Work the Metaphor

Shaz Madani

I am really impressed by the work of Shaz Madani.

This is the first work that I saw of Madani. Aside from any subtle meaning in the image, it is undoubtedly a seriously impressive image aesthetically. There is something really satisfying about the clean cut corners and the number of layers and the perfectly formed leaves and letterforms which makes it really difficult to look away from the picture. In fact it makes you want to have it in front of you at this moment so that you can flick the pages examine the smoothness of it all.
This is a piece of work for Arctic Paper which is basically a group that concentrate on creating high quality creative design with a thought for the environmental impacts. Oh and they love paper for some reason.
The image is really pretty clever in what it says and the way that it's been created. The new leaf part of it is clearly to do with 'turning over a new leaf' which everyone knows as changing for the better. In this sense the leaf part of it relates to changing for the better and the actual leaf-like paper which it is consturcted from. In a similar way the turning over part of the type is to do with chaning for the better and also relates to turning over the pages of the clearly layered piece of work. Some of teh leaves are also making a peeling effect to relate to the turning over.
I think that this is a message about changing consumption habits or maybe just about being aware of the environmental ffects of your life.

This is a small commisioned piece for an article in the New York Times. This is really interesting and effective typography. The word toxic is always a negative thing which brings ideas of danger and death and discomfort and Madani has captured this really well in the type. It is probably most intersting because of the entire composition of the short phrase in that it isnt a font at all and each letter is unique, even repeated letters. This makes it look much more like an image than a word which I really like and I think it works really well.
The murky colour seeping away from the black looks really poisonous and is quite uncomfortable to look at. It appears really chemical-like and the way it seeps outwards from pure black gives the impression of a solid letterform dissolving violently. It is clear that full perfectly formed letterforms were used originally and manipulated and edited to create this effect.
i think it works really well at expressing the sickly toxic feel. It definitely looks like the letters are dangerous and I'm sure that you'd keep well away from them if they were physically infront of you.

This is a really simple part of a campaign called 'Man or Mouse' which is designed to persuade people to spend less time in front of their computers and more time doing things in the real world.
It really simply shows the word ONLINE cut in half. I love the simplicity of the image and the way that it is cut probably at the exact point where the word would start becoming illegible and unreadable. The simple black on white is really bold and there is no choice of where to look but directly at the word.
I think it is really simply saying cut the time you spend on the computer by half. It's really simple, the online is litterally cut in half so it's almost an order (not a persuasion or advice).
The font used is clear and bold and the whole image is straight to the point.

This is a cover design for The Hospital Club's magazine. It is based on the theme of this issue which is "Don't". Again , this is a really simple idea of representing the word don't without using the word and incorporating imagery which reminds the reader of other relevant things.
It shows the word DO! with a large red cross straight over the top of it. Everybody knows that a large red cross over something means "don't do this". By not DOing you something, you DON'T do it. The red cross creates images of no smoking signs and traffic signs and hundreds of other visual representations of being told not to do something.

This is a piece of work called "What is a pound worth?" about the materialistic world that we live in. This a realy clever piece of graphic design and is really relevant to the mailshot brief. Madani is almost insulting the recipient or at least forcing them to look at their life in a different perspective for a while. Madani has taken the really litteral route in this idea by saying that a pound coin is litterally only worth 3p in the metal that comprises it.
He uses "you're being ripped off" in a litteral term aswell by making the user actually rip the paper to see that sentence. It is also clever in the way that a recipient might be expecting something nice in the envelope which relates back to the materialistic view of the world.

This piece of work is called 'Tootpaste is Pointless". It is about how there are other ways to keep your teeth clean instead of the ordered ritual of tooth brushing twice a day. I think that the posters are bold, but I don't really like the imagery. The poster on the right has really bold imagery and there's no doubt that you couldnt help but read what it is about, but the apple looks more like a monster than something you should be eating. I think it could have been effective just to simply have an apple with a few bite marks out of it or something more playful than the huge teeth actually on the apple. Saying that, it is clever how Madania has clearly created the image of an apple and teeh and yet all he has used is block of white and a starnge white circle to give us the image.
The simplicity of the posters and the imagery makes them really playful and the rd and green colours are a brilliant representation of an apple. The green poster could incorporate an apple under the writing with a bit out of it so that the "bite me" has soimething to relate to and then the poster would have context and be able to work on its wn without the red poster.