Illustrator Owen Davey

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Owen Davey is an award-winning British illustrator, who specializes in digital illustration and animation. His work is usually recognizable by the mixture of geometric shapes alongside unique textures and patterns, creating a style that has a vintage charm, reminiscent of retro advertising. Owen has drawn for many brands including the National Geographic, Google and Lego and has stated that many of his design inspirations stem from comic books and American cartoons from the mid-century movement of the 50’s and 60’s.

One thing I’ve noticed about the effectiveness of Owens designs is the limited colour palettes he uses. Almost all of his pieces use a small selection of complimentary colours and shades on each. I feel this creates cohesion throughout the work and is especially effective with his larger projects.

I also appreciate how he mixes textures and solid, geometric shapes. I feel this is especially effective when illustrating characters and animals, as the simple shapes combined with rough or geometric textures communicate personality. I think this is something I could incorporate into my own work, as I aim to purposely illustrate my characters in a similar 2D style so they are easier to animate. Incorporating unique textures into my designs could make certain elements stand out while maintaining the simplistic stylistic choice.

Animations

Owen has created many illustrated animations while working as a freelance artist. Below I have linked two of his animations that influence my current project:

The first is a short animation depicting ‘the life of Albus Dumbledore’, which was made as a promotional video for the brand Pottermore. I’m interested by the linear top – down approach as its clear he considered how the video would appear on a social media platform. The linear approach also enhances the story progression, communicating it in a clam and simple manner. It’s a very unique yet compelling way to animate a story. I also like how he composes his animations; The use of layering different elements creates depth and adds dimension to the narrative.

The life and times of Albus Dumbledore: https://www.instagram.com/p/Bl5_ETNhTTY/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=embed_video_watch_again

Non animated version: https://www.owendavey.com/Pottermore-Dumbledore

The second is another promotional video for the brand IC! Berlin. This animation was made to promote their ‘Cinematik’ eyewear campaign, inspired by archetype characters from movies and television. The animation depicts a range of stereotypical characters from different genres centred around their different types of eyewear.

Each scene was made up of a completely different colour pallete suited to the character and the film genre to further set each scene apart from one another. Something I notice through all his animations is that smaller elements are animated over larger ones, which I think is a simple yet effective approach. I’m definitely planning on taking inspiration from this method for my own project, as I feel animating smaller elements of an illustration is much more effective and less time consuming.

IC Berlin Cinematik: https://www.owendavey.com/IC-Berlin-Cinematik

Project 4 Research

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