Ra-Bear's luscious, considered and contemporary graphic design

Adam Griffiths also known by his pseudonym of Ra Bear is a designer, art director and current lecturer at Manchester School of Art. His contemporary work is a mix of considered layout design, typography and colour combinations, each displaying immense skill.

One recent project of Adam’s is Relik the first release from his publishing platform Relik Press. The press itself is “dedicated to conceptually driven, independent publishing ventures.” This debut release takes form as a photo essay, “documenting a collection of automatic collages formed by negative voids left from bygone collages”. Adam explains: “These remains and absent spaces create a window into new serendipitous portraits and landscapes, emphasising and celebrating the art of chance.”

As well as publications Adam creates a series of posters for Nightcolours Recordings – “A label for all the nights and for all colours, but just one thing in common… deep, and soul music.” Each poster is entirely disparate from the previous, but when viewed as a series Adam’s stylistic design stamp is evident.

Alongside teaching, the designer has been working on a research project, Terminal Sadness, for the past year aiming to explore “our attachment to the digital world while still having a human need for the tactile.” By appropriating “digital symbology and visual language off the screen” Adam questions how we use the digital age to inform graphic design into a physical output. By appropriating internet references “in the form of digital handkerchiefs, each produced at the same dimensions as an iMac screen, creating an eerie familiarity between the two states.”