script

Recently I've been interested in calligraphic type styles and tattoo style flourishes, and I decided to have a go at putting together a little design. I settled on the four "bohemian ideals" from the movie Moulin Rouge that I recently rewatched for the umpteenth time; Truth, Beauty, Freedom and Love.

inking my design up with my trusty dip pen

What I came up with is loosely based on an existing typeface that I came across, borrowing an ampersand from a different typeface for a more unusual look. I'd love to hear what you think!

hideout

Just thought I would share a quick logo design that I did for a new temporary venture a friend of mine has started called The Hideout. It was just a simple design based on an existing font that I did a hand drawn version of. The project is soon to be under way and so the logo needed to be done fast, but I am quite pleased with the outcome!

The Hideout is a recording space for musicians and emerging talent based in Guildford. If you are interesting in recording some material with some brilliant engineers, check out their Facebook page and do get in touch; but be quick as they will only be there for a couple of months!

Album

Today I was featured on Illustration Rally's Album Cover Rally. Before I entered I had a browse at some of the things that were already up and there's some beautiful pieces on there, go have a look! Illustration Rally always have great open submissions going on so keep an eye out on their blog - you can also follow them on twitter at @Illustration_R.

When I saw the rally I had a couple of album ideas in mind but I decided to settle on Katy Perry's Teenage Dream as the sweet sugary theme of the album lends itself quite well to my work, and I wanted to experiment with some new kinds of type. I also wanted to make a feature of the famous blue hair that Katy was sporting at various events when the album came out. The type on my new banner above is an extension of the type I designed for this piece. The the above image is the variation I settled on for the rally, which is featured here.

I decided to include a few of the other variations in this post as I was quite pleased with all of them!

bright

Today I've been experimenting with Photoshop a little more than I normally would, having a go at constructing pattern designs in a kind of digital collage. I wanted to try and mix up colours and patterns and see what I could do - I'm not sure how I feel about what I've come up with but I do feel that it's a step in a good direction! I would love to hear what you think - let me know in the comments. Thanks! x

different

I haven't drawn an actual human person in probably a year. Maybe even longer than that. So when my good friend Pav (this is for you, baby!) inquired about my illustration I decided to do something totally different, go a little bit crazy and attempt to draw one. I guess it's what you would call a fashion illustration, and I was inspired by the grunge and pastel trends (I now want this hair) and wanted to kind of bring them together.

 I can't decide if this is finished yet, but I got quite excited about it and wanted to share it - maybe you could tell me if you think it looks finished? Personally I'm not sure about the background, or if she needs something solid to be sitting on? I based the pose loosely on a photograph of myself, and I really felt that working from a good reference photo made this much easier! enjoy.

summer

It's been a little while! I've had an idea in my head for the past week or so and this is kind of the manifestation of it. I've been looking at ways to use the scrollwork I've been fascinated by as well as meaning to create a piece with the phrase "one swallow does not a summer make" ever since this summer began. This led me to looking at and researching vintage tattoos, Sailor Jerry Collins style, and this was what I came up with. Really been enjoying the tattoo ink style since I did my valentine piece a couple of months ago, so I may try a few more vintage tattoo style drawings. Hope you like it!

Creatives

Just a quick post to share a feature with you all - A couple of weeks ago I was featured on a site called The Young Creatives, a great fledgling collection of artists, designers, crafters and other creative types. Their site is chock full of fabulous folks and it's a great way to connect to other artists. They did a small feature on my work  which you can read here.

They also featured a good friend of mine and fab illustrator Natasha Aldred, whose feature you can look at here. As well as featuring on artists and creatives, they also share interesting articles and event details for the artistic community. Go have a browse!

You can follow The Young Creatives on twitter, at @t_yc. To see blog updates and new works you can also follow Natasha, @natasha_aldred.

Costumes

Over the past couple of months I have been working on designing the branding and website for a small venture I am personally involved with called The Costume Cellar. Over the years our family and friends have accumulated through various channels dozens and dozens of brilliant costumes that have all ended up in a collection in our cellar, and we have decided to share these costumes with the public in the form of a costume hire service.

I posted a blog at the very start of this venture while I was designing the first logo for the Costume Cellar. Since then, I went on to design the website for us, set up twitter and facebook links and design our business cards. This was a great exercise in creating an identity for our venture as well as getting back into the habit of using Photoshop and Dreamweaver to get the website running. This was a great opportunity to put my illustration and typographic skills to a good use - I wanted to give the designs a quirky feel and I was very pleased with the type design for the logo.

I also arranged the first photo shoot for the costumes (with a big thanks to the models Tasha, Holly and Andy!) and I hope to arrange more in the future as I only really captured a small amount of what we have to offer - you can see the photos on the gallery section of the website and on the facebook page.

Business cards (thankyou to moo.com for these!)

I made use of the new facebook timeline layout to add our identity to our facebook page.

A couple of screenshots from The Costume Cellar website that I built from scratch using photoshop and dreamweaver. 

Lobster

Happy April! Recently I've been rediscovering my love of type (as if it really ever went away). A little while ago I also rediscovered my love for the work of Lewis Carroll when I acquired a lovely copy of his entire works from an antique shop, and while reading through Alice in Wonderland I came across an interesting nonsense poem during Alice's encounter with the Mock-Turtle and the Gryphon. The illustration above takes the first two lines of the poem, and frankly it was a bonus opportunity to draw a lobster. Turns out I really like drawing crustaceans. 

In the near future I will also be sharing some exciting news that has been keeping me busy over the past couple of weeks. enjoy!