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.

3x3 Rush

 

Happy to hear that my Great Moon Rush animated cover for BBC Science Focus has picked up another plaudit this year winning an Animation Merit in the 20th 3x3 Professional Show. Off to the moon again to celebrate!

AI World

 

Here's my latest cover illustration and animation for BBC Science Focus on the contentious hot topic of the moment AI. I might fret about it subsuming my job one day but I'll happily take commissions on the subject while I can! The brief for this was representing a general overview of AI and what our future might look like. I initially had a lot of fun generating humanoid concepts, such as the four above, but it became apparent that a global approach was more appropriate and I developed the visual of an AI Earth opening it's beady tech eye. For both the illustration and animation I used Cinema 4d to create the various layers and composited them together in Photoshop and After Effects with an exported camera move. For the inside spread I worked up an alternative angle on the scene. You can see the work on the site here and further Focus commissions here.

Turkish Tightrope

Here's a commission for Al Majalla magazine on the theme of President Erdoğan balancing Turkish affairs after his recent reelection. One of the concepts briefed was to depict Erdoğan on a tightrope so for one of the initial roughs I created a high wire scene over a 3d constructed Blue Mosque. The idea and dynamic composition went down well so I moved forward with that direction and switched out the mosque for the Turkish Presidential complex, Ak Saray, that I also modelled in Cinema 4d. The background was completed with Turkish city elements and a magic hour light. An enjoyable commission.

Game On, Zhuri!

Here's a selection of illustrations from a wonderful commission that came in last year from Reycraft to fully illustrate the first children's book from an exciting new US author called Deshaun Zollicoffer, entitled Game On, Zhuri! How To Defeat A Blob Monster. The story centres around a new video game created by programming whizz, Zhuri. The game, Zhuri's World, develops a mysterious bug which enables a blob monster to kidnap her Uncle Mike forcing Zhuri and her two best friends to enter the game and rescue him - a little like a latter-day Tron for the console kids.

I really enjoyed the story and I'd not really been approached to take on an anything quite like this before so, with a little trepidation, I jumped at the chance. The brief involved creating all the characters and the world of Zhuri from scratch, with a 9 year old audience in mind, and delivering a cover and 20 illustrations over a period of six months. The book layout had been pre-designed by the publisher, which was helpful, and there was a requirement for a distinct look and feel for real life and in-game characters and scenes. It was great fun designing the character costumes and appearance for both realities and I developed a pixelated vignette effect to go with the boosted palette of the game world. The writing was funny and imaginative so it was a joy to bring the scenes to life and creating the blob monsters was particularly enjoyable! Overall it was a smooth process and very rewarding to work on an extended commission that allowed the time to attend to the details. More of this please! The book is available for pre-order now and available from 27th June. You can see more of the artwork on the main site here.

Dance Triplicate

Here's an enjoyable commission for a recurring Margate Arts Club DJ event called Dance Dance Dance hosted by some of my friends, Katie & Joe, and their guests. They were looking for a new flyer /poster design so I started out with an open brief and flirted around with a few mirrorball-centric visuals before the brief was honed down a little with some classic psychedelic art references from UFO Club to Grateful Dead poster designs. With those inspirations in mind I set about designing illustrated typography and fantastical cosmic scenes with female figures and ended up with the final poster artwork. You can see some of the visuals created en route below the final design above. 

For Escape Only

Here's a recent bit of personal work I've been playing with in between jobs, a mini-project offshoot of the ongoing Lidoverse project called For Escape Only. It's a series of illustrations and an animation that expands on my Cliftonville Lido obsession to include other local landmarks such as the perfectly 80s (and hideous) College Square sign in Margate town and an abstracted take on the area's concrete promenades, coastal hazard markers and seawall escape ladders. With everything built in Cinema 4d it seemed natural to turn the illustration series into a subtle 3d animation exercise with simple camera movements added through the scenes. I paired the animated visuals with an edit from the atmospheric track Kibo by Ashford based band Bossk.

It's A Funworld

Here's a colourful commission for IAAPA's Funworld magazine, for all things to do with the global attractions industry. The brief was to create a bright and bustling cover and double page spread illustration on the theme of a post-pandemic Asia-Pacific tourist industry resurgence. I was supplied with a list of relevant countries, famous landmarks and attractions that should be represented in the collage and went about designing compositions that would fit the theme, interact with the cover title and generally look fun and be fun to do - which they were. You can also see the work on the main site here. 

The Fliers Of Gy

I entered the Folio Society Book Illustration Awards again this year as it's always a rewarding creative challenge to take on. The chosen book was Ursula K. Le Guin's short story The Fliers of Gy and the brief was to create one illustration based on a passage of your choosing from the set text. The book is about a society of feathered human beings of whom a select few grow wings and face persecution if used to openly take flight.

I worked on two illustrations and chose the first one to submit, titled 'Love Letter' and based on this passage - 'Lovers exchange feathers with which to write love letters to one another, a pretty custom, referred to in a famous scene in the play The Misunderstanding by Inuinui.'

The second un-submitted illustration was based on this passage - '...I turned around and there I had the full run ahead of me, clear across the market-place to the Assay Office. And I ran, and I took off.'

The longlist was announced this week and unfortunately I didn't make it this time but huge congrats to the excellent illustrators who were selected, all fantastic entries. You can see my entries for previous Folio Society book illustration competitions here.

WIA23 Longlister

Super pleased to be longlisted for the AOI's World Illustration Awards in the Science & Technology Professional Category. My Great Moon Rush animated cover illustration for BBC Science Focus was selected amongst some fantastic work this year. To the moon! Absolute lunar-cy, etc. See the work here.

 

Toronto Time

This is a commission that's been on the shelf for a while. It was originally created in 2019 for a TD Bank event in Toronto which was hastily cancelled in 2020 by a certain global pandemic and rescheduled for '22 I believe. The brief was to illustrate the city's landmarks and activities in an exciting way so I (virtually) went to town with this dynamically composed collage featuring the CN Tower and the pretty cool looking Royal Ontario Museum. Would sure like to visit the city in person one day.

Do The Math

Here's a commission from a couple of years ago that I'm allowed to put out there now I think. It's a cover illustration for one in a series of Florida math curriculum books for HMH called Into Math and the brief required a fun collage of aquatic adventure and exploration imagery with an emphasis on tech. Something of a deep dive into the numbers game. Enjoyed working on this one. See further science and technology work on the site here.

IMAA11 Winner

Chuffed to be a Selected Winner in this year's American Illustration International Motion Art Awards 11 for my BBC Science Focus animated cover First Contact! <alien whooping noises>

Forward Thinking

Here's a new illustration for EdTech: Focus on Higher Education Magazine's Spring issue. It's the kind of commission I love to work on, an intricate digital collage with a colourful mix of people, places and tech. You can see further science and technology themed illustrations here.

Ultramassive Black Holes

Here's a new cover animation and illustration for BBC Science Focus on the Hunt for Ultramassive Black Holes. I'd worked on a black hole cover illustration for Focus a few years ago and was keen to differentiate this one in terms of look and scale. The brief mentioned the term 'galaxy-eater' - so not something you could lose down the back of the sofa then. I went about creating a Nolan-esque black hole in Cinema 4d to create the first visuals and have something ready for animating later in the process. Initial ideas included a space ship and an earthbound observatory as seen above but the final design would be all about the black hole. I added galaxy textures, meteors and collapsing planets for detail and made room for the central strap line. For the spread illustration I moved the 3d camera around to get a wider perspective shot and fill the space. 

Once the print version was complete I created a forward camera move in Cinema 4d for the Apple News edition and rendered out the black hole, meteor and planet passes for compositing in After Effects. The title was animated to complement the camera move and to create the loop I designed a brief black hole interior abstract light tunnel effect. Another enjoyable project for Science Focus, you can see further work here.

Tech At The Edge

Here's a very welcome commission for an MIT Sloan Management Review feature looking at emerging tech tools entitled Tech At The Edge. The brief required a cover and three spot illustrations for the related articles with the cover focusing on a figure surveying a technological scene. I used Cinema 4d to build a 3d wireframe landscape and  layered tablet screens to comp with the photographic figure and digital textures in Photoshop. I maintained the stylings and electric blue/gold palette throughout the spot illustrations that were based on Web3, Quantum Computing and AI Tool integrity. A really enjoyable job overall. You can also see an animated commission for MIT's McGovern Institute here.

Loose Connection

Here's my latest illustration for a Car And Driver magazine feature called Loose Connection. It's a look at the history of vehicle fuelling from the kerosene era of the 1880s to modern EVs and some of the problems encountered along the way. See more work for Car And Driver here.