WIA2020 And AI39 News

Really pleased to get some of my work recognised this awards season, the good news came as a lovely lockdown pick-me-up. Firstly, my Hadassah magazine cover for the #Metoo and the Jewish World issue was long listed in the World Illustration Awards. Secondly, my Jason advisory group illustration for Science and Space 2069 cover for BBC Science Focus were chosen winners in American Illustration 39 and will appear amongst the online archive.

The Truck That Never Was

New editorial illustration for Car and Driver magazine on the Pontiac G8 sport truck that never quite made it to the US market. The brief was to place the vehicle in an Australian setting, where the truck originated, so I created a dusky Sydney backdrop for it.

Brain Explainer

A post from deep WFH territory featuring a new cover illustration for BBC Science Focus Collection magazine for an issue that seeks to explain the brain. The brief was to create a luminous image of our grey matter housed in a human silhouette with a palette to pop the eye from a magazine rack. The back cover illustration featured the standalone brain image.

Stop the Bleeding

First post from the lockdown bunker happens to be a fairly recent health illustration (not Covid 19 related!) for NC State Alumni magazine on new methods being developed to help wounds heal after traumatic injuries. I created some blood cells in 3d for this one to collage in with the other 2d illustration elements.

Raw Power Festival 2020

It's fast approaching music festival season and I'm happy to report I was asked again to create all the promotional materials for the upcoming Raw Power 2020 by organiser Baba Yaga's Hut.

Building on last year's sci-fi/psych designs I further developed the logo with textures reminiscent of amp speakers and created ominous rocket structures fashioned from jack plugs. Over a period of around 6 months the festival line up came together requiring early bird, first and final announcement poster designs while I tinkered away on an animated promo in the background. This focuses on the launch sequence of one of the jack towers as it hurtles towards a sonic-hole (if you like) as the festival line up appears across the action. This was all modelled in 3d and composited in After Effects with the mind-crunching soundtrack provided by headliner Chrome Hoof.

The festival in North London is always a blast and a great place to discover new bands, you can get tickets through their facebook page here.

Book Illustration Competition 2020

This year I thought I'd have another crack at the Folio Society/House Of Illustration Book Illustration competition after making it to the final short list with my Sherlock entries a couple of years ago. No room on the long list for me this time unfortunately but I really enjoyed the creative challenge as always. The theme was Love Poems and there were three to illustrate, the details are below. Congratulations to all the long listed illustrators! You can go and vote for your favourite here until 16th March and you can also see these illustrations on my site here with related work.

The first illustration focuses on the following lines from The Good Morrow by John Donne.
'My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears,
And true plain hearts do in the faces rest;
Where can we find two better hemispheres,...'.

Secondly, this extract from Wild Nights! by Emily Dickinson.
'Rowing in Eden -
Ah, the Sea!
Might I but moor - Tonight -
In thee!'

Finally, this passage from The Trick by Imtiz Dharker.
'...till that time comes when you come to the door
of dreams, carrying oranges that cast a glow
up into your face. Greedy for more
than the gift of seeing you, I lean in to taste
the colour, kiss it off your offered mouth.'

Future Meds

Here's a recent editorial for 5280 Health magazine over in Denver, USA. It's for a look at some potentially game-changing health treatments including insulin pills, Alexa-style health advice and cancer-fighting snake venom. I went with a colourful collage approach using one of my favourite go-to palettes. You can see this on the site with previous and related work here.

Moon Mined

Here's a series of illustrations for a feature in the current issue of BBC Science Focus called 'What If...' looking at what could happen if we started mining the Moon for its resources. I figured the most versatile way to depict a moon base and mining facility would be to try and model them in 3D, giving me the ability to alter the virtual camera angle for different compositions. Once satisfied with the models, shots and lighting, I rendered out the scenes and sprinkled on a little moon-dust in Photoshop. You can see them on the site here with other related work.

Yes! Ticket

Here's some new work commissioned by the excellent Italian visual design studio Bunker for their client Yes! Ticket, a continuation of previous branding illustration work I created for 360 Payment Solutions a few years ago. The Yes! Ticket and Gift illustrations needed to colourfully convey the myriad activities and services you could use the card/vouchers for such as dining out and shopping. The compositions were designed to stand alone or work on different colour backgrounds. You can see these on the site here with related work.

Solivus

Happy New Year to all! Here's a juicy little 3d animation commission to kick off the 2020s. It's a promotional video for startup solar energy company Solivus that gives an overview of the possible applications for their products. Starting with art director Richard Sinclair's initial storyboard I decided that creating an entirely stylised 3d environment would be the most effective way to establish and move through all the scenes that were required. I set out on a steep learning curve figuring out how to build the landscapes and buildings and design the vehicles, cars, trucks and hyper loops, all whilst deciding on a stylistic approach that would work. I initially pushed for a harder graphic monotone style using the main orange brand colour (see the style board above) but it seemed slightly apocalyptic and a little at odds with the clean energy message. After softening the trees and introducing a more positive summery palette the style was approved and I proceeded to map out the long swooping camera moves in 3d and build the environment accordingly. Everything was rendered out to After Effects for final compositing and colour tweaking followed by music and voice-over selection. Overall, it was a really rewarding job and I'm pleased with the results. I look forward to more of this sort of thing! You can see this on the site with further 3d visualisations of Solivus technology here.

Race To Venus

Here's my latest illustrated cover and spread for BBC Science Focus on the race to reach Venus and what we'll discover. A toxic hellhole apparently! Book me up. For this one I created the landing probe in 3d to get a few angles to play with and composited it into the Photoshopped planetary scene. You can see this and previous work for BBC Science Focus on the site here.

World Wide Wonder

Here's a recent editorial for PM Network magazine on their pick of the wonders that the World Wide Web has brought us so far from 'Gangnam Style' to Crowdfunding with a few cat videos thrown in for good measure. You can see this and related work on the site 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.

Timeless

Time to go 'Shreddin' The Gnar'* with this film poster design for long-standing US Winter sports filmmakers Warren Miller Entertainment's 70th anniversary release Timeless. This was an exciting commission to work on being a bit of an over-the-hill, make that fall-down-the-hill, snowboarder myself. The collage illustration came together over a few rounds of the usual frenzied Photoshop mix of painted textures and photography, a great selection of which was supplied featuring the stunning locations and incredible athletes. Along with the overall typographic design I also created the main title logo in 3d and animated it for the film's breathtaking Mont Blanc intro shot. Hopefully I pulled the job of with the requisite amount of 'Steez'*. You can also see this on the main site with related work here.

* actual snowboarding parlance spoken by people.

All Systems Go!

Here's a recent techie cover illustration for IBM Power Systems magazine showcasing their new virtual servers on IBM Cloud. This is a good ol' Photoshop mix of 3d, photography and layered texture mayhem. You can see this and previous work for IBM on the site here.

Instant Inspiration

October has managed to fly by without a single blogpost so I'll try and make up for it before 2019 is finito. First up is a little bit of press promo. Was great to get invited to feature my work, along with a mini-interview, in the latest Computer Arts issue for the Instant Inspiration page. It's an Instagram thing! You can check mine out here.