Happy new year card!!!

"Hands" project in Thessaloniki Cheap Photo

Cheap art is an international art movement that brings several art forms closer to a wider public, declaring that art is for everybody, not just for the wealthy minority.

In the exhibitions of Cheap Art, everybody is able to buy great works of art in extremely low prices.

This year, the Photographic Centre Of Thessaloniki organizes a Cheap Photo Exhibition in TETTIX gallery in the centre of the city. The visitors of the exhibition will be able to buy original photos by well known photographers just for 65 euros. I am glad to be part of the Cheap Photo Exhibition with 6 photos from my "Hands" project. Here are 2 of my photos that will be presented (for first time) in Cheap Photo.

More info (in Greek language) here!

Cheap Photo opening: TETTIX gallery (Tsimiski Str. & Dialetti 3) Saturday 12-12-2009 to 15-1-2010 (Monday to Friday 6-10 am and Saturday 12-2 am)

Blood Donation Poster

Blood Donation is a major aspect. Donating blood is probably the most important thing you could offer to another human being.

I have co-operated in the past with the students of the Blood Donation Team from the University of Crete in co-operation with the "Agia Sofia" Pediatric Hospital of Athens. I had created an illustration for the blood donation project for one of their previous meetings which I have also presented here in Slipcase.

I am really glad that we had the oportunity to work together once more. During this project, I have tried to avoid using dark colors and shocking images. I thought it would be much better to illustrate a happy and optimistic view of blood donation.

The blood donation took place in Rethymno. I designed a grafitty-style city of Rethymno and a digital illustrated paper boat as a symbol of hope. The blood donation went really good and I am glad to create illustrations for such great purposes.

Mathematics

I have recently illustrated a book about mathematics. The writer, is a pre-school advisor, mathematician and a really talented writer. This is one of the experimental illustrations. Finally, we have chosen a different illustration style. The book is in publishing process and will be released soon. I will post some of the final illustrations and additional information about the writer as soon as the book is in the stores.

Photo Festival

I have created this picture for the poster of an annual photo festival, organized by the Photography Team of the University of Crete. Many events, such as an Exhibition of Viktor Koen, speeches and workshops will take place in several places form 20-27 of November 2009.

More info (in Greek language).

The last "Nymphs" photo

"Nymphs" was a photographic project created especially for the exhibitions of Cocun Urban Art. This one is probably the last photo from the "Nymphs" project.

This project is going to be finished soon, probably by designing a limited edition book with texts and photos. This picture is a little bit different than the others. It' s the view of my good friend's village house, digitally altered.

Edited in July 2009.

Mushroom

These are the mushrooms that I recently have designed for the invitation of the christening celebration of the lovely little princess Kalliopi. The celebration after the ceremony had a red mushroom theme, so I had fun time designing several kinds of mushrooms.

Toyhead series

I have designed this pictures in 2009. These were part of a project which was created for a restaurant wall in Athens.

Finally, we thought that some classical portraits, would be much better for that particular space. I loved this "toyhead" vintage series and I am finally planning to mount then on a small corridor wall of my office in Crete.

I haven't yet decided about the frame type, but I think I am going to solve this problem soon. When I finally mount them, I will probably post a pic.

Cult or Kitsch? Neither! Just ultra durable cucumbers...

Creating an illustration for a cucumber advertising poster is not the most usual project that could happen to a designer. This is an illustration for Valentine F1, an ultra strong and durable type of cucumbers.

This is a fast and simple illustration for demonstrating reasons.

Finally this illustration is not the chosen one, but I think its kind of... cult so i decided to post it here.

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Blood Donation

This is an arwork, created for a blood donation meeting. It is actually a photo montage, mixed with one of my simple line-art "pantrifi" drawings. I think it was really important for me to express an optimistic view. Donating blood is giving life. Donating is a shiny and optimistic act, and this is the message that his poster should pass on.

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mountains

Yesterday I was working on some illustrations for a web project. I designed some traditional cretan cartoon characters for a project that have recently started by an important personality of the international scientific community. The project is related to the development of unexploited mountainous areas. It is an interesting project with many important participants. I guess we are going to have further co-operation for really good purposes.
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religions

This is not a work in process. It's the book cover illustration of a recently published book. The book, is a philosophic novel, a story about religions, written by my good friend Thodoris Riginiotis. The symbols-key was his idea and I tried to illustrate it according to his way of thinking, which I think is close to my way of illustrating! lol.
Anyway, I think that we both like the final result ...

* The name of the book is "The most well - hidden secret in the world"

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elevation

Cocun is the art collective which we have co-created in 2005 with some good friends. Our main aspect is organizing FotoTherapy festival (of experimental art, video and photography).

A couple of days ago, we had a proposal, to prepare and curate an experimental photography exhibition in a small historical cretan village which is located 1300m high on the Cretan mountains. We have exhibited our work in several cities, but creating an event in a small village is a great experience.

The photo is from one of our previous exhibitions in the old school of Meronas village (Summer 2007). It's a very small village in the Cretan region of Amari. It was a fantastic experience for me, much better than showing my work in a big city gallery. The feedback from the people was great. I would positively never get that warm feeling in a, usually "cold", gallery space.

This proposal is for creating the event the first days of May. I hope everything will work out fine...
I will post more information as soon as we discuss the specific details.
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comix

Today, I have just completed a new episode for my comic series "Sifis".
This episode is about a corrupted politician who becomes monk in order to avoid the law and to gain more financial power.
It sounds like fiction, but, here in Greece it could also happen in real life... :)

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treasure hunting #2 (the awarded poster)

This is the illustration theme of the last year's annual Treasure Hunting poster.

The last Friday (13th of Fabruary) It was the 20th anniversary of the Treasure Hunting Game. During the 20 years of the game, many well known cartoonists from Greece have designed several great posters for the game. This year, there was a voting for the best poster and I am happy that this one (in the picture) I have designed was awarded as the best Treasure Hunting Poster ever.

The celebration night, when they gave the awards, I was out of town and I didnt manage to be there. Anyway, I fell honored. They told me that the celebration night was cool, real fun...
I guess I don't need an Oscar any more...!

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treasure hunting

Last weekend, I was hunting for a lost treasure in the streets of Rethymno. The "Lost Treasure" is a historical adventure game that takes place once a year in the city of Rethymno. The participants-treasure hunters are more than 5000 people.
The team that organizes the game this year (Mpoumpounes) told me to create the official poster. It is the second time I design a poster for this purpose. The first time was 1 year ago (see next post).
So... I decided to "deconstruct" one of the city monuments, the venetian "Rimondi" fountain.

I have also created a CD cover for the original treasure hunting soundtrack, composed by Antonis Zaharakis.

On Friday, I had a pleasent surprise related to last year's treasure hunting game (See the next post)...

The hunting was great fun. My team finally was 13th in the ranking (out of 45 teams). Not bad at all. Next year I hope for even better ranking, the trophy will be ours ;)

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schematic drawings

A close friend of mine, who is in Singapore (for PhD purposes) asked me to design a couple of icons for a project that is running.
He needed some fast, schematic drawings and it really didn't take me long to complete.

carival of crete

The last couple of weeks I am working on illustrations for the Carnival of Rethymno, which takes place in Crete, Greece. For these illustrations I have been co-operated with the 3D animator Petros Naoumis, who created the 3D modeling for the ice dolphin (the dolphin cartoon is the trademark of the carnival). The project is still on process. The main Carnival Parade will take place in Rethymno, the 1st of March. The celebrations will be completed in the 3rd day of March.

It had to be something flashy that aims to a wide range of ages. The main sumject this year is the "water". Blue is really "cold" to be used for a celebration poster, but I tried to experiment with liquid forms.

This is the main illustration. I have created some more but I don't thing I m gonna use 'em at the moment...
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Intro

This is not exactly a design portfolio. In fact it is not a portfolio at all.

I decided to create something like an online journal. Kind of an illustrated diary which contains some traces of my everyday creative adventures.
I guess it wont be conceptual at all. There are plenty of different projects that will take place in here, so I guess it will look like a big bin full of many different kinds of paper.
Let' s see...