Primavera Sound

At the end of May we took a fourth annual trip running to Barcelona for the Primavera Sound festival held at the large Parc Del Forum along the coast. It was a biggie this year with highlights including QOTSA, NIN, Pixies, Arcade Fire, Factory Floor, Andy Stott and Kronos Quartet. Great fun was had at the festy as always with an extra day of recovery in the beautiful city consuming plates of padron peppers.

Tears In Rain

Here's a little personal piece to wrap up the week. It's a simple, stylised take on Rutger Hauer's final scene as the dying replicant Roy Batty in Blade Runner, one of my all time faves. See some more Film Heads on my site here.

London's Greatest Buildings

I was recently asked by RIBA to adapt my London skyline illustration to promote an upcoming event called London's Greatest Buildings on 24th June, part of the London Architecture Festival. I was very happy to do so, always a pleasure working on architectural imagery.

AOI Awards Shortlist 2014

Very pleased to say that my animation Claude Debussy's Life In Miniature has been shortlisted for this year's AOI Illustration Awards in the Design category. The Awards show will be held at Somerset House, London later in the year.

Transatlantic Train

Here's my latest illustration for Focus Magazine's Into The Future column. This month Stephen Baxter looks at the prospect of future trains travelling across the Atlantic in a super-speed magnetic vacuum tube. Presumably leaf-free to avoid delays. See more sci-fi work for Focus here.

This Time It's Personal (Computer)

Here's a new illustration for Nominet Trust's latest provocation paper The Personal (Computer) Is Political. It looks at the importance of understanding how digital/social media technologies are put together and the driving forces behind them. You can see previous illustrations for Nominet Trust on the site here.

Banyoles Behemoth

Here's the final Post-Invasion Card of the series depicting a serene and watery demise for this space junker in the Lake of Banyoles. You can see the full set on my site here. It's been a blast!

Stiff Competition

Here's an editorial piece for AOPA's Flight Training Magazine looking at how the emerging growth of Middle Eastern airlines is putting US carriers in the shade. See previous work for AOPA here.

Applied Arts Awards And Interview

I'm triple happy to be able to say three of my entries were chosen this year for the Applied Arts Illustration Awards. My Claude Debussy: A Life In Miniature animation was a winner in the Motion category, The Skull in the Poster category and Next Steps In The Final Frontier in Editorial. Quadruple chuffed to also have an extensive interview, entitled Colour Ways for the Split Run section, in the current Awards Issue that can also be read online here.

Cornish Pip

My wife and I spent the Easter weekend down in Cornwall again, this time staying in Pip the Shepherd's Hut and Pip's Cabin on a lovely farm in Rezare near Launceston. We strolled around the local woodlands before hitting the seaside towns of Polperro and Looe in the blazing sunshine before the drizzle arrived on the last day for visits to Tintagel and Port Isaac. Evenings were mostly spent drinking bourbon and eating red meat around the open fire. Cracking.

The Dead Woman's Ruin

Here's the third in the Post-Invasion Cards set featuring a colossal wreck splayed across the mysteriously titled mountain range of La Mujer Muerta (The Dead Woman). Nice view from the balcony. See the set in more detail on my site here.

ABRSM Reprise

I've been continuing my work with the ABRSM this year rebranding all their music exam covers with designer Kate Benjamin. Here are a few recent illustrations for various Flute, Oboe and Bassoon covers to get your eyes (ears) 'round. You can see the 2014 cover designs so far on the site here.

QEOP Spotting

The advertising for the opening of Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park has been all over London town this month which has been a treat to see. Here are a couple of bus and tube examples. Thanks to Annie for the tube snap.

The Wreck Of Puigcerda

It's Post-Invasion Card time so here's the second in a series of four vintage Spanish postcard vistas re-imagined as the final resting places of peculiar vessels. See the set so far on the site here.

Happy Days

Here's another multi-spread commission for Live Happy Magazine for their special issue on the International Day Of Happiness last month. The feature looks at why happiness is crucial and how to make more of the lovely stuff. I used an appropriately bright and breezy palette based on the magazine's colour scheme to make it all pop. You can see the final layouts and other work for Live Happy on the site here.

Calella Hulk

I've been working on a personal project recently involving a bit of sci-fi fun with some old postcards I picked up in Barcelona. The series is called Post-Invasion Cards and is made up of four lurid landscapes 're-imagined' as giant crash-sites for interstellar crafts after an unspecified planetary assault. This first piece is called Calella Hulk, I'll post the others over the next three Fridays. You can see more detail on the site here.

Virginia Plain

Here's a recent personal piece that I submitted to this year's Secret 7" vinyl art/good cause exhibition. Didn't make it into the show unfortunately but enjoyed the hell out of making it. I chose to illustrate Roxy Music's Virginia Plain with a stripped-back collage style that mashes up references to Warhol superstar Baby Jane Wolzer, Studebaker cars and the cigarette brand of the title. You can see it on my site here with other personal work.

A.I.

Here's my second sci-fi contribution to Focus Magazine's Into The Future column. This month's topic, Artificial Intelligence, gave me a chance to try out a female cyborg inspired by designs from Spielberg's film and a classic cover for William Gibson's Burning Chrome by artist Chris Moore. You can also see the Into The Future illustrations in more detail on my site here.

Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park

I was recently commissioned by the good folks at Premm Design again, whom I worked with on three years of successful BBC Proms illustrations, to create an illustration for the opening of Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in Stratford this coming Saturday April 5th. To get a feel for the park I donned a hard hat for a site visit during construction and took a load of research snaps before tackling the brief. The illustration had to convey a sense of the iconic architecture, public spaces, waterways and array of activities available in a simple and effective way all rendered in the eye-catching brand colours. The image had to work for various for print formats, landscape and portrait, and I also animated the illustration for some short moving ads that can be seen at Westfield and on those tubes of London. You can also see more on the site here. Now I just need to go and have a little lie down in it.

This Machine Never Forgets A Face

Here's an editorial for American Way magazine on the state of today's facial recognition technology that uses data points to analyse your features and match you to a database for identification. I could do with this in the mirror most mornings.