St. Vincent

St. Vincent is Annie Clark, a petite, delicate looking woman. She has a sweet, light voice when she sings, and she looks like she could be talented the cousin of Regina Spektor. She incorporates strings, woodwinds, brass, pianos, and keyboards in her music in a sophisticated way.

But she isn't always this light and happy. Her music is often very dark and strange. Her guitar is harsh and "gnarly," as she puts it. Her music can be very intense and brooding, and in just a few seconds, be very calm and moderate. She uses both her guitar and her voice to create this effect, playing or singing sweet melodies, then blasting broken guitar sounds and synthesizing her voice over frazzled lyrics.

She is a paradox.

Like Nate Williams, she has two distinct styles that are very contradicting. But unlike Nate Williams, she merges them into one, making her music laughably dark, in an almost crazy way. It's as if she is happy about being upset, hurt, angry. Her music sounds is masochistic - light about being dark - in the most polite way. There's just something about the combination of her two styles that makes it humorous, but humorous in a sad way.

This combination of styles is a perfectly valid alternative to Nate Williams' separation of styles. It makes the end product thicker, with more layers, more mysteries. This is a good lesson to be learned - that sometimes the split is good, and sometimes the combination is good. And sometimes all three are good.

Nate Williams / Alexander Blue

Nate Williams

His designs are sketchy and raw. They are made with natural looking colors and look like they might have been printed on paper, or doodled, for that matter.

Alexander Blue

His designs are cartooney and rich. The colors are bright and deep, and they look like something that might be part of a kid's sticker collection, or maybe on his lunchbox.

Two designers, two totally different styles,
one person.

The person is Nate Williams, but in the design world, he is also Alexander Blue. He is one person in reality, but when designing, he goes by two names. Both styles are so distinctly different from each other that they look as though they really were made by two different people.

Shoes designed by Nate Williams and Alexander Blue.

When asked in an interview about why he designs under two names, Nate said, "I created the alter ego Alexander Blue, so I could do another style of illustration, but not confuse "Nate Williams" clients. I think every illustrator realizes you must have a strong unique consistent style, but struggles with committing to one style, so this is how I deal with the struggle."

I think this is a brilliant way to make such an artistic distinction. It keeps clients unconfused about what they will be getting, and it opens up two worlds for him to design in - it gives him more opportunity to design, because he appeals to two different audiences.

I have even had this struggle in my own work: the pull between designing with a natural, smooth look, or a bright, harsh look. My photography often goes in both directions.
I don't know if I'll go as far as Nate Williams did and create my own alter-ego. But I do think that what he did was a good idea, at least for him. At least now, I know the option is open for me. And who knows, maybe I will.