Friday, January 25, 2013

Official Windows Magazine, Issue 4...





Issue 4 of the Official Windows Magazine is finally in the shops, and I feature on page 51 with my latest illustration entitled Dumb and Dumber!

The article is about how technology is now undertaking many of the chores we no longer want to do. Everything from reminding us what we should be doing, to auto-correcting our basic spelling mistakes, causing our brains to shrivelled and waste.

Again using the official Windows 8 colour standards, this months work appears in jarring pink and yellow and shows the rise and fall of modern man. It was drawn in one of my super-soft pencils onto textured paper before being coloured up.

Currently, I'm working on the issue for March...


New Space!

I've just taken a new studio space, and as of Monday, I'll be working there full time!

It's HUGE compared to the rented desk I have here in Waterloo, with 130 square feet of emptiness, ready for my new desk(s), chair and thousands of pencils. Working there should hopefully crank up the creative juices - I have 4 very large walls to cover with inspirational material and of course my own scribblings, and enough desk space to fire up the Gocco and start printing like a crazy gibbon again. It's all very exciting! All I have to do now is move the remainder of my stuff.

And that could take all weekend, as there's rather a lot of it!

Once settled, I'll take some pictures...

Monday, January 14, 2013

Health and Safety at height: Facelift posters


My latest work is a set of Health and Safety posters for platform hire company Facelift!

Facelift offers a wide range of Cherry Pickers, Scissor Lifts and Truck Mounted Platforms, and the safety of it's customers is a key consideration; I've been commissioned to create a set of posters that clearly communicates key issues facing those working at height, including attaching the harness to the cage, wearing the right gear on site, and checking the quality of the ground beneath the equipment.

Jane Lawrence of Facelift commented:
"The number of serious accidents caused by not following the correct health and safety procedures shows that many people still need to be reminded of what steps they need to follow to stay safe on site."

Inspired by vintage RoSPA posters, my bold, simple figure is placed in precarious situations to grab the immediate attention of the audience, with a headline that directly interacts, with it's clear and simple question. Perspective not only adds a sense of drama overall, but also helps to create a strong graphic look and feel for the range, using Facelift's brand colours.

'Attached' is the first of 12 to be released monthly this year.


Monday, January 7, 2013

Official Windows Magazine, Issue 3...




Issue 3 of The Official Windows Magazine contains my latest illustration for an article about how tech in Science Fiction has become reality.

Stealthily, I've managed to give my beautiful wife a mention, who is known both by me and many of our friends affectionately as Twinkle. Owning her own intergalactic diner is a marked improvement on her last appearance in one of my illustrations, where she was represented as a cow, complete with her trademark ear-cuff... 


This illustration is drawn with my usual technique of 2B, 4B, 6B and 9B graphite, and then coloured up digitally using the official Microsoft colour standards.