Tom Coolen

Fernweh

Operating under the moniker ‘Mad Leif’, Tom Coolen is a Graphic designer and illustrator based in Hasselt, Belgium. His work is designed to give you a quiet sort of understated inspiration. We spend so much of our time as people building our identities, just as a matter of functioning in the world. Preoccupied with endless to do lists and responsibilities and a daily dose of noise coming from many directions. Tom seeks to provide a person with a few seconds of relief, happiness or positive reflection, a seed of positivity. The colors, gradients, shapes and patterns offer a short break, a focus on the light that's there, underneath it all. A bit like when you're in a forest and you manage to see sunlight coming through the branches. The experimentation you can find within Toms designs is powered by the intensity of different emotions. Not only in the beauty of life, nature, both internal and exter-nal. It's also, or even more so important to find the meaning, or beauty, in even the most dire of feelings or circumstances.