Following our series of Design Legends, our next featured artist is the great Joshua Davis. It's impossible to talk about modern graphic design using computers without mentioning his name and everything he has done creating scripts and apps to generate patterns and elements that became Joshua's superb work.

A proficient illustrator and painter with a passion for technology, Davis’ work brought an entirely new dimension to art. Utilizing randomization in controlled environments, or Chaos Theory, Davis established a new and unique perspective on visual communication and creative expression, pioneering an area previously unexplored in graphic design.

In January 2001, as part of issue #100 of K10k.net, Davis posted an autobiography — a revealing look on his personal life in the New York City art/club scene in the early 1990s, his drug addiction, and his ability to overcome it to pursue his goal of being a full-time artist. Davis wrote that once he left the club scene, he aspired to be a writer and illustrator of children's books. It was at the Pratt Institute that Davis began to delve into writing HTML, working under Thomas Noller in 1995. Soon after, he began to experiment with Macromedia Flash and its early scripting language, and further with ActionScript programming.

Joshua Davis' work became a major influence in graphic and web design in the "Y2K" era of the Internet’s dot-com explosion. Davis himself was distinguished from other web designers by his many tattoos, leading to his reputation as being a web design "rockstar" — a label he dismisses. From 1998 to 2001, he worked with the web production company Kioken. When Kioken folded, Davis became an independent web designer and artist, touring the world to speak at various graphic design conferences, such as SIGGRAPH, Flash Forward, BD4D, OFFF, Graphika Manila and others.

In 2003, he was asked by Tool's Adam Jones to take over their websites. The band's official site was replaced by an intro page designed by Davis, but has been changed.

In 2002 he teamed up with developer Branden Hall to form The Department of Notation Studios, a media development studio. The company was disbanded in 2006 when Hall left to form Automata Studios Ltd. with fellow developer Keenan Keeling. Despite the separation Davis and Hall continue to collaborate on various projects.

As of 2007, Davis lives in New York with his wife and daughter. He is a professor at New York’s School of Visual Arts, runs his own design studio, and continues to lecture and lead workshops in design conferences. Wikipedia

Joshua Davis' work has influenced a lot of great digital artists such as Guilherme Marconi, James White and many others. He is a name that is always remembered when we interview new designers and this article is just to show you a little bit of his work.

For more information visit Joshua's website at http://www.joshuadavis.com/

Videos

Images

iPhone App

Reflect by Joshua Davis from Erik Attkisson on Vimeo.

About the author

My name is Fabio Sasso, I'm a graphic/web designer from Porto Alegre, Brazil and I'm the founder of Abduzeedo. I hope we can share lots of information, tips, and ideas through Abduzeedo. Also you can follow me on Twitter or my personal site at http://fabiosasso.com.

Sponsored Links: