-Poster Design
For almost five months now, I've made one poster a week. I've found that during the process of working on long projects (Like the design of this website) the work can start becoming a bit repetitive, so it is always really nice to have one day when I can just let my creativity take over.
This poster has been a long time in the making. About a year ago, I began redesigning a couple of letters from a font called Amient by Piotr Łapa. My intention was to create a full project around my take on those letters, with a fictional brand identity, a complete case study, and so on. However, due to one thing and another, I only started working on the project a couple of months ago. Eventually, I put the project on hold and decided to work on other things. But then I had a spontaneous idea that I really wanted to execute. My idea for the poster was to create a kind of retro-futuristic tag that looks like a real thing but has moving elements. I imagined that some secret organization would use them to communicate, and these are the remains of one of these messages that have been found and cataloged. The letters flashing in the top right corner show the letters I modified before and after. The letter redesign of the font on this poster alone took over a month. The texture was achieved by printing the design on red paper, cutting it out, and scanning it. I then added the moving elements back onto the poster in Photoshop.
I have always been fascinated with black holes and space in general, so I decided to make a poster about black holes. I was inspired by a space themed calendar from the 70s that has beautiful modernist grid layouts and typography. The poster was designed primarily for my Instagram, so I decided to go with the digital format and add some motion to the poster by using animated text and video to illustrate the concept of universal decay more effectively. Although the motion is frozen in the printed version of the poster, the idea is not lost.
I really like this pixel heavy, brutalist style, so I wanted to try it out on a poster. The brutal two-tone effect of the animation of the eye was achieved by using a threshold filter. Then I used different blend modes to merge the video with the rest of the poster.
This poster was designed around the idea that it would spin as it is the center of a record. So I made the design viewable from multiple orientations. I also connected the two words visually by tieing the dot of the “i” in “Creative” to the top of the “s” in “Ecstasy” Overall this is one of my favorite posters as the format is just something completely different from what I usually do, and the message represents the core of my brand.
The Bachelor chair has become another one of my most favorite pieces of furniture recently. It is the perfect example that there is no need for complex construction and materials. With the simple aluminum frame and minimal leather pieces, this chair is as simple as it is beautiful. I had a lot of fun with this poster as this is my favorite style of design; sophisticated, clean, functional, and beautiful, just like the chair itself. The poster is split into 4 segments, which all follow the golden ratio. I made dozens of different versions with different imagery and layouts.
In this poster, I explore the concept behind creative ecstasy, which is basically the meaning of my username. The funny part is that originally the word "REZTOKIA" didn't have any meaning, but a while back, I started working on a proper top-to-bottom branding for "REZTOKIA," and part of that was finding a reasoning behind the word. I already knew the message, so I decided to generate an etymology with ChatGPT, and it came up with something absolutely perfect. The word "REZTOKIA" is derived from the combination of the Latin word "res," meaning "thing," and the Greek word "tokos," meaning "birth." Not only does this work perfectly with my brand and brand messaging, but the meaning goes much deeper than those words. If you take the time to dive into the old Greek philosophy, you'll find very similar concepts of creative ecstasy and the fulfillment of doing deep creative work. If you want to read more about this, it's all in the text column on the poster! Aesthetically, I was really inspired by @alessioborando and his "El Oasis" project. I also really wanted to try out a new technique where you convert images to text, in this case, ASCII.
This is one of my favorite posters to date, it also took me may too long to find a visual execution for the idea I had in mind. Originally I wanted the poster to be about brutalist architecture, because that is something that really fascinates me, but the images with the custom type and color scheme just didn't meet my usual standard, so I scraped the design. The new version was inspired by a retro bank card I really enjoyed the look of. The texture in this poster is again 100% real. I printed the poster on some heavy paper at about A5 size, cut it out and gave it some tough love to make it look old and weathered. I really enjoy this one a lot, not only because it pares so well with my BARKOF poster.
I made this poster in anticipation of the upcoming movie called “Oppenheimer”. My goal was to create an impressive an unusual movie poster, and it admittedly took me many attempts to land on a concept that I liked. The dark theme of the poster fits well with the topic of death and destruction of the movie, while the typesetting displays important information such as the lead actors and some of Oppenheimer's most famous quotes. This is one of my most favorite posters I have ever made, as it manages to have such a profound visual impact while only using typography.
Every so often, I like to go back to the golden age of graphic design and make some timeless modernist posters. The poster showcases my logo, the square above the triangle, which believe it or not I have been using since I was 8 years old. It is a combination of my initials: P.L.R. overlaid on top of each other and the simplified to this shape.
Risk...Take it. This poster is not only a risk but was also a challenge for me to try to push myself out of my comfort zone in at least two aspects. For one, there are 4 different colors in this poster. Yes, 4! For me, this is a great achievement as I usually prefer two-tone designs. Another thing, I resisted the urge to add a whole bunch of details, another thing that I usually prefer in my designs. One thing I haven't been able to kick yet is my addiction to modernist typography. :( As you could probably tell, this poster was inspired by modernist design, in particular, modernist board games. I greatly enjoy the use of simple primary colors and minimal typography. The "risk cards" in this design are real – I actually printed them out first and then decided to make this design with them. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this one.
This poster is supposed to be a stab at modern art. I feel like nowadays we've lost all appreciation of skill and craftsmanship, all that matters now is putting something on a large white wall or in a huge golden frame, and it's considered art. Obviously, art is subjective, for instance I don't consider my stuff art, but I think that some of today's art is just plain stupid and hollow.
To celebrate the one-year anniversary of REZTOKIA I made this poster. It was inspired by the cover of the book "SOMETHING'S OFF" by Nike and Off-White. I spent a lot of time tweaking the interplay between contrast, white space and hierarchy. My goal was to create high visual interest with very few graphical elements. By offsetting the elements, the poster is viewed in an S-curve from top to bottom, which is the most engaging for the viewer.
The Togo sofa has become one of my favorite pieces of furniture recently. It is a beautiful example of form follows function. I had a lot of fun with this poster as this is my favorite style of design; sophisticated, clean, functional and beautiful, just like the sofa itself. The poster is split into 4 segments, which all follow the golden ratio. I made dozens of different versions with different imagery and layouts.
For this poster celebrating my 20K milestone on Instagram, I was really inspired by Helvetica posters and modernist typography, as well as the book Grid and Raster systems. I particularly enjoyed working on perfecting the typography and layout, making a lot of different versions. Also, all the texture you see is made using a printer and a scanner, which is one of my favorite ways of adding textures!
This poster is the forerunner to my Barkof poster and the beginning of that project. It is also, maybe not the origin, but the first use case of the name I have become known with; REZTOKIA. As you can see, this was before I changed the S to a Z. The idea for this poster started when I saw this really cool, old yellowed package label. This inspired the lower part of the poster. For the upper font, the title of which has no meaning, I was inspired by the font Amient Piotr Łapa which I heavily modified.
"Align your life to your dreams" To be fully honest I was on a pinch making this and these types of poster, although not of less quality or greatness, are rather easy to execute. Obviously, getting the idea is the hard part. This poster was inspired by the book Grid and Raster Systems, an excellent book that teaches you all about the use of grids from the perspective of German graphic design in the 80s. All thought this poster isn't very flashy, this is the sort of thing I would hang on my wall. .
This is a creative idea I came up with a while ago, and I finally decided to execute it. The concept revolves around a character drawn in who has the ability to manipulate printed text, resulting in seemingly impossible outcomes. As I often say, but particularly applicable here, this project was incredibly enjoyable to work on. It served as a reminder that in creative endeavors, the primary focus should always be on creating without limitations, objectives, or judgment, as that’s where the true magic happens. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this fun little series.
This is a creative idea I came up with a while ago, and I finally decided to execute it. The concept revolves around a character drawn in who has the ability to manipulate printed text, resulting in seemingly impossible outcomes. As I often say, but particularly applicable here, this project was incredibly enjoyable to work on. It served as a reminder that in creative endeavors, the primary focus should always be on creating without limitations, objectives, or judgment, as that’s where the true magic happens. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this fun little series.
This is a creative idea I came up with a while ago, and I finally decided to execute it. The concept revolves around a character drawn in who has the ability to manipulate printed text, resulting in seemingly impossible outcomes. As I often say, but particularly applicable here, this project was incredibly enjoyable to work on. It served as a reminder that in creative endeavors, the primary focus should always be on creating without limitations, objectives, or judgment, as that’s where the true magic happens. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this fun little series.
Lately, I've been really struggling with perfectionism. That is to say, I feel like I've set such a high standard for myself on social media, and everything has to be better than what I've done before. This is partly the reason why I've been so inactive lately; I've also been really busy with a lot of client projects. This post's message is simultaneously its purpose: to break the cycle of not posting. In order to start challenging myself again, I'm trying to emulate the style of different notable designers with each poster. This one is a study on the style of Reid Miles, an innovative American designer active during the 60s. I hope you enjoy this one! And stay tuned for more stuff soon.
This idea popped into my head, and I just had to create it. I've always compared creativity to ecstatic experiences—after all, the Reztokia slogan is "Seek Creative Ecstasy." For me, the process of creation can be one of the most satisfying experiences. I hope you enjoy this one!
This poster took several attempts, because I wasn't happy with the result, but I quite like the final result. Lately, I've really gotten into the pixel heavy aesthetic, and I couldn't resist adding the effect to the custom type in this poster. The message of this poster also really resonates with me.
This poster started out because I am really into these globe icons and I wanted to have one at the center of my design. I actually used a lot of real world assets to make this poster, which is one of the reasons why it took so long. I also decide to really mix things up and try a new color pallet of black and beige. I know I really stepped out of my comfort zone there.
I really wanted to get back into drawing, so I decided to do a mixed media poster. The characters were drawn on paper, but the coloring was done digital. The typography is also custom. I really like Gorp-core as a clothing style because it seems like a nice blend between form and function. I wanted the poster to have a similar color pallet to the gorp core fashion trend, which is known for warm browns, beiges and other pastel colors. So I settled on this blue, beige and brown, color way. To counterbalance the more cheesy and trendy design style, I added some grid work in the background.
I really wanted to make a poster with some wavy custom type, so I decided to make this poster. I wanted the topic of the poster to represent a diagnosis, so I added some elements such as the brain scans and the signatures to add a bit of context and humor to the poster. I originally wanted to go with just a black and white version, but I decided to add another green and beige version that, I think, suits this poster very well. Incidentally, the texture in this poster is 100% real. I printed the poster on some heavy craft paper at a relatively small size and the scanned it again to capture the paper and ink textures.
Live by design and not by default. I don't know who said it, but it is a quote that represents my goal in life pretty well. Going beyond the beaten path, designing a life that is worth living. I wanted the poster to be bold and striking, as well as rich in contrast. I also really enjoy this heavy printer texture and craft paper.
"peace." I've always found something incredibly relaxing in pine trees and needle trees in general, thus the theme of this poster: peace. Regarding the design itself, the layout is based on the golden ratio. I used a drawing of a tree I had made recently. I actually debated a long time about adding additional typography, but in this case, "less is more" really held true. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this one.
One of the most basic formats for a creative idea is to take two things that are opposites or unrelated and combine them in a new way. Well, that's not what I'm doing here. My idea was to invert this idea and combine two things that are often together (highway signs and graffiti) into one new thing. This poster is part of my goal to remove personal constraints I set for my work and accept the artistic nature of some of my personal projects, and it's really helped in freeing up creativity. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this one.
It's funny how these poster ideas just pop into my head fully formed. For instance, with this one, I knew exactly the content and layout and everything. As a complete Blender noob, I was flabbergasted by how difficult even this simplest of layouts can be to render properly. It took me way too long than it should have to figure out how to properly light and position the cubes to get the exact outcome I had in my mind from the get-go. I also really like the content of this poster. The notion that there's always something bigger, it always goes deeper, there's always a bigger picture is frightening and liberating at the same time.
"SOMETIMES IT RAINS IN HELL" - Yours Truly This is quite the dark concept I came up with, and I thought I'd make a poster out of it. I'm really trying to expand my horizons and try some different styles and aesthetics. The illustration and calligraphy are all custom and were really fun to make. I cannot, however, claim that I wrote the poem at the bottom. I'm not great shakes at poetry, so I enlisted ChatGPT to convert my concept into a smooth rhythmic poem with a badass ending.
The key feature of this poster is the custom lettering for the word Tokyo on the top. I really wanted the word to evoke a feeling that you would associate with Tokyo, and also be a vague imitation of Japanese fonts. The graphic in the middle shows a cross-walk, once again typically cliché for Tokyo, but overall I am pleased with the result.
-Logo
-Visual Identity