Success at last!

Good news found its way to me in Japan...My work has been selected to be on show in the London Transport museum as part of the AOI Prize for Illustration exhibition in May. More info on all the 100 selected works here. The theme was London spaces and places - perfect for my last project! Here is my entry, a reworking of my Kyoto Garden.

Here's some fairly dodgy documentation of the final three framed prints...The collection of five has now safely found its way to the hospital where it is awaiting a more successful photo shoot next time I'm in London!

Hang 5

Just when I thought I had escaped Harrow...I have been asked by Northwick Park hospital to loan them some of my prints to brighten their walls. It was so nice to hear how much they loved my work, I'm delighted that my prints could help bring some cheer into a structure that looks almost post-apocalyptic...I am framing 5 of my prints for them, it has been pretty fiddly but I'm now well practiced in using a drill and the two I've framed so far look really good!

you win some you lose some

Here's a couple of things I was working on for a mini, one day project as part of a larger commission. The brief was to come up with some striking, witty, congratulations cards to send to the company's clients. Unfortunately it didn't work out but it was good to get some experience of working for another client.

It's been a long time...

This blog has been silent for a while...after an extended period of post hand in chilling out, I've finally got round to sharing what I've been up to for the past few months.

Before the big degree show came 'Museums at Night' at the London Canal museum. Organised by the lovely Hazel Bryer, the theme of the exhibition was 'water'.

Hazel's amazing linos documenting London's waterways above.

Next was the big show, 47 degrees! A heaving private view with plenty of free drink lead to a lack of pictures but here are a couple of the set up an quieter visiting times...

The show was a huge success, everyone worked so hard together! I managed to make myself a few pennies selling postcards and prints. Caitlin Parks and I were selling editions of our 'Dark London' prints and there are a few left that can be bought here.

Next show...D&AD New Blood at Spitalfields! After months of long meetings, repeated discussions, a few arguments, a lot splinters and severe sunburn, we managed to pull off this bad boy stand complete with functioning ottoman and vinyl stickers!

I chose to include my Kensal Green print because of the unusual composition, alongside my book with the full set of prints. It was a great few days, I managed to generate some interest aswell as taking a tour of London Print Studio and having a great portfolio review.

So here's the final book!

Playing around with type and graphics on the cover image. I have been experimenting with the shape that I drew on the map of London plotting my route. I think it's working well around the type as the cover looks a bit sparse with the type just isolated. I think the final image is going to be the cover. The position of the type and the graphics weren't quite right on the others...

I'm now in the final stages of my project...I'm putting the type and artwork together in inDesign. It would be so easy to play around with this forever but decisions need to be made at some point! It's been so useful to print the document out a few times to see how the type sits on a physical page as it's a very different feeling to viewing it on screen. Unfortunately I saved over a lot of my edits but her are some examples of playing around with position, justification and tracking of the text. The images at the end are examples of what the final designs are looking like...

First attempts, I think there is too much text in one block. It needs to interact more with the images

Breaking up the text a bit and using justification. It looks ok on screen but printed out the text looks a bit to wide and spread out so the tracking needs adjusting...

Getting there!