Smash And Grab

Here's a recent cover and feature illustration for The Journalist magazine on the theme of the 'Smash and Grab' tactics of picture agency copyright enforcers. An interesting subject matter to be sure and one that I found challenging to conceptualise. The brief called for me to visually represent the receiving of unexpected and hefty fee demands many years after posting a copyrighted stock photo, often unawarely. I tried out a few initial visuals, some playing with the theme of the all-seeing AI bots that scour the internet for image usage, which I've included here. The fist holding a demand seemed to convey the intimidating nature of the copyright enforcement and was chosen to develop further for the final. I'm pleased with how it turned out. You can see more work for The Journalist on my site here.