From the junk comes a blog:
"In a Junkbox" is a site made by long time friends that have discussed pop culture in general for years, with some focus on Japanese culture, especially animation in general, with posts like "Best Animations of the Year" and recommendations of works that were made by creators that are more or less known in the media. They prefer to not think about themselves as authorities on the subjects being discussed, thus the "junk" aspect that defines most of the blog's aesthetic.
I was tasked with creating a character:
Junk-tan was commissioned as the main mascot, the character that embodies the blog's aesthetic. A girl-like persona that is made of boxes and pieces of junk pieced together drawn in a style that is inspired by street art and some avant-garde Japanese video game art. She is fierce and edgy, but cute and approachable, purposefully more bi-dimensional and rough in the way her shapes are drawn overall.
I was tasked with creating more personas:
This time I was asked to create characters based on the blog's writers, so they could have avatars that could talk to each other in posts and to sign the banners. Each character is made with inspiration from each writer's favorite characters mixed together with an easily recognizable color palette that helps to differentiate each persona from the other, but at the same time helps to differ them as a group from the blog mascot itself, Junk-tan, without breaking the color scheme overall, which needed to be striking, bold and comfy at the same time.
The blog also needed some eye-catching frames for screenshots:
Sometimes there's good things to recommend, sometimes there's just awful stuff that you experienced anyway because that's needed to have a good opinion on the subject. The two first frames try to tell this story with a framed space to put a screenshot which can be an animation or movie frame or a page of something.
The palette is closely connected to the blog's mascot, with street signs and electronics that seem to have been gathered from a junkyard, always following a very blocky and bi-dimensional artstyle. There's also some light reference to early-web art and operational system icons that are easy to overlook.
Check-board patterns, retro-technology, Japanese culture and fashion with grungy vintage computer references in general are big inspirations for the blog's illustrations.
Visit the blog itself to see the frames and characters in action:
That's all for now! Thank you.
