Stefan G Bucher

Monster a Day

As part of the Artists That Inspire segment, I would love to talk about artist Stefan G Bucher. Stefan’s been around for a good long while. He’s a graphic designer and illustrator. If you’ve never heard of him or seen his work, now’s your chance! Actually, chances are that you probably have seen his work. He’s the artist who designed the CD packages for Brand New Day: The Remixes for Sting and the motion picture soundtrack for The Matrix, starring Keanu Reaves to name a couple. He also created the main title typography and title design for the films The Fall, Immortals, and Mirror, Mirror. And, he also designed a plushy yeti for Saks Fifth Ave.

Stefan G Bucher

In all honesty, I had seen his work, but never knew who he was until I saw these awesome little videos on YouTube. For about ten years now, Stefan’s been posting his Monster a Day videos. These short, minute and a half to two minute long time lapse videos show his unique method of creating quirky and darkly whimsical monsters and creatures.

What makes him so unique? Well, he uses free flowing black ink, black markers (sometimes colored markers), sometimes a toothbrush, and an air source. His work is what I’d like to call planned randomness. First, he lays down the ink in a stripe, or a swoosh, or a series of dots. Then with his air source, which I can never quite see (could be a compressor, could be an air duster), he blows the ink causing it to travel away from the origin point in spidery, spindly, creepy, and yes, random designs. From there he studies the ink blots and begins drawing in his creatures and monsters with marker.

“Planned randomness”? Well…he does lay down the ink where he wants and how he wants. He can even blow the air in the direction he wants. However, the resulting tendrils and spider-webbing patterns of ink is totally random and that’s part of what lends itself to his particular brand of doodle art. If Stefan tried to create his creatures entirely by hand, it would not be the same and his little monsters would lack the life and organic quality that this particular method gives them.

This is another example of an artist who inspires me regardless of how different his art is from mine. What strikes me the most about Stefan’s work is the quirky, doodle quality of his monsters and the beautiful precision of his typography. He doesn’t just pick a font. He creates typography to match the project at hand. That being said, Stefan, if you’re out there…forgive me for using a standard font in my banner!

But ultimately, it was the videos of the little monsters that caught my attention and made me take notice of Mr. Stefan G Bucher. If you know me at all, you know that I love artists’ time lapse videos. The bonus with Stefan’s videos is that they are so short. They are however, a little addicting. They’re so short that I want to see the next one, and the next one, and the next one…

Discover Stefan G Bucher for yourself. Visit his website 344 here, watch his monsters here, and check out his TedTalk here.

Post note:

I finally saw a Skillshare video with Stefan on how he creates his ink blots. He uses an air duster!