Lido Crab and the Lidoverse

Since moving to Margate, just over a year ago now, I've had a bit of a creative crush on the Cliftonville Lido tower. So much so that I built a 3d model of it in Cinema 4d to tinker around with for an ongoing project I like to call the Lidoverse. Here are some of the illustrations created so far mostly envisaging the tower as an enormous monument out at sea that develops a Santa complex at Christmas and, for its latest incarnation, transforms into a crab. The Lido Crab was created as a submission for the 2023 calendar from the wonderful Crab Museum based in Margate. Happy to report the Lido Crab will appear in the calendar amongst some very fine crustacean-centric art and is available here. 

Editorial Drive-By

Here are a couple of recent editorials for long time client Car And Driver magazine. The first is a map style illustration for a look at London's vehicular based attractions and the second is a rundown of 20 years of SUV history. Always enjoy a good car collage.

See further work for Car and Driver on the site here.

ABRSM Ten Years In

It's been great to work with ABRSM and designer Kate Benjamin again this year on a number of cover illustrations for their latest Piano Exam Pieces and Brass Syllabus books. I really enjoy creating these illustrative collages and working with good photography, provided here by Lloyd Winters and Phil Harrison. After 10 years of working with ABRSM it's interesting to see how the cover style has evolved, from loose and painterly to clean and graphic. You can see all the work posted on this blog over the years here and the first post from 2012 here.

First Contact

All new animated cover illustration for BBC Science Focus' latest issue on the theme of First Contact and what happens if we discover an extra terrestrial signal. The brief was to visualise this alien message with a silhouetted onlooker in a spartan night time landscape and it made sense to add a radar dish to emphasise the communication theme. With scenes from Contact, Arrival and Close Encounters swirling around my brain I started designing. For the signal itself multiple 3d abstract animations were created to layer up with some optical light effects while the radar dish was modelled in Cinema 4d and comped into mountain scenery in Photoshop. For the Apple News cover animation I wanted to move the camera in close to the signal before being zipped into a wormhole briefly to create a loop. Great fun to work on. See more Focus work on the main site here.

Lost In The Cloud

I was recently commissioned to illustrate an article for The National Union of Journalists magazine The Journalist that goes out to its 38,000 UK and Ireland members. The feature looks at the phenomenon of online news stories, links and archives being lost over time due to corporate upheavals and other factors. I envisaged this cloud symbol with a data-munching black hole at it's core. The collage was put together with a bit of Cinema 4D and a dollop of Photoshop textures and photography. Worked on an illustration with same title for New Scientist back in the day as it happens, see it here.

BBC Music 30th Birthday

Here's a fun cover commission for BBC Music magazines 30th Birthday issue. The brief was to create a colourful collage from a selection of famous classical artists and some of the chosen 'must-have' recordings featured in the issue. The cover layout had already been designed with a large central circle of text and attached CD area bottom left which meant I had to get creative with the composition. It was an enjoyable challenge to construct a coherent collage illustration that interacted with the design elements. You can see previous work for BBC Music here.

Beneteau Rendezvous 2022

I recently created the main brand illustration for the Beneteau Rendezvous 2022 event at Two Harbors, Catalina Island. The brief was to showcase Beneteau's fleet of yachts and some of the fun of the annual boating event in an enticing and colourful way. I was supplied a library of images - in lieu of an all-expenses paid trip, unfortunately  - to create the collage which would be used to promote the event on social, printed media and clothing. You can see it on the main site with similar work here.

Multiversal

Here's a new cover illustration and animation for BBC Science Focus on the recently popular notion of the 'Multiverse'. I was initially given the idea of a mirrored cityscape to explore and also supplied a few of my own multi-rough concepts that you can see above. The cityscape visuals won out and a figure was introduced to the scene, with one turning to look at the viewer, to show a subtle difference in the 'verses. I used a 3d city model for the backdrop, which came in handy for the animation that flies into the 'folding' towers to create the loop, and everything was put together with Cinema 4D, After Effects and Photoshop. You can see more work for Science Focus here.

This Sporting Life

Here's a new series of editorial illustrations for Colgate University Magazine in upstate New York, USA. They're for a feature on some of Colgate's successful alumni athletes and what they have done with their careers. The main illustration needed to be a general collage showing the sports included while the other two images feature the specific people in the article. An enjoyable one to do. See it on the main site here.

Raw Power '22

North London's Raw Power Festival, presented by Baba Yaga's Hut, is  swiftly coming around again in August 2022 and for the third year running I've been working on all the promotional material. It's a great festival and always has an exciting lineup of music so there's no shortage of aural inspiration for me to draw on.

The design process started late last year (see dev work at bottom) with the aim to have the logotype work well standalone or as a window onto the art. I was keen to have a versatile method of presentation so that the illustration could breathe full-frame when there were less bands announced on the early posters then be stashed inside the logo to make space for the full band lineup later on.

I created the abstract sc-fi pyramidal landscape with 2d and 3d elements originally then fully 3d for the animated promo which came at the end of the process. It was all put together in Photoshop, After Effects and Cinema 4d to the beat of the stonking 'Reducer' by Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs and great fun to work on as always. See this and previous Raw Power work on the main site here.

Moon Rush

After a bit of a break I'm back in the studio, figuratively and literally with a new studio space in Margate's Hawley Square Studios shared with the talented thingsmove. Good to be back amongst it after a two year hiatus working exclusively at home. Here's my latest cover illustration and animation for BBC Science Focus print and Apple News edition. This one is themed on the Great Moon Rush and the sudden lunar interest from superpowers and billionaires. Using the lovely '69 Time cover as inspiration I developed the spiral-centric design to accommodate a few more lunar landers all created and animated in Cinema 4d with After Effects post work. Great fun to work on. You can see further illustrations and nations for BBC Science Focus here.

Summit Challenge

 

Here's a branding illustration for an upcoming cancer charity fundraiser event in New Jersey called Summit Challenge.  The brief was to capture a flavour of the day's activities which include a fitness challenge obstacle course, featuring hoop swinging and net climbing, and lots of general family fun in a festival atmosphere. The event will raise money to help provide care, comfort and compassion for cancer patients which was the theme of the second illustration commissioned in the Summit Health Cares colour palette. You can see similar fundraising event similar work here.

Future Of Fuels

More vehicular editorial cover art, this time for CSP Magazine in the US on The Future Of Fuels. The brief was to show a car on a garage forecourt facing fuel retail issues around pricing and the idea of the 'electric disconnect'. The digital collage was used on the cover and as a double page spread inside. You can see other transport themed illustrations here.