Where Next?

Here's a novel cover commission for BBC Science Focus that needed to work for the usual illustrated print version and also as an expanded animated version specifically for the Apple News Plus service. I'd worked on animated versions of their covers in the past but usually as a supplement to the illustration. This time the animation took precedence with storyboards being created first and the illustration evolving out of the animation direction. The theme was exploration and the creative brief required a traveller character surveying a cinematic scene composed of the earthbound and interplanetary destinations covered in the issue, from pyramids to asteroids. I thought the most dynamic and exciting approach would be to build the scene in Cinema 4d and fly a camera through it for the allotted 15 seconds before looping back to the start. The central figure, pyramids, mountains and astral bodies were created and rendered in Cinema before being composited into cloud, sky and space scenery in After Effects. Really enjoyed creating this one and I'm pleased with how it all came together in the end. You can check out more Focus work on the blog here. 

Monorail Memories

Here's a recent collaboration project with the talented Black Country Type, an old buddy from my home town of Kingswinford in the West Midlands. His ongoing Black Country based photographic project applies his unique aesthetic to the region's post-industrial landscapes, typography and ephemera. He approached me with the idea of creating a t-shirt design based on the Merry Hill Monorail, a short-lived vision of future transport from 1991 that shuttled consumers between department stores at walk-speed. The monorail eventually succumbed to technical difficulties but nostalgically lives forever in my electric dreams. I jumped at the chance to pay design homage and took inspiration from Black Country Type's visual mood board featuring 80s cool graphics from Epcot Center posters to JVC video cassette packaging. I've posted a few of the initial designs here before simplifying for the final three colour design. The excellent Provide Birmingham printed and launched the limited run of 50 t-shirts which I'm happy to say sold out pretty quickly with prints possibly available soon.