Finely Tuned Piano

Here's the latest cover for ABRSM's Piano Exam Pieces series featuring the new brand design I developed with the team last year, covered in this previous post. It was nice to work with the template I'd helped devise but there was still a lot of invisible fine-tuning that went into getting the pianist photography just right and compositing seamlessly with the background. Enjoyable experience as always working with Darren Ellsmore and the ABRSM team. You can see the other covers in the newly branded series on the site here.

ABRSM Revival

Happy 2026 to all. For the first post of the year I thought I'd write about the recent work I've been doing with wonderful long-time client ABRSM. At the end of 2024, and after twelve years of illustrating their music exam book covers, ABRSM notified me that they were looking to rebrand and would be inviting new designers to tender for the work. I was a little deflated but figured that nothing lasted forever. I was offered the chance to pitch for the new work and didn't want to give up without a fight so took the opportunity to see how I fared with a new approach.

The initial pitch designs were to be for the Woodwind books and the chosen style would be rolled out across all the various instruments over the coming years. Working with the supplied photography of Clarinet, Flute and Saxophone players I developed a number of illustrative approaches presented with ideas for typographic layouts and was chuffed to make it past the first round. Over the course of the three month process my big breakthrough came with a wave design I created, based on an existing marketing asset, to define the lower illustration and upper title areas. With that direction as a basis it was the consensus to simplify the illustrative approach and have the photography cleanly presented on colour gradients chosen by ABRSM to represent the instruments. This resulted in a more graphic approach than my previous work and felt like the rebrand they were looking for. When I finally heard that I had won the pitch I was over the moon that I'd get to keep the job and continue to work with ace Content Operations Manager Darren Ellsmore and the ABRSM team.

So, presented here are the first pitch-winning Woodwind book cover designs and final typographic layouts with some of the initial illustrations put forward during the development process. Looking forward to the next performance. You can see other ABRSM work on the main site here also.

'Tinkering' The Ivories

Here's my latest cover illustration for ABRSM's new Piano Exam Pieces syllabus for 25/26. The process started with a selection of photographed pianist references sent over to have a play with and come up with a number of visual routes to get the ball rolling. I've included some initial concepts here that experiment with textures, shapes and lighting that are cherry picked by the ABRSM team at each stage to arrive at a final design. I'm happy with the atmospheric results on this one and enjoyed working with Darren Ellsmore and the ABRSM crew as always. You can see this and further work on the site here.

Drum Kit

Here's some new work for ABRSM and their Drum Kit Exam Pieces 2024 cover. The brief for this commission required quite a number of initial concepts that explored a more energetic stylistic approach to previous ABRSM outings. I've posted a selection of the works-in-progress here showing a range of varied comps and palettes based around collaged photo ref of drummers. After a few rounds the chosen image was settled on and I'm pleased with how it all turned out. You can see this and other ABRSM work on the site here.

Strings Attached

Here are some new cover designs for ABRSM and their 2024 Strings Exam Packs for Cello, Double Bass, Viola and Violin. The brief was to expand on the style established with the recent Piano Exam Pieces design that blended the musician photography with elegantly constructed spaces made of 3d abstract lines and shapes evocatively lit in the dark with bright colours. Had great fun as always putting these together with designer Kate Benjamin and the team at ABRSM. See further work for ABRSM 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.

ABRSM Crescendo

It's been a bumper year for ABRSM illustration commissions and here's a mega-post to catch up on all of them. The bulk of the work was rebranding ABRSM's Music Theory series which required a new visual concept that could be used across the 5 grades of Work and Answer books. I presented a few approaches before settling on an organic design that emanated from a large central  grade number featuring 3d notation, textures and patterns. The illustration had to be versatile enough to work with the five colour schemes and for the Answer book I inverted the tones of the numbers and background imagery to differentiate them. Monochrome versions were also provided for the Sample Paper covers. Aside from that I created new covers for Piano Exam Pieces and Scales & Arpeggios with designer Kate Benjamin. Great jobs to work on as always. You can see all the previous work for ABRSM 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.

ABRSM Movement

Time for a hefty catchup on my music exam book cover illustration work with the lovely folk at ABRSM and equally lovely designer Kate Benjamin. Here are two of the more recent designs for Piano and Guitar Exam Pieces 2019/20 that have some new 3d elements woven into the gradually evolving style and texture to keep it fresh. I've also included a whole slew of colourful Woodwind Syllabus covers from the previous year that I've yet to add to the blog. A real pleasure to work on all of these and happy to say there's more to come. You can see all the of the ABRSM work over on the site and here on the blog.