10 Amazing GIF Artists You Should Know
A picture is a worth a thousand words, but that picture says so much more when it contains motion. After all, isn’t that why the Internet is so obsessed with GIFs these days? Beyond the world of Buzzfeed and reactionary GIFs, our dashboards on Tumblr are also constantly exploding with cool, hilarious, and sometimes really weird motion graphics. In fact, some of the artists behind these GIFs, like Lacey Micallef and Dain Fagerholm, have become really well known on the Internet, which says something about the GIF as an art medium. GIFs have come a long way since the late ‘90s when the first ones were being made. Nowadays, artists like Rebecca Mock have been commissioned to make visuals for The New York Times, and Jaime Martinez has embraced the format in his band photography. Recently, GIFs have even transcended our computer screens and taken over the streets, thanks to the likes of INSA and In Return. From oldtimers to recent household names, here are 10 amazing GIF artists you should know.
INSA
Street art murals and graffiti usually don’t last long in real life. They do, however, live forever on the Internet, where art is also much more likely to be seen than it would on a city block somewhere in the actual world. That’s why U.K.-based artist INSA takes his wall paintings one step further, turning them into spellbinding GIFs, calling his works of art “GIF-iti.” He creates his moving images by painstakingly painting and repainting murals, documenting the many finished walls, and finally digitally compiling them into GIF format. The piece above, for instance, consists of eight layers, on which INSA actually painted 72 skulls. Hats off to the GIF-iti master.
Lacey Micallef
Lacey Micallef’s name is basically synonymous with “GIF-maker.” In fact, she’s pretty famous on Tumblr for her pixelated depictions of furry cats and pups, googly-eyed tacos and hamburgers, and characters from Adventure Time and The Simpsons. She also has an entire Tumblr dedicated to Breaking Bad GIFs that she has created, which you may have seen while surfing the web at some point. They hilariously mash characters like Walter White with Nyancat, rainbow graphics, and pizza.
In Return
GIFs are invading the real world, or at least they are in the U.K. In Return, a creative studio made up of Guus ter Beek and Tayfun Sarier, is decking out London’s streets with the Internet animations we know and love. In a project ter Beek and Sarier call “GIFs Go Wild,” they have displayed various GIFs on framed iPads, which they then scatter and mount throughout the city. Flashing images of Disney and Nintendo characters currently sit atop building surfaces, street signs and newspaper vending machines, awaiting unsuspecting passersby and tourists.
Rebecca Mock
You won’t find any flashy graphics or familiar pop culture imagery in Rebecca Mock’s portfolio of GIFs. Unlike many of the other artists on this list, she creates moving images that are much more subtle. In fact, Mock refers to her images as “cinemagraphs,” GIFs that are more or less still but also contain a moving element. She’s an illustrator by trade, but she’s garnered attention for the illustrations she has tweaked with motion graphics, even doing work for The New York Times, among numerous other publications.
Jamie Martinez
You know an artist is a big deal when M.I.A. personally emails him to say that she is a fan of his work. That’s what happened to Mexican-born photographer Jaime Martinez in 2009. This dude eventually signed with the British songstress’s record label, N.E.E.T., and went from making GIFs to touring and photographing M.I.A. and her bands. Even though people have been creating GIFs since as long ago as the late 1990s, Martinez may have been the first photographer to take the GIF seriously and actually animate his personal photos and band photography.
Paul Robertson
Here’s a word of caution to anyone discovering and exploring Paul Robertson’s work for the first time. You’ll feel both overwhelmed and overjoyed when you see his dizzyingly spectacular GIFs. His lively 8-bit creations flash, glimmer, twitch and burst with color and familiar faces. The Australian artist makes pixel art of everything from video game sprites to full-on moving illustrations of Toad trekking through Super Mario World. Looking at them is like catapulting into a world of Nintendo games and cartoons. It makes sense then that Robertson happens to be one of the artists behind Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: The Game.
Haydiroket
Haydiroket’s passion for playing old school video games like Wizard of Wor has followed him from childhood into present times. Back in the mid-‘90s, Haydiroket was a demoscene artist, who has since moved on to become one of Tumblr’s GIF editors with his own creations circulating the microblogging platform. As you can tell, many of his GIFs reference games he played as a kid. He has also created visuals for the 2012 MTV VMA Awards, and worked with Vans on the brand’s Action Gallery.
Ryder Ripps
Ryder Ripps has become something of a household name to anyone familiar with Internet art. Remember a few years ago when Yahoo! did away with GeoCities, which was essentially the Tumblr of the late ’90s? Fortunately, Ryder Ripps, who has been called “the Indiana Jones of the Internet,” created Internet Archaeology so that he could archive hundreds of old images and content. It’s no surprise that the Internet whiz also makes a bunch of hilarious GIFs that take you back to the Web’s younger years.
Dain Fagerholm
Dain Fagerholm, or DAiN 8, has found that even a little movement can go a long way. The Seattle-based artist makes ink illustrations of wide-eyed creatures that are reminiscent of both Edward Gorey’s art and those Little Critter books from our childhood. When he first started sharing his work with the public, however, his flat images didn’t stand out amongst the sea of images on the Internet. That’s when Fagerholm decided to add another dimension to his drawings, literally making them look 3D by shading them accordingly and manipulating his drawings to twitch slightly. After that first GIF, nothing was the same for the dude, whose images are now all over Tumblr.
Peekasso
The Internet is a really weird place. Thanks to artists like Peekasso, you can find pics of Kanye West having stare downs with a kitten, Adventure Time characters infused with classic paintings, and Nick Cage’s meme-friendly face superimposed on everything. While a lot of Peekasso’s works are in fact really weird, but delightfully so, hilarious and worthy of many reblogs, some of his other GIFs are simply really dope. Take his portraits of rappers like Kendrick Lamar, for example. Many of his GIFs incorporate things from pop culture, which explains why he’s so famous on Tumblr.
A picture is a worth a thousand words, but that picture says so much more when it contains motion. After all, isn’t that why the Internet is so obsessed with GIFs these days? Beyond the world of Buzzfeed and reactionary GIFs, our dashboards on Tumblr are also constantly exploding with cool, hilarious, and sometimes really weird motion graphics. In fact, some of the artists behind these GIFs, like Lacey Micallef and Dain Fagerholm, have become really well known on the Internet, which says something about the GIF as an art medium. GIFs have come a long way since the late ‘90s when the first ones were being made. Nowadays, artists like Rebecca Mock have been commissioned to make visuals for The New York Times, and Jaime Martinez has embraced the format in his band photography. Recently, GIFs have even transcended our computer screens and taken over the streets, thanks to the likes of INSA and In Return. From oldtimers to recent household names, here are 10 amazing GIF artists you should know.