Billboard No Mates

Latest illo for Design Week's Private View column looking at over-eager brand advertising that just wants to be your bestest chum.

Start Spreading The News

Here are a few snapettes from a fantastic couple of weeks spent in New York recently. It was hot, hot, hot in the city for the first five days as we checked out the sights and sounds from our base at Hotel Chelsea. We strolled the Highline and Brooklyn Bridge, the boardwalk from Brighton Beach to Coney Island, cycled Central Park and took in the Big Bambú sculpture and view from the roof of the Met. For the weekend we drove up-state to Monticello in the Catskills for the All Tomorrow's Parties festival at Kutsher's Country Club, a fading seventies style venue with insane carpets and a charming lake to sit beside inbetween gigs. And what gigs, highlights for me were Iggy And The Stooges, Mudhoney, Breeders and the dry-ice drenched quasi-religous metal experience Altar. For the second week we continued driving north staying at the amazing Pollywogg Holler eco-lodge, a cluster of beautiful log cabins in the middle of the woods, for an enjoyable night with the wonderful hosts that kept any Blair Witch flashes well at bay. We passed through NY's take on the Grand Canyon, Letchworth State Park en route to Niagara Falls. The awesome spectacle of the falls was offset by the sheer naffness of the tourist trap town above it, one night was more than enough. On to the lovely Seneca Falls before settling in to our very own Airstream at Kate's Lazy Meadow, a fifties styled trailer park with a picture postcard setting next to a creek in the Catskills. Bliss. Back to the Big Apple for one last 9/11 memorial illuminated night before hopping the Atlantic home. Click the pics to big 'em up.

As Seen On DVD

Hush Your Mouth, the British independent film I designed and animated the titles for, has finally been released on DVD and has a spanking new website to promote it. It's an interesting South East London urban tale, well directed by Tom Trywhitt and produced by Liza Brown. It features some great performances from a solid cast and is well worth a butcher's hook, er, look.

Images 34 Awards

It was the Association Of Illustrators Images 34 Award night last week and I was fortunate enough to pick up a Bronze award in the Design category for my Pyramid Breweries Audacious Apricot Ale illustration. Action Stations also picked up a Silver award in the New Media category for last year's Dallas Guild animated 'Burn' promo, a collaboration between myself and Mark Taplin. I'd like to thank ... (ohh shutuppp!)

Steve Thorogood 1949-2010

While away I was very saddened to hear that my UK agent Steve Thorogood had passed away after a brave fight against cancer for well over a year. Steve was a very decent man with a great passion for illustration and I respected him a great deal. He was the first person to give me a break in the industry by representing me and I'll never forget that. He has had amazing support from his family Doreen, Kate and Tom and they are continuing his amazing legacy with Good Illustration. RIP Steve.

Oh My Grammar!

Greetings all. I've been off the grid for a couple of weeks in the good ol' US and A, more of which I will post about shortly. In the meantime here's a recent illustration for Design Week's Private View slot looking at how the increasing digital transmission of the written word is killing off the artistry of crafting a letter...with propa gramma n spellin n stuff.

Pipe Nightmares

Here's another recent illo for What Car? Magazine for an article called 'Tailpipe Truths' looking at the current state of car pollution. Chokes me up every time.

For Local People

Here's an illustration for Ethos magazine about the history of Localism as an ideology, you know, whether public services should be commissioned by locals or central government bigwigs. Look, a steam train!

Stay On Target

A recent illo for Target RED Magazine. It's here. Online shopping technology in a big hand...yeah!

Down The Albert

Popped over to the Albert Hall this week to get some cheeky snaps of the Proms illustration in full swing before the festy ends next month. Lovely evening for it.

Don't Hang The VJ

Good chum and fellow studio peep Ben Cook has launched a new site showcasing his cracking audio-visual work called Synthetics. Check out the footage of his live animated projections for Finnish group Villa Nah, filmed by Tom Bunning, and good ol' boys, The Orb.

I Need A Holiday, Holiday, Holiday

I've been a bit AWOL again over the last couple of weeks catching up on the illustration work I couldn't do in July as most of my time was spent working on this music video which I can finally unleash. It's for the Australian artist Vanessa Amarosi's new single 'Holiday' and was created as another Action Stations collaboration with Mark Taplin. We came up with the initial concept, designs and storyboards with director Dan Ruttley for Metropolis Studios, assisted on the green screen shoot and then worked our asses clean-off to animate the whole video in just over two weeks. It was tiring but we're pleased with the results which you can see on my site here ... and there's a poorer resolution version of it on Youtube replete with appreciative comments such as "sack the video production team"! Gotta love that 'tube.

Heads Du Jour

First And Last

Escaped to Cornwall again for a long weekend with Liz, my brother and a few friends. This time to beautiful Sennen Cove near Land's End, home of the famous First And Last Inn where a few Rattlers were caned. The weather was meltface hot so plenty of beach action, barbies and some seriously amateurish surfing attempts were in order. When the sun took a break we walked up the coastal path to nearby Cape Cornwall, originally mistaken for the real Land's End, and hitched a hilarious ride back atop the local 300 bus...into the foggy void!

Festivus

Here's a few editorial pieces for a spread on Edinburgh's festival season in the nicely designed Velocity mag for Cityjet. Och aye!

Eat My Rust

Here's a film poster design for a recent Little White Lies competition to, yes, design a film poster for a future film of your dreams. On this particular day my dreams were filmed with flashes of B-movie madness and minotaur like savages wreaking havoc ... on Mars. Hellooo Hollywoood!

Le Weekend

For a birthday treat my wife whisked me off to Paris on the Eurostar for the weekend and it was proper fantastiche! Firstly we headed over to the Foundation Cartier to check out an exhibition by my favourite Japanese all-round whacko auteur 'Beat' Takeshi Kitano, his film Sonatine is in my all time top movie list and who can forget the mayhem of Takeshi's Castle. The show was fun and eclectic featuring comically surreal animal/warfare hybrids, crazed elephantine sewing machines, brilliantly daft interactive exhibits and striking naive paintings all topped off with a visit to a cool Japanese kiosk he also designed. The total Takeshi experience. We then popped to the Champs for macaroons at Laduree before leaving the tourist havens behind and checking out the gems of North East Paris and the 19th arrondissement. We spent a lovely summer's evening at the spectacular Parc Buttes Chaumont, walked the length of Canal Saint Martin with drinks at Point Ephemere and explored the amazing Parc de la Villette chock full of bright red post modern structures, submarines, huge mirrored spheres and a Claes Oldenburg & Coosje Van Bruggen buried bicycle sculpture. Incroyable!

And Now A Corporate Message

Here's the latest Design Week illustration for an article on corporate dissonance, the difference between what a company says and what it does...and how it can sometimes get them in to Deepwater.

As Seen On TV

It's Promsmania at the moment as the big Beeb music festival kicks off for three months. Spotted this well-made ad on the tellybox featuring my illustration being painted on a massive billboard in a park with crowds of people walking blindly into it. Can't say I had anything to do with the making of the ad but it's sure nice to be a part of it.

Notes From The Bunker

Well, July has been razed by a time consuming hurricane of extreme work and play so the blog has suffered somewhat but I'll be posting with a vengeance over the next week or so to remedy the situation. First up is a big thank you to Francesco and the Italian design aces at Bunker who I worked with on the Carraro Annual Report and kindly sent me a lovely package of notebooks made up from a couple of my personal illustrations, Pier and Cuba.