Young Artist Showcase: Ayla Maagdenberg (Netherlands)

Ayla Maagdenberg is a 22 year-old graphic designer and photographer from the Netherlands. I met her in Boston last year and fell in love with her style and talent. We have been friends ever since. She always seems to have something new and exciting she is working on that I would never expect. I finally gathered the courage to ask her to join Nonsense Society, and she said yes. Take a look, enjoy, and maybe even learn something.

Creative concept. Incredible result. Vibrant. Plays with your perception of reality. Definitely one of my favorites.

I’m loving the cropping on the photos. The mix of abstraction with orderly design is stunning. Also the use of typography and white space couldn’t be better. ALSO hand-made?! Good god.

It’s almost like a commercial self-portrait. She’s making a statement that people always assume she is shy. Here she is on the front of a magazine, hiding inside a box with no walls. Yet, she looks very shy in the picture. Hrmm… That aside, great magazine design.

Website header design. So cool how the letters reach off the page. The fact that the shadows are darker on one side makes it that much more 3 dimensional.

I don’t really get it, but boy do I love it.

Playing with typography. The angle of the photograph takes a cool design and makes it more of a work of art.

She is saying a lot here. Please stop eating our world, consumers.

A hand-made folio design and photograph. I doubt this much thought and craftsmanship is put into most design today. The use of typography and black & white contrast blows my mind. Do you think she would sell me a copy?

Pages from a hand-made book. God, I love white space. She knows how to use it. Also a brilliant reflection made through art. Ayla definitely understands that there is more to art than just being eye-candy.

Similar. This time a bit heavier. Very moving. Very simple. It does the job. Can you feel it?

Color + Cropping = A+ in my book

It’s a still life, but there is so much life in it. How does she do that?

Self-portrait. The tone and saturation of colors are great. Leaving so much out of frame makes the portrait that much more intriguing.

Another self-portrait. Tortured? Disturbed? Confused? Alone? So much emotion in this one.

The contrast and saturation give this photo a feeling I rarely get from a photograph.

Wow. So good it hurts.

All work is Copyright Ayla Maagdenberg, All Rights Reserved.

Ayla Maagdenberg

Ayla is a 22 year-old artist from the Netherlands, Holland, or whatever you want to call it. She is particularly talented in graphic design, photography, and animation. She studied graphic design & motion graphics at Willem de Kooning Academy and MassArt in Boston. Ayla also was an intern at Overburen in Amsterdam, but is ten times cooler than her resume could ever convey. For more on Ayla check out her website or flickr.