philip Venkov said. “But other than that, it’s been very satisfying to get a positive response, even if it’s mostly friends and family members that have been most interested in purchasing my work.”
Philip Venkov began exploring graphic art in his high school art class where he said he grew as a multimedia artist in illustration and graphic design. Inspired by various artists such as Jason Galea, Philip Venkov said he has found his niche with art inspired by his musical interests, where his music taste manifests in the aesthetic of his artwork. The result of this manifestation is a combination of retro and psychedelic abstract art, he said.
“I take inspiration from psychedelic imagery, and there is a lot of psychedelic influence,” Philip Venkov said. “In general, a lot of my work gravitates towards distorting reality. I started thinking things that aren’t quite realistic.”
Philip Venkov’s creative process begins with an image that he either draws or captures on camera, a step that carries more freedom as he goes with his instincts on what he feels like drawing, he said. After scanning the piece to digitize the drawing, he said he vectorizes the image to easily scale or modify the work without hurting the quality. He then incorporates Photoshop, adding colors and textures and layering the artwork on itself to add more depth and variation to the design.
For Philip Venkov, every decision is intentional in his artwork, with themes and motifs placed throughout. He said time is a motif present in a large amount of his work, seen in images such as a frozen eye or a candle melting to show minuscule moments that often go unnoticed in human life. He said the color palettes he chooses are deliberate as well, such as blue used for melancholic reflection or green and gold used to evoke a feeling of luxury. – Saba Sharfuddin, Nov. 30, 2021
This post is an excerpt. Read the full article on the Daily Bruin website.
HEADER IMAGE: First-year design media arts student Philip Venkov designs music posters and zines and recently launched a website to sell his prints. (Katelyn Dang/Illustrations director)
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