[ Posted: Mar 17, 2010 ]
Illustrator Michael Bast has worked for over 20 years within the same group of clients. They just keep coming back. And although Michael himself would humbly downplay many of the rave reviews and superfluous praises he receives, they are genuine. As the representative at Celestial Seasonings said, "You think we're gushing—but it's all true." A reputation for excellence has made Michael a repeat illustrator for companies like Kraft, Pringles, Sara Lee, Post, and Proctor and Gamble, to name a few.
In explaining the difference in flavor vs. food art, Michael says, "With flavor art, I filter out the bad and enhance the good. I accentuate the details of whatever I am illustrating to create a mood– whether it be color, surface, texture (i.e., wet, juicy, etc.) or lighting. Unlike photography, with illustration you have more control. A photograph is merely a representation of what is before you. You can play with lighting and focus, but you can't necessarily take out or even re-think what the inside of, lets say, a guava looks like."
Longevity is what distinguishes Michael above other illustrators in this already sparse field. There are only a few artists who have really done Michael's type of style, and those were his mentors. Dedicating a career to food art has given him plenty of time to mull over the idea of flavor and taste in regards to packaging.
Michael is keeping a style going that has long since been trivialized by the erosion of technology. For a quite some time it used to be the only way to achieve that look of tactile realism was through traditional tools—real paint, real canvas, etc. Michael was one of the first to cross into the digital realm and capture subtle nuances in imagery. It's a little hard to visually translate taste and color with traditional tools. It is also more laborious and time consuming.
In short, his illustration style is taking the best of both scenarios. He is capturing the beauty of what traditional painting has always represented, in its finest form, and bringing that into a virtual workspace that allows for quick turn around time and revision. Thus equaling, decade's worth of very happy clients.
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