Working predominantly on record sleeve design since graduating two years ago, he has created projects for record labels Other People, Software and Unday Records among others, employing his unique mixture of colour, texture and manipulated imagery to create designs which are unlike anything I’ve ever seen before.
Halfway between optical illusion and close-ups in a photographic archive, the blend is an aesthetically pleasing departure from the new norms in the field; they almost feel like they should be in an art gallery rather than on the dusty shelves of a record shop.
Experimenting with images, he tries to unravel their meaning and functioning. He works with different media and forms: paintings, drawings, photographs, film, case designs and combinations. Jelle works as a graphic designer for the label W.E.R.F., Vinyl On Demand, the Other People label … as well as for multiple cultural houses and organisations.
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Today’s showcase features 30 inspiring examples of this geometric photography trend, showing how collage style artwork can be created by chopping up an image into patterns and shapes.
Beautiful record sleeve design from Belgian designer Jelle Martens
Ghent-based graphic designer Jelle Martens makes work which might be described as design with a heavy dollop of fine art added in.
An honest visual language that pinches and forces people to watch.
There’s a certain style of art that really catches my attention in inspiration galleries where artists combine geometry and photography to produce striking images. I’m a big fan of using simple shapes to create interesting designs, but the combination with photos really helps create abstract artwork with intense colours and detail.
Jelle is also making a very strong case for graphic designers photographing their work on film; the graininess of the shots in his portfolio serve these tactile compositions better than digital possibly could.