My First Book Cover

Nearly a year ago on a research trip with a lecturer, I met welsh poet Grahame Davies. He commissioned me to turn one of my illustrations from this project into a cover for his next book of poetry which is now for sale at Seren Books. I was thrilled to receive my copy in the post this week.

Imagined Places

I read a wonderful book a few months ago about a journey into the Peruvian cloud forests along the Inca trail. It got me a bit wanderlusty...

The book was To The Last City by Colin Thubron, and I instantly wanted to make images from its lovely descriptions. I've never been to South America so it's all imagined, but I hope one day I will go there.

These were very simple paper cut and drawn elements. I could see them being matchbox labels, couldn't you?

Boffins in Coffins

..is the unofficial title of Giants Beneath Our Feet, a Heritage Lottery Project run through Chesterton Community College, Keystage Arts and Heritage, and Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge.

It was based on a local cemetery where many famous Cambridge University alumni were buried and I was asked to illustrate a map to support it. I'm really pleased with the result.

Being able to control all the design and illustration from the outset was a nice challenge, and to end up with a real thing that hundreds of people will use is exciting. I enjoyed designing my own typeface too. If you've not tried it before, I'd thoroughly recommend yourfonts.com.

The map can be found at the Tourist Information Centre in Cambridge.

South Africa - Part 3 - Bo Kaap

 

 

Google Cape Town and you will probably see photos of these colourful houses in Bo Kaap, the Malaysian quarter of the city. They are a bit of a tourist hotspot, but quite wonderful nonetheless.

Have a happy weekend.

Public Health

This is a commission that just went to print for Cambridge University's Research Horizons magazine. The issue was on public health, and various aspects relating to it. I had fun drawing all the strange elements, and it was lovely to be able to handle it as a real thing. Exciting!

South Africa - Part 2

 

I miss this place, it was so beautiful. Various shots from Table Mountain, Sutherland, Infanta and points in between.

South Africa - Part 1

 

I got back last week from spending a fortnight in South Africa. To say it was beautiful would be an understatement. We drove from Cape Town through the Western Cape to my auntie's house on the coast, then north through the Karoo to see South Africa's large telescope near Sutherland. After hours and hours on dirt tracks, we drove through some of the most impressive mountain passes, then headed back to Cape Town. More photos soon..

Jacqueline Ayer

I've been talking to a few illustration students this week about the beautiful work of Jacqueline Ayer and thought it would be nice to share some. This is one of my favourite books by her called Nu Dang and His Kite, and was written and illustrated in 1959. I've talked about Jacqueline's work before and have since found out that she trained as a fashion illustrator in Paris, before moving to the far east with her husband. I love her observations of daily life in Thailand, and her use of line with flat colour.

About Town

On Friday I was photographed with my work for the Cambridge University Science Festival. The illustration I did for the brochure has popped up all over town in the last few weeks as posters, and will soon be a huge banner too - how exciting! You can check out the Science Festival's events here, and see more wonderful photos (including all those above) of Cambridge University life on the Flickr stream.

Alphabetty

On my Fridays I try and do some illustration for fun. This alphabet of daily items came about after reading an article about life kerning that had caught my eye before Christmas. 

I quite like it, and enjoyed the challenge of making letters out of everyday things. What do you think? Any letters that work well, or not so well?

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Update:
I've swapped the F for a hairdryer and made the icing and candle on the V cake pink - excellent idea Alex! I hope it reads a bit clearer now...

Pretty stuff

I partook in ill-advised vintage fair shopping today. I scored a lovely 1960s cropped tweed jacket, it's super, but the experience has left me wanting more stuff. So I made a treasury to get it out of my system. Meee wanteeee!

Science Festival

I've been doing some work for Cambridge University's Science Festival brochure 2012. We decided fairly early on that it should nod to the Olympic games, but still needed to be fun and sciency. I went with bright colours and visual puns, and really enjoyed such a fun brief. Plus, beards and moustaches were to be encouraged. Hooray!