Prime Time Design: Unpacking the Creative Process with Ramon Campos from Friss in Motion
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By STF News
Since its launch in 2017, Samsung Art Store has been at the forefront of driving significant changes in the way we experience and appreciate art. With vast collections of artwork, The Frame and the Art Store offer different ways for consumers to enjoy diverse forms of artwork from the comfort of their homes.
Street art — which often incorporates elements of its surroundings and nature — has been finding its place in digital media as display technology and picture quality have rapidly evolved in recent years. Through partnerships with artists like Logan Hicks, Samsung Art Store has been bridging the gap between public art and everyday consumers, bringing intricate details, expressions and impressions closer to users than ever.
Samsung Newsroom had the privilege of connecting with Logan to discuss his creative process and inspiration and how his partnership with Samsung Art Store helped push the boundaries of his craft.
Logan Hicks is a highly acclaimed artist based in New York, renowned for his intricate photorealistic urban landscapes. By using multiple layers of stencils, he seamlessly blends urban aesthetics with extreme precision and detail.
▲ Logan Hicks’ artistic process (video courtesy of Logan Hicks)
Inspiration and Influences: From Baltimore to California and Beyond
Q: Could you tell us a bit about yourself and your career as an artist? How did you come to work with stencils?
After running a successful commercial screen printing business, I decided to focus on my art and moved from Baltimore to California. I tried hand-cut stenciling and fell in love. The process is similar, but stencils are painstaking and not exact. I embraced this challenge and learned to create deep detail with multiple layers.
▲ Logan Hicks
Q: What is your passion that inspires your art?
Travel is both my inspiration and antidepressant. Seeing new countries, people, places and cultures has always helped keep my eyes open to how utterly fantastic the world is. After I travel, I am always excited to get back into the studio.
I also find a lot of inspiration in New York City. The way the city changes throughout the day and year — it has a life of its own. During the pandemic, it was especially interesting to see a vibrant city empty. It was eerily beautiful.
Q: Could you walk us through your artistic process from the photographs you start with to the final product?
I don’t usually go into detail about my process just because it’s easy to confuse the process for the product. About 75% of my time making art is the laborious process of image preparation, stencil cutting, bridging the stencils, etc. To explain briefly, I take photos, break them down into various levels of contrast, cut them out, spray them on top of each other and then carefully paint the lights. My stencils aren’t the kind that you can just roll over a solid coat of paint — I slowly bring out the image with small sprays of paint that I build up.
Q: What is your favorite step in your artistic process?
My favorite step is creating and choosing a mood for my artwork. Will my scene be exacting or painterly? Will it depict the solitude of the evening or the vibrancy of a bright day? One set of stencils can be painted in many ways, and I like figuring out which one is best.
Q: What partnerships have you worked on over the years that stand out to you?
I find that the most successful partnerships are the ones that have the least direction, at least for me. Finding a company that grants freedom to do what I want is paramount for a successful collaboration. A few that come to mind are the Bowery Wall I painted for the Goldman family in New York and a partnership with Porsche for their electric car at Scope Art Fair.
Logan Hicks X Samsung Art Store
Q: Why did you choose to partner with the Art Store?
An artist only has two reasons to continue: to make art and to present the art to an audience. For me, Samsung Art Store was an outlet to showcase my art — it was a new approach to displaying my art, and for that reason, I found it interesting. Living spaces these days continue to get smaller and smaller, so I saw this as a way of sharing multiple artworks instead of hanging them on limited walls.
Q: How does displaying your work on The Frame compare to other media you’ve worked with (e.g., canvas, brick/concrete walls, billboards)?
Good art should be able to translate to various mediums: canvas, walls or digital. The Frame was an interesting platform just because you don’t have control over where it will be hung or what household will download what artwork — it was fun to find out which of my pieces had the most universal appeal. When you make work for a specific location (like with a mural), you have to consider the neighborhood, lighting, surface of the wall, etc. The success of a mural is based on your ability to adapt to the environment. With The Frame, though, it was a case of plucking those works off the wall and putting them into a digital space — the attention was 100% on the artwork that was created instead of the environment that it lives in.
Q: How does your signature technique of blending colors through aerosol contribute to the visual appeal of your work when displayed digitally?
I hope the audience can appreciate my work on multiple levels. For example, you only observe the subject matter at a distance before you start noticing the details as you get closer. Once you’re inches from it, the execution becomes clear — from the way the colors blend to the tiny dots of aerosol paint that make up the surface of the image.
My work has nuances that are difficult to see on traditional digital displays. I’ve been happy with how the matte display of The Frame picks up details of the spray paint and the subtle color changes. The display offers the opportunity to experience the work from various distances as if it exists on a wall or canvas.
Q: You already have experience in creating large-scale murals worldwide in places like Istanbul, Miami, Baltimore, New York, Tunisia, Paris, etc. How does the Art Store partnership expand the global reach and accessibility of your work to audiences beyond that?
I easily forget that 99.9% of the world won’t have the opportunity to see my work in person. When I paint a mural, it’s usually in larger metropolitan areas and in cities where I already have some sort of connection. So, I like to extend my reach to people who may not live in the places I paint. With this approach, someone in the rural outback of Australia has access to my pieces just as someone in the heart of Manhattan does.
Q: What are your top three picks you would recommend to consumers to display on The Frame? Please give us a very brief explanation of each.
▲ The Entrance, 2019
This painting is the front of Monet’s house. I visited Monet’s Garden for the first time and instantly felt like I was in a different land — flowers surrounded me like a green fog, and the smell of flowers filled the air. Standing in front of Monet’s house, I imagined what it would have been like to live there. I think about how this was what Monet saw every morning as he walked the garden and returned to his house.
▲ Giverny, 2019
This piece is also from Monet’s Garden. What I loved the most about the garden is that it’s very rare that you can stand in the same place where a masterpiece was created. I’ve grown up seeing Monet’s paintings in my art history books, on TV and in movies. But when I visited the garden, I realized that I was in the painting. I was standing where Monet once stood as he painted, and suddenly his artwork made more sense to me. Of course, he painted his garden! How can you visit heaven and not memorialize it in a painting?
▲ Axon, 2018
I have a soft spot for Paris: the culture, food, art and architecture. I love it all. This painting is a scene that you see when you walk outside the Gare De Lyon train station. I can remember when I took the photo that I used as inspiration for this piece. My friend asked me, “Why would you take a picture of the street? It’s ugly. It is the train station that is beautiful.” The wonderful thing about being a tourist is that everything is new and fresh. To me, the street was just as beautiful as the train station. That is the power of a good painting — it can enchant the most boring scenes.
The Intersection of Technology and Creativity
Q: As an artist known for your traditional artistic techniques, how do you navigate the intersection between traditional art forms and the digital world?
Art is a language, and learning to speak it in different arenas is critical to the success of an artist. I don’t put too much thought into what is traditional and what isn’t. I just try to consider what the work will look like scaled down to the size of The Frame. I try to think about what pieces have enough complexity to remain on the screen in someone’s space for an extended period.
Q: What unique opportunities does the digital art platform offer for artists like yourself?
The main opportunity I see for the digital space is access to a new audience. Someone may not spend thousands on my painting, but they may download an image of it. I’d like to think that sometimes that may even translate into someone then going out and buying a physical copy of a painting.
It’s also a great way to reach an audience that does not traditionally go to galleries. Art is most successful when people can see a little bit of themselves in it, regardless of whether that is a feeling, experience, thought or mood. That isn’t limited to an art museum attendee. Finding people and connecting with them through art is something that can be done on a much larger scale through a digital platform.
I love the opportunity to reach new audiences who may not have appreciated art before. The art world can sometimes be guarded; The Frame gives new fans an opportunity to consider living with art.
Visit the Samsung Art Store in The Frame to explore more of Logan Hicks’s collection.
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By STF News
Ultra-large TVs are taking the world by storm. The standard of ultra-large TVs, currently broadly understood as “larger than 75 inches,” continues to evolve with the growth in demand. Samsung Newsroom previously explored the main drivers of this trend, with a focus on the 2023 98-inch Neo QLED 8K. In this piece, we move on to discuss the intricate design process that helped showcase the behemoth of a screen in a sleek, elegant form factor as well as the details considered to push the immersive viewing (and listening) experience to the frontier.
▲ Video describing the 98-inch ultra-large TV design philosophy of Elimination
Pursuing Simplicity with a Purpose
▲ TV designer Jangho Kim described the 98-inch ultra-large TV design as “a process of focusing solely on the immersive experience and eliminating everything else”
The essence of the TV experience is defined by both what you see and what you hear. Samsung Electronics has long focused on creating a “TV without a bezel” to provide a seamless experience that eliminates unnecessary distractions, Samsung adheres to the idea of “simple, yet meaningful.” A few years ago, this journey came to the point of minimizing the company logo in the front; this year, the 19.9 mm bezel-less design of the 98-inch Neo QLED pushed the envelope to represent the culmination of Samsung’s design philosophy.
“We focus on the core activities of the TV experience — which is watching and listening to content — and deliver value by leaving only the beauty of simplicity,” said Jangho Kim, who helped design the TV.
‘Design’ Paving the Way for Even-Larger TVs
As screens get larger, users have higher expectations for a new viewing experience. The current embodiment of Samsung’s TV design philosophy can be summarized as “One Plate Design,” to provide a perfectly immersive environment while eliminating potential concerns about the 98-inch size.
“We created the ‘One Plate Design’ by adopting a basic, simple design language so that TVs don’t seem intrusive to space. Being completely flat, you can hang the TV flush against the wall,” said Kim. “The TV is physically slim, but with a purpose: it all adds up to provide a truly immersive experience.”
▲ With a minimalist approach, the “One Plate Design” (QN100B, in this case) gives the impression of a single plate floating in the air (left) with a simple, barely noticeable stand supporting it (right)
The stand also heeds the minimalistic design philosophy, providing a sturdy foundation that does not obstruct the user’s view. Made up of two sheets of metal, the compact stand evokes a clean design while holding the ultra-wide screen steady — it doesn’t need to visually boast its 98-inch-screen-bearing prowess. “We made great efforts to find the optimal structure and ratio that can firmly balance a 98-inch TV without shaking or falling over,” said Kim. “The stand was developed with a simple but sleek and stylish design that can naturally blend in with the TV.”
The creation of this new, innovative product is the result of many talented minds from different departments coming together. Kim expressed how the expertise of various engineers, including those from the circuit, mechanics and materials departments, helped tremendously in realizing the slim, sleek and simple design statement.
Incredible Detail on a Larger Scale
As the design language for TVs — like many other electronic devices — has become simpler, some jokingly say that there’s not much left to design. But Kim smiles and says, “that’s why the details become increasingly important.”
For example, the 2023 98-inch Neo QLED’s Slim One Connect box was newly designed to blend in even more seamlessly to the users’ environment. The One Connect box helps users simplify their viewing field by allowing them to connect power and various input sources (e.g., cable box, gaming console, LAN cable) through a dedicated device. Compared to previous models, which required a separate space to place the device, the new Neo QLED 8K’s Slim One Connect box can be easily latched onto the back of the TV or on the stand. Regardless of where you place the TV — whether on a wall, a dedicated TV stand or another piece of furniture — you can enjoy your viewing experience without being distracted by unsightly cables, wires or external devices.
▲ The new Slim One Connect box seamlessly attaches to the stand of the QN900C; sophisticated speaker holes can also be seen on the side
“We revamped the new Slim One Connect box to help users build a seamless TV environment in their homes,” Kim stated. “Ease of installment and minimal cable arrangements are also part of the TV experience. We took these aspects into consideration and really dug into the details in designing the new Slim One Connect box.”
▲ Speaker units in the back of a QN900C
Details can also be found in the sound system. Speaker holes were strategically placed on the side with woofer units in the back for both performance and aesthetic pleasure. “We are doing our best to maintain the beauty of the product at every angle — that includes the back,” explains Kim. The large units help add visual credibility to the set’s sound performance while making the TV visually pleasing from all angles.
These speaker positions, of course, have practical purposes, too. The various directions and spacing alignments of the units help better enable features such as Object Tracking Sound; the exposed woofers can bounce sound off the back walls and fill the room.
▲ Kim vows to continue the push to eliminate outdated ideas in pursuit of new values in his designs
As it continues to capture the attention of users around the world, the 2023 98-inch Samsung Neo QLED 8K is redefining “immersion” with its sleek design, crisp graphics and superior sound quality. Up front, all but the screen is basically eliminated. Details in the sides and back elegantly fill the rest of the immersive experience. A constant process of eliminating, innovating and refining, Samsung TV designs continue to thrive for an even more immersive viewing (and listening) experience.
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By BGR
Samsung will host the first Galaxy Unpacked event of 2023 on February 1st, and that’s when we expect the Galaxy S23 series to make its debut. Of course, the new phone has already appeared online in the form of countless leaks, including an especially elaborate leak on Thursday featuring official marketing images from Samsung showcasing the Galaxy S23.
The leak from WinFuture’s Roland Quandt confirms virtually everything that we thought we knew about the Galaxy S23’s design. These images are purported official shots from Samsung — they aren’t mockups or renders from an artist with an inside source.
For now, WinFuture only has images of the base model Galaxy S23, not the Galaxy S23 Plus or Galaxy S23 Ultra. Those images reveal a device that looks strikingly similar to a Galaxy S22, with one significant change. Samsung has ditched the camera hump altogether after cycling through a few styles in recent years. Now, the camera lenses protrude directly out of the rear panel of every S23 model, as they did on the Galaxy S22 Ultra last year.
The leak also spoils the four color options of the Galaxy S23: Mystic Lilac, Cotton Flower, Botanic Green, and Phantom Black. Based on Samsung’s previous launches, we expect to see additional colors for the S23 Ultra and potentially even more down the line.
Color options for the base Galaxy S23 model. Image source: WinFuture Providing these are official marketing shots, they confirm the selfie camera will once again be positioned directly in the center of the display. The phone will be encased by a metal frame with a glass cover. The front and back of the phone are also completely flat.
WinFuture didn’t reveal any new details about the phone’s specifications, but we expect the Galaxy S23 to feature Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor, a 6.1-inch Full HD display, 8GB of RAM, 256GB of internal storage, a 3900 mAh battery, and Android 13.
Samsung will formally unveil the Galaxy S23 on February 1st at 10 a.m. PT / 1 p.m. ET.
The post Leaked Galaxy S23 images reveal new colors and new camera design appeared first on BGR.
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By STF News
Samsung Art Store is the epitome of the digital-physical blend taking over today’s art experiences. It allows widely acclaimed galleries, museums and artists to showcase their masterpieces to users around the world by using The Frame’s immaculate digital display. Since its launch in 2017, Samsung Art Store allows for extraordinary, one-of-a-kind art selections to be accessible to consumers from the comfort of their own homes.
Stuart Franklin is an award-winning photographer who has traveled all over the world in pursuit of his work. The titles Franklin has held over the years vary from photographer to documentarian and art curator, with his work landing on the pages of newspapers, books, magazines and other media in between.
Over the years, Franklin’s work has gained considerable momentum and visibility — his work has earned a place in renowned publications around the world. Now, his work is featured on Samsung Art Store, introducing even more variety to the ever-growing art collection that is accessible through The Frame.
Samsung Newsroom sat down with Franklin to talk about his work and how he sees digital transformation taking the art world into new, unimaginable spaces.
▲ Stuart Franklin
Q: Briefly tell us about yourself, your work and the inspiration behind your photography.
I am a Magnum photographer, and I have been working in the industry for over 40 years. I am inspired by many things: light, form, the subject itself, often the overall idea behind a larger project. But these days I also enjoy drawing and painting as well.
I am currently working on a book about trees. 25 years ago, I published a book called The Time of Trees (1999), and I am now revisiting the subject in preparation for a new book in 2023.
Q: You began studying photography in 1976 and have made quite an impact since then. How has your photography evolved over time?
After studying drawing and painting, then photography, I began a career working for newspapers and news magazines. My stories were always people stories: in the news, street photography and portraits. This began to change during the 1990s when I began to focus more on landscape work — I worked on magazines, books or exhibition commissions and an exhibition for the National Galleries of Scotland.
Q: You are known for your wide array of photography styles. Could you elaborate more on your creative process?
My work has evolved over time. In the past, I worked mostly in news features or breaking news. I haven’t given that up: I recently did work on the Covid-19 pandemic in the U.K. But more and more I am focusing on landscape photography. Currently, I am interested in the relationship between nature and memory, so the conversation surrounds the relationship between elements in the landscape that spark a memory and something objectively interesting in the landscape itself.
Q: What is your favorite setting or location to take pictures?
Right now, forests. I have recently been working in the largest walnut forest in the world in Kyrgyzstan.
Q: Can you tell us specifically how advancements in technology and the emergence of digital art and platforms have changed or shaped your career?
Unusually, my work has moved full circle from working on color transparency film and black and white negative to digital color in about 2004 and now back to 80% film. I use my Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra for about 90% of my digital color photography these days. Digital has many advantages, especially working in low light. But currently, I am working with film in black and white and digitally with the Galaxy S21 for color.
Backlighting and increased dynamic range are always an advantage with digital displays, but the disadvantage is often reduced image size. It is difficult to mix the two. Anything backlit in an exhibition will always stand out more than a silver gelatin print.
▲ “Caroline Islands (2000)”, Stuart Franklin
Q: Caroline Islands (2000) is one of your most popular photographs displayed on The Frame. Tell us briefly about this piece. Why do you think people are attracted to this image?
This landscape and these colors speak of somewhere remote, a get-away, an escape, somewhere quiet and undisturbed. In bustling urban life, all these qualities become desirable.
Q: A lot of your photography within the Art Store that gained popularity over the years involve nature. Can you tell us more about what your artistic intentions were for these photos?
I have always found solace in nature and in celebrating its beauty. The challenge is making inspiring places be as inspiring in a photograph. That usually involves choosing the right light and the best time of day to be out photographing so that the highlights are not too bright or the shadows too dark. Light — the quality of light — plays a huge role in how I think about photography.
▲ “Falls, Brazil (2000)”, Stuart Franklin
Q: Can you give us some background on this photo?
This photograph was taken in late 1999 on commission for the article titled Celebrations of Earth — published in January 2000 as the opening story of the new millennium. Due to the mist formed by the water thundering down the waterfall, the morning light stayed soft for quite a long time, which gave me enough chances to make several exposures from different vantage points. Also, Polaroid films that fit my camera were easy to buy back then to help me out in trials before making the actual exposures.
Q: Where do you see the future of photography art exhibitions heading? What are your thoughts about what’s to come?
I think there will always be an attraction in seeing the print as a three-dimensional object, as one sees a painting. However, I suspect in the future that the three dimensionality that we are used to experiencing in a gallery will be deliverable digitally and become widespread in time. The digital experience will expand in ways that we can barely imagine. There will be more virtual galleries and exhibitions. I feel sure of that, and that will make art more accessible to a wider range of people.
Q: Aside from the two photographs listed above, do you have any other recommended pieces for The Frame users?
I will always be one to flag my most recent work, so perhaps the work this year from Spain, Italy or Kyrgyzstan or the work I am about to do in November in Cambodia and Bali. But then I recommend the images from Bali that I took in 1999 for the Celebrations of Earth project — I still love those beautiful green rice fields. Then there is the work from Korea. Too much to choose from.
▲ “Rice Fields, Indonesia (2000)”, Stuart Franklin
To see more of Franklin’s photographs, head to the Samsung Art Store.
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