Race To Venus

Here's my latest illustrated cover and spread for BBC Science Focus on the race to reach Venus and what we'll discover. A toxic hellhole apparently! Book me up. For this one I created the landing probe in 3d to get a few angles to play with and composited it into the Photoshopped planetary scene. You can see this and previous work for BBC Science Focus on the site here.

World Wide Wonder

Here's a recent editorial for PM Network magazine on their pick of the wonders that the World Wide Web has brought us so far from 'Gangnam Style' to Crowdfunding with a few cat videos thrown in for good measure. You can see this and related work on the site here.

Beating The ABRSM Drum

I've had a very busy year working with the ABRSM and designer Kate Benjamin on numerous cover illustrations for their prodigious music exam publication output. This is the latest selection of artwork mostly covering Percussion and Strings with a sprinkle of Piano and Specimen Aural Tests. The creative brief opened up for the Percussion series with a bolder graphic approach being adopted while a more 3d abstract scene worked well for the Specimen Aural Tests illustration. Always enjoyable commissions and more to come in 2020! You can see all the previous work for ABRSM on my site here.

Timeless

Time to go 'Shreddin' The Gnar'* with this film poster design for long-standing US Winter sports filmmakers Warren Miller Entertainment's 70th anniversary release Timeless. This was an exciting commission to work on being a bit of an over-the-hill, make that fall-down-the-hill, snowboarder myself. The collage illustration came together over a few rounds of the usual frenzied Photoshop mix of painted textures and photography, a great selection of which was supplied featuring the stunning locations and incredible athletes. Along with the overall typographic design I also created the main title logo in 3d and animated it for the film's breathtaking Mont Blanc intro shot. Hopefully I pulled the job of with the requisite amount of 'Steez'*. You can also see this on the main site with related work here.

* actual snowboarding parlance spoken by people.

All Systems Go!

Here's a recent techie cover illustration for IBM Power Systems magazine showcasing their new virtual servers on IBM Cloud. This is a good ol' Photoshop mix of 3d, photography and layered texture mayhem. You can see this and previous work for IBM on the site here.

Instant Inspiration

October has managed to fly by without a single blogpost so I'll try and make up for it before 2019 is finito. First up is a little bit of press promo. Was great to get invited to feature my work, along with a mini-interview, in the latest Computer Arts issue for the Instant Inspiration page. It's an Instagram thing! You can check mine out here.

Of Bodies & Brains

Time for an overdue post on some recent illustrations for BBC Science Focus mag. Here's a cover for the spin-off Collection Volume 17: A Scientific Guide to the Human Body and a feature illustration in the main mag posing the question Should You Upgrade Your Brain? Think I might need to. You can see these and other Science Focus work on the main site here.

Chrome Blab: Danger of Death

Here's a short bit of experimental daftness featuring a dollop of 3d twisting gloop and oddball found signage from the coast. Creepy fun? Surewhynot.

Witch Doctoring

Here are a couple of concept illustrations I recently unearthed from the digital archive. They were early test visuals for a witch doctor character that would feature in a Childish Gambino VR concert experience called 'Pharos' that was performed in California's Joshua Tree National Park in 2017. I was commissioned by Radio Design and you can read about the making of the incredible concert over on their website here. The overall production design went in another direction but it was hella fun to work on briefly.

#Metoo and the Jewish World

Here's a new commission for Hadassah Magazine in New York illustrating the cover and a few feature articles for their '#Metoo and the Jewish World' issue. It was a slightly intimidating brief to tackle as a non-Jewish middle aged bloke but I approached the sensitively written and enlightening articles as I would any project and settled on a visual language I was happy with to interpret the themes. The illustrations cover a wide spectrum of #Metoo issues from the experiences of female rabbi's to an update on the movement in Israel. You can see the work on the site and previous work for Hadasshah here.

Space 2069

Here's a brand new cover illustration for the latest BBC Science Focus magazine celebrating past achievements in space exploration and looking at what to expect in the next 50 years. This was a fun illustration to work on with its combination of 3d elements, the astronaut's helmet and spaceships, and good old 2d digital collage. You can see this with all my previous BBC Focus work on the site here.

Jason Lives

Here's a new illustration for Science magazine in the US on the slightly shady scientific advisory group Jason. Recently under threat of extinction the group has evolved from its Cold War defence strategy origins into a more diverse health, biology and agriculture focused agency. The brief was to somehow reference the iconic Dr. Strangelove round table set design and show the group and their projects diversifying over time. I created the central light, table and chairs in 3d then developed the illustration around those elements in Photoshop using colour gradients and collage to show progression over the decades. You can see this and previous Science work on the site here.

Lion On Our Streets

Here's a new illustration for Car and Driver magazine on the re-emergence of Peugeot in America after a 30 year absence. The 'Lion on our Streets' headline was already in place and heavily influenced the illustration as you can probably tell. I really enjoyed working on it, especially getting to sneak the Peugeot logo shadow in there. You can see this and other illustrations for Car and Driver on the site here.

Archival Congress

While trawling the archives recently I came across some illustrations for a music project from a couple of years ago that I hadn't shared yet. These are a selection of unreleased album/single covers and concepts for the band First Congress who I collaborated with for a while on a number of illustrations and animated videos, the already released of which you can see here. These were the first visuals I worked on for the band while I developed the stylised graphic approach that would set the template for the later single covers. You can also see these on the site with related work here.

Play With Fire

Here's a cover jacket illustration for a new book by Nick Francis of Casual Films called 'The New Fire'. It's a guide to successfully using video to promote businesses so a blazing play icon seemed an appropriate way to visualise the theme. You can see this and related work on the site here.

Black Holes and Ancient Life

Some new cover illustrations for the rebranded BBC Science Focus Magazine and Collection Vol. 13. The Supermassive Black Hole illustration was a quick turnaround commission to coincide with the recent first ever image of the cosmic phenomenon from the Event Horizon telescope. That image was understandably a touch blurry so I took visual guidance from the Event Horizon simulations gallery. I also created an animation in After Effects for the iPad cover edition using the 3d model I'd created for the illustration. The second illustration shows a cross-section of the development of Ancient Life on Earth up to early man traipsing up a 3d spiral. See further BBC Focus work here.