Tom Biddulph & Barbara Ryan
Creativity runs through the veins of Tom Biddulph and Barbara Ryan. They met during their graphic design studies but their creativity goes beyond that. They will team up to create a new light artwork for the eighth edition.
Art directors Tom Biddulph and Barbara Ryan met five years ago during their graphic design studies at Kingston University in London. For the past three years, they have been working individually at different creative agencies in Amsterdam. Occasionally, they work together on a variety of projects, from photography to magazine design. It’s the second time they create a light artwork for Amsterdam Light Festival.
The creative directors don’t like to limit themselves to one medium. “Anything with room for a good idea,” they describe the scope of their creativity. Last year, they created their first light artwork ‘Night Vision’ for the festival – a dazzling reflecting eye on a canal bridge. Ryan: “The fact that it blended so seamlessly with one of Amsterdam’s iconic bridges is the best bit for us. We created the work for the canals, but the canal completed it for us.”
“The hardest part is finding the balance between concept and execution; bringing a project to life in a beautiful way without diluting the original idea.”
For inspiration, they turn to Alan Fletcher’s book ‘The Art of Looking Sideways’, or just look out the window. “The hardest part is finding the balance between concept and execution; bringing a project to life in a beautiful way without diluting the original idea,” Biddulph and Ryan state. This year, they will create an entirely new work using the canal not only as a viewing location but as a key part of the artwork itself.
Tom Biddulph (1991) and Barbara Ryan (1992) work individually as art directors at different creative agencies in Amsterdam. Occasionally, they work together on a variety of creative projects. For edition #7 they created the light sculpture ‘Night Vision’.