A Colourful World

You haven't heard of Owen Davey? Are you sure? Maybe you've played the game Two Dots (probably the most addictive and well-made mobile app game). Owen Davey is a British-born illustrator, whose lovely images and iconography grace the screens of Two Dots. Every time you finish a set of levels, you are awarded with a postcard depicting an illustration of a mini-world. The drawings are just darling, and even the typography is wonderful to look at.

I especially love the borders around the images, they remind me of old postcards. Is it weird that I always wonder why a cute little raven-haired dot would always hang around a withered old coot of  a a dot? Doesn't he slow her down? What's their story? Maybe he is apprenticing her to become the world explorer that he is. I think this game needs more cutscenes.

This one is a little interesting for another reason:

He posted it to Dribbble after it had been shipped for the game, and someone told him that his Chinese script was...below par. It's interesting to think about how we view letterforms that we don't understand. Knowing that I can't understand the type's meaning, I think it looks good as a visual image. It seems like it should be clear enough to read, but to someone who can actually understand the characters, it doesn't meet legibility standards. Very interesting.

Anyway, that's how I found this guy. But he also makes illustrations for children's books and lots of other stuff.

His use of pattern, line and shape is so satisfying. I want to eat that fig! I suppose his style kind of reminds me of cut paper illustration, cutting out pieces of patterned paper to make recognizable images. I loved how Eric Carle did it in this classic:

You can check out more of his stuff below, or on his website.