WorkGraphic Design

Umer Ahmed's poster project The Brutalist is inspired by the iconic Ray Gun Magazine

Umer Ahmed is a graphic designer based in Oslo, Norway, and clearly a man with exceptional taste when it comes to design. Ahmed's day job sees him working as a designer at Neue Design Studio, and at other hours of the day he works on personal projects, sometimes under his alter-ego alias The Brutalist.

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Eight black and white experimental posters from Umer Ahmed's The Brutalist series, featuring heavily textured typography and fragmented layouts inspired by Ray Gun magazine

One of the fruits of this out of hours labour is this wonderful poster project, which pays homage to Ray Gun magazine and to the designers and art directors who were involved in that project.

"To date, it is my favourite magazine," says Ahmed. "My strength and interest lies heavily in typography, analogue methods and concept based design. Through this poster series I wanted to revisit the brutalist aesthetics of Ray Gun magazine, the experimentation of digital meets analogue.

"I enjoy working with minimal design, but to balance it out I feel the urge to sometimes forget the rules, or feel the urge to break all the rules at once, no grid, minimum legibility, and just chaos. Through these poster I express obscure feelings, and social oriented messages, may it be politics or music."

The series now numbers ten posters, and thankfully for us and the rest of the folk who enjoy looking at then, he's "not sure when I will stop."

Two experimental posters with high-contrast black and white abstract textures and fragmented typography, part of The Brutalist series inspired by Ray Gun Magazine
Black and white poster with fragmented text reading "Money won't fulfill your dreams" overlaid on a heavily distressed, grainy photographic background with scattered abstract marks and splatters
Two brutalist-style posters by Umer Ahmed featuring experimental typography with distressed text, abstract marks and high contrast black and white design inspired by Ray Gun magazine aesthetics
Black and white typographic poster with fragmented text and abstract shapes, inspired by Ray Gun magazine's brutalist aesthetic
High-contrast black and white poster with distressed typography and fragmented letterforms arranged vertically, inspired by brutalist design principles
Two black and white experimental posters with fragmented typography and layered text inspired by Ray Gun magazine's brutalist aesthetic
High-contrast black and white poster with fragmented typography and layered architectural forms, inspired by Ray Gun magazine's brutalist aesthetic
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