Claude Debussy's Life In Miniature

Here's a great animated project I worked on earlier in the year for classical music site Sinfini Music. Their mission is to 'cut through classical' by commissioning interesting online content including animations, of which this is part of the composer's Lives In Miniature series. The brief was to capture a flavour of the life of Claude Debussy, a composer I was only vaguely familiar with I'm sorry to say, in an animation under three minutes long. It was an education delving into his lovely music and dramatic history to write the script and develop a suitable visual style for the proposal.

Debussy's music was groundbreaking and radical for the time and his personal life proved equally unconventional so I focused on those aspects for the narrative. His was also the era of the Impressionists and, even though he disapproved of any association, I thought a modern and colourful painterly approach was appropriate mixed in with an inky brush pen style for the drawn portraits. The beautiful composition Claire de Lune was chosen for the piece and all was in place. It was put together in After Effects with a single unbroken 3D camera move and was a real joy to make, hope you enjoy.

Life Begins

My wife and I hit the big 4-0 recently and celebrated with a couple of weekend reality-breaks. For Liz's birthday we headed off to Iceland for ATP's latest music festival staged in the unusual, semi-deserted environs of a former NATO Base in Keflavik. Highlights included Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, The Fall, The Notwist and local talents Æla. In the downtime we gave the old bones a geothermal soak in the amazing Blue Lagoon and spent the last day in Reykjavik, enjoying a birthday cocktail in the stunning new Harpa concert hall.

For my 40th we popped down to Bridport in Dorset to see The Wedding Present play on their Seaside Tour at the fantastic Electric Palace. The weather was playing ball that weekend so we toured the Jurassic Coast visiting West Bay, Portland Bill and Lyme Regis while munching on some ace seafood at the Crabhouse Cafe on the Fleet.

In between those two trips we had a joint birthday do at Dalston's Cafe Oto and a lot of fun was had, if my hazy memory serves! Here's a souped-up tractor flyer invite I designed for the bash. The second illustration features an Icelandic food highlight, and our staple diet at the festival, the delicious hot dogs of Baejarins Bestu. Their jogging sausage-dude logo formed the basis of this birthday card design I made for Liz. Now, on with this 40 lark, harumph.

Hot Hot Hot

It's hot in the city so I thought I'd commemorate the good weather with a couple of drawings of the amazing melting man, Emil from the classic Robocop, as potent toxic waste strips his flesh to the bone. 'Don't tzatch me maaannn!'. Enjoy the weekend!

Autocar

Here's a futuristic illustration for Car & Driver Magazine looking at the rise of the autonomous automobile for their science non-fiction column. Just sit back and let the car drive you. Can I get a Johnny Cab from Total Recall for mine please?

ABRSM Flute & Clarinet

I've been plenty busy this year with ongoing work for ABRSM, the UK's largest music education publisher. First out of the gate in 2013 are the covers for the Flute and Clarinet Exam Pieces, both part of a complete design and illustration rebrand of all their exam publications, art directed by Kate Benjamin. More to come soon.

Flying Business

Sorry for the lack of recent posts. The last few weeks have flown by, as did this cover illustration for Business Airport Magazine (ahem) which looks at the wealth of training required in the corporate aviation world. More work landing soon.