American Illustration Profiles Interview: David Plunkert

My latest American Illustration Profiles interview is with illustrator/art director David Plunkert. David is a visual force of nature. His editorial work has appeared in countless publications, on book covers, posters, comics books, and animation music videos, as well as in advertising campaigns. David’s work fuses an art director’s sense of scale and graphicness with an old school sensibility about technique and materials, along with some flat out great execution. He works in two main styles—what he describes as “graphic block illustrations,” and collages, which are often accompanied by hand drawn typography and other graphic elements. The theater posters that are featured in American Illustration 33, showcase the full range of David’s talents: illustration, typography, art direction, and the ability to weave all those visual skills together to create a masterful whole.

In addition to his editorial illustration work, David has branched into books, recently publishing a graphic collection of Edgar Allan Poe stories and poems. He’s also created two issues of Heroical, a striking, oversize graphic comic collection that was one of the outstanding items on display at the recent MoCCA Arts Festival in New York City. And working in a very different style, David created characters and drawings for a recent pair of They Might Be Giants music videos, directed by David Cowles and Jeremy Galante. The common thread in his ever-evolving and diverse range of styles is their graphic power and sense of smartness.

Read the complete David Plunkert American Illustration Profiles interview here.