Sudi McCollum has an extensive background both as a fine artist and as a designer. Not only has she excelled as a published print artist, she is an accomplished designer in several different arenas, including advertising, posters, serigraphs, giclees, packaging design and custom home accessories.
Having received her degree in fine arts from the prestigious California College of the Arts, she immediately switched gears and launched her graphic design career. She landed as a principal and art director at an advertising agency in Palo Alto, California. While at the agency, McCollum received a number of awards from respected design organizations, including The American Institute of Graphic Arts, The New York Society of Illustrators, The Society of Illustrators of Los Angeles and The Western Art Directors’ Club.
Due to her in-demand illustration style, Sudi was frequently requested to design posters for advertising clients such as IBM, Sprint and Foremost-McKesson. There grew to be enough enthusiasm and requests for her posters that she left the agency and formed her own publishing company.
This company became very successful and placed Sudi’s art in galleries across the country and around the globe. Several of her early published prints, which are now vintage collectibles, were commissioned by prominent clients such as Monterey Bay Aquarium, Mercedes-Benz in conjunction with the Pebble Beach Resorts, The Pasadena Symphony Orchestra, The American Lung Association and the National Council of Jewish Women.
McCollum’s original serigraphs (prints produced by a silk screen process), giclées (prints produced by a digital printing process) and fine art posters are depictions of plants and animals. Her subject matter, simplicity of line and form and subtle pictorial technique have been compared to those of Japanese print artists of the Edo period.
The most arresting aspect of McCollum’s art is her striking and inventive use of color. She often employs combinations of hues that the viewer suspects have never before been acquainted, yet the sum is at once harmonious, appropriate and tranquil. McCollum’s frequent employment of metallic foils and embossing contribute to a rich and understated elegance. Her use of an embossed artist’s chop, which changes from print to print, adds to the unique character of her work and has become a McCollum trademark.
While McCollum has continued to keep one foot in the graphic design field, specializing in packaging design, she has spent the lion’s share of her time of late designing fashions for the home.
Here she designs dinnerware collections, rug and pillow collections, home accents and accessories influenced by the art genres that have always fascinated her. French and European Country, American Shaker art, Arts and Crafts Movement, Japanese woodblock prints and medieval woodblock prints are among her favorite genres. Her eclectic versatility and extensive design background keep her work truly unique and fresh.
In addition to creating such designs for major manufacturers, she brings her design capabilities to custom design for the home--for the trade and for collectors. A custom wallpaper collection in the Arts and Crafts style for one collector’s home, and an exterior lighting in her Japanese style for another’s home are examples of some of her current projects.
Sudi says, “I’m doing what I’ve always wanted to do -- I’m designing... stuff! I’ve always had this goal of an entirely aesthetic universe and I’ve got to start somewhere. I’m starting with... stuff!”
Her deep conviction that the power of imagination and skill in great art and design through the ages—whether a painting, pillow, rug or bowl—is that it can imbue inanimate objects with life and animation. This ability of art and design to bring joy, affection and pleasure is an endeavour that never ceases to interest and challenge Sudi to design in so many different areas.
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