Chad Kouri always dreamed of being a designer, and he took the first major step towards making that dream a reality with a freelance gig at the age of sixteen.  Ten years later, he has become what some refer to as a cultural engineer.  A founding member of the Chicago-based art and design incubator, The Post Family, previous Art Director of Proximity Magazine and recognition as one of Chicago’s Newcity Breakout Artists of 2010 are only a few of his numerous accomplishments.  Kouri has been involved with more than thirty different projects over the last two years, and shows no signs of slowing down.  For many, there is still a huge chasm between the worlds of design and fine arts, but this distinction is of no interest to Chad Kouri.  Un-phased, he continues to breakdown the walls attempting to separate the two industries.  A recent collaboration with artists Stephen Eichhorn and Cody Hudson at the Patty and Rusty Rueff Gallery marks his first foray into exhibiting at an institutional level, but with an upcoming solo show at the Rochester Museum of Fine Art slated for the winter of 2012 it will obviously not be his last.  Kouri describes his practice as having, “equal interests in conceptual art, consumer culture, typography, design, jazz and the gray areas between these fields, my body of work is more a collection of various ongoing projects, thoughts and experiments tied together by a strong sense of composition, concise documentation and an overall vibe of optimism than a seamless display of a style or genre.”  I am excited to watch this process evolve, and I wish him good luck for the future – but somehow I don’t think he’ll need it.

“Future Face” is an illustration project by graphic designer, animator, and videographer Billy Nunez, aka Biz20. Currently, this young talent is pursuing a BFA in Communications Design at Pratt Institute. Take a look at his feedback-loop-inducingly-awesome renderings of sexy cyborg ladies after the jump.

Graphic Designer, Travis Stearn, is sporting a really nice portfolio of poster design work. I’m loving the kind of messed-up, digi-punk, aesthetic to his work. As platforms for creating digital artwork become more and more accessible, it is interesting to see how the aesthetics of “DIY” have potentially evolved from scissors-and-glue to photoshop-and-MSpaint. Check out a compilation of our favorites after the jump!

Atlanta based graphic designer, Stewart Scott-Curran, took on the task of graphically representing one of Pink Floyd’s best albums, The Dark Side of the Moon, track by track, with each poster representing a different song off the album. Personally, as a long time fan of Pink Floyd’s lyrical magic, it is really awesome to see how well Stewart nailed the narrative and emotion these songs carry. I don’t know about you, but I think these could make some good t-shirts. Check out more after the jump!

Take a cleanly-gridded typographic poster, drag it along to an 80s reunion party, throw a handful of rainbow confetti in the air… and then you’ll get the work of Alex Witjas. A graduate of the Graphic Design program at Pratt Institute, Alex currently works as a graphic designer for Urban Outfitters, and has a portfolio full of fun stuff. Enjoy a selection from some of Alex’s graphic design work after the jump.

We can’t talk design without talking about the products that make it all happen. When I first heard of Wacom’s forthcoming Inkling I could barely contain my excitement at the possibilities. It works on an up to A4 size paper, you can draw in layers and importing into your computer seems seamless. Imagine what you could do in Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator with this tool? My current Wacom Intuos is a permanent fixture and I can’t imagine working in Adobe Illustrator without it.

The $199 price tag feels very reasonable given that you can use it with any paper and a full charge gives you 8 hours of drawing time. I’m looking forward to trying this product out.

If you are interested in being featured in our Design Watch series contact: jessica [at] beautifuldecay [dot] com

Barcelona based graphic design studio Good Mondays specializes in areas of art direction, corporate identity, editorial design, package design, and illustration.  I am particularly fond of the above Donut Explosion piece.