RYAN HAHN Illustration Portfolio 2019
Hi! My work is often guided by an illustrative urge to paint a visual image of fantastic and speculative worlds, but through the lens of design. I genuinely enjoy learning and take a critical approach to my work, often scrutinizing phenomenas in culture, society, technology, and our progress as human beings as a whole.
I love interesting and thought provoking challenges, meticulously detailed processes, and I like to play with the dynamics and balance the dichotomies between Design and Illustration, Organic and Mechanical, Old and New, Right and Wrong, Familiar and Strange, and more though worlds, stories, characters, studies, and styles.
If you enjoyed my work, please contact me here!
email : rhahn01@mica.edu
MAMBA
Illustrator; 2018.
Implying a sense of depth and "jungle-ness" using flat shapes, consistent line weights, and no green.
Mamba the Jaguar and Mukenga the Pirate King are inhabitants of a larger conceptual world.
This piece began with a character design idea inspired by a traditional Nigerian ritual
headgear called "Mukenga, the First Man".
The jungle foliage were first created individually without a detailed composition in mind, then assembled after every component was created to emulate the arbitrary and "undesigned" tendencies of natural growth.
A Christmas Remix
OUTLIER
Illustrator and Photoshop; 2017.
My life has been a juggling act of dualities, coming from Korea to the US, shifting from Speech and Debate to Art, moving from Illustration to Graphic Design, and more. In many ways, I've never felt a true sense of belonging in one domain. However I choose to believe that this balancing act has revealed more than obscured.
The stylistic focus of this piece was about progression and synergy, evolution through varying mediums, and what each medium contributes to the composition as a whole.
I began with a photo of my father in a business meeting, then created a vector and mechanical interpretation of my face. Next, I drew out the ancillary characters on paper and colored them in Photoshop. Then I drew in myself and the
environment and other atmospheric elements like lighting, decor, and textures in Illustrator.
My figure consists of only angular lines to push the contrast of the character from the rest of the environment.
FESTAS DE LISBOA 2017
Illustrator; 2017.
A Devonian visualization of human progress.
This piece began as an entree for the 2017 International Lisbon Festival of Sardines Contest, where sardines are celebrated as a cultural delicacy.
The only restriction is to fill a provided sardine shaped template.
The final designs explore 3 distinct time periods of human technology and its relationship with humans.
Mainly I wanted to illustrate our codependent relationship with our tools.
the Geared Sardine
the Motorized Sardine Locomotive
the uSardine
A motion graphic expanding the concept of cyclical progress and evolution.
I was inspired by a biological illustration of the organic and skeletal structures of a sardine. Because I enjoy illustrating mechanical parts and technologic designs, I began by interpreting the skeletal structure in a robotic style. I then vectorized it in Illustrator, and took it into After Effects to animate each part.
THE iSalmon 2.3s+
Illustrator; 2017.
This piece is an editorial illustration for an article regarding Artificial Salmon Farming, and the increasingly artificial future of food and our relationship with it. I speculatively imagined a future where due to global changes, fish shortages will create a need for artificial fish containing foods/nutrients for fishers to catch and eat.
As my grandfather was a fisherman, I grew up often seeing a fish being flayed, and drew inspiration from those experiences. To push the concept of the artificial fish, I only used angular and geometric lines to illustrate the salmon.
I also took text from the article and used it as texture and grain of the wood cutting board.
MY ZÜ
Bic Pen and Illustrator; 2018.
An alternate and graphic take on Züology.
A Frikken Zü
Deap Zü
Hie Zü
Process:
I began by illustrating various animals in an intentionally flat, 2 dimensional, and graphic style. With a range of differently shaped and differently originating animals, I then picked out animals by theme, and colored them using vectors in Illustrator.
THE Lumapod©
Illustrator; 2018.
The presentation of a fictional, speculative object as a real, solid object.
The Lumapod is essentially a mechanical plant. By speculatively designing a fictional and critical object but giving it a realistic and tangible presentation, one is left to consider for a second whether this object is real or not.
Either way, one might ask: What kind of world demands or needs an item like this?
I was inspired by the clean and futuristic aesthetics of Apple devices, and paired it with an ecofriendly tone.
Each panel provides a different type of information and detail about this object in the hopes of fully immersing and informing the viewer about the purpose, usage, science, and innerworkings of this item.
MO NATURE
Illustrator and Photoshop; 2017.
This piece was an editorial illustration for an article talking about artificial approaches to preserving wildlife and helping improve the quality of life of wild creatures, such as Hawksbill Turtles.
Article:
I used this scope as an opportunity to speculate on the possibilities of our technology being integrated into nature
for the benefit of nature.
The majority of this piece was illustrated using Photoshop, with the mechanical parts being illustrated out of vectors to push the contrast between mechanical augmentation and organic nature.
DUKE IS ON GUARD!
Illustrator and Traditional; 2017.
The piece began as a pen and marker, traditional city landscape made in 2015. I saw the opportunity to incorporate
a city scape into a digital piece, and created this work.
This piece’s final composition was inspired by Rodchenko, a Russian designer from the Constructivists.
The meaning and context propagated in the original poster is recontextualized into a fictional scenario to create familiarity in new scenarios and characters.
Interactive web poster made using CSS + HTML
Thank you for your time.
