Featured Artist: Kat Garner
Designer Kat Garner’s portfolio is filled with thoughtful ideas.
Functionality is key in both the sleek aesthetic and clever concepts behind Kat’s work, many of her projects aiming to alter perspectives and ease lives in a concise fashion.
Now working based in London and working between illustration and graphic design, Kat is originally from Edinburgh. Since graduating from Central Saint Martins just over a year ago, Kat has been busy building her portfolio through collaborations, commercial work and plenty of just-for-fun additions.
One of the most important things to Kat as a creative is versatility. When tackling a new brief, her sole intention is to communicate the message as clearly and cleverly as possible in what ever medium she deems appropriate.
Her broad portfolio of work with work ranges from simplistic, typographic notebooks to playfully illustrated zines, all showing the wide skill set she has developed.
Kat’s redesign of The Jungle Book is one highlight. Colourful jungle motifs layered with more subtle icons represent the different layers of the story; the fun, frolicky side of this classic is brilliantly contrasted with slightly sinister undertones of British colonialism at this time.
We also like Kat’s From Start To Finish Notebooks. Designed specifically for designers, the notebooks support creatives through each step of the design process. Starting with newsprint “to avoid that fear that the first page of a new sketchbook can instil in a person”, the notebook then includes layout paper, heavier white paper, luxe cream card and finishes with pull-out pages to mount final pieces onto. To all those creatives who are constantly on the hunt for a perfect notebook but instead end up with endless below parr scribble pads, this sounds absolutely ideal.
Her design for a sports app aimed at the non-savvi viewer and vibrant, expressive Party zine are two more key pieces to Kat’s portfolio and prime examples of the diversity within it.