Happy Christmas 2011

Have a warm and cosy Christmas readers!

Tree illustration

About eight years ago I planted a beautiful silver birch tree in the garden. When I look out of the kitchen window it is 'reverse silhouetted' against the dark green yew hedge beyond. It inspired this illustration.

Dreaming of Springtime

Often, when I am dozing off to sleep, my mind skips through the day and all its visual feasts and, all on its own, comes up with a fresh new image. I keep a sketch book and pencil by my bed, quietly switch on the light and jot down the brand new image, delivered to my subconscious visual 'inbox' by an unknown and most welcome sender.

Minnows

We had a week at the end of August in Teesdale, Co. Durham. The children spent hours paddling and swimming (yes, really, despite the glacial temperature) in the river Tees and catching minnows. Here was one day's catch.

Fresh, summery newsletter design

Here is a recent job for Wakefields the Jewellers in Horsham. A summer newsletter, a printed version and an online page turning pdf version for their facebook page.
Take a look here.

Felt love

It has been a while...



I have been researching online for a design project. I love felt as a material. Not the colourful handspun, homemade variety but the solid thick, warm, insulating, industrial, crisp cut type of felt.

This image is courtesy of architectural practice i29

White Christmas

Happy Christmas. (Yes, sorry it is a little late).
In the run up to Christmas this year everything seemed as if blasted by a cold, fresh, polar wind visiting early straight from the Arctic. On some days opening the back door felt like opening a door to a coldstore, the air often colder than that in my freezer. This year my christmas card has a polar theme, inspired both by the cool of winter and an image that has stuck in my mind of a polar bear drifting on the melting ice floe. Like a polar bear, none of us know what is ahead in the coming year. I hope that whatever leads you, be it a star, the wind or the daily tide of life, I hope that you will find a happy and warm place. A very happy new year to you all!

Stitched type

This proper old fashioned 'Champion Cokoernut Throwing Saloon' took my eye while visiting the Beamish Open Air Museum in County Durham last week. I love the hand stitched decorative type, the graphic border, the bunting and the faded colour as well as the words themselves. I asked the stall holder if it was an original as everything at Beamish is authentic (or nearabouts) to 1913. He said it was old and probably American due to the spelling of 'Cokernut'. He had a proper twinkle in his eye and rather kindly gave a little boy every chance to knock down a coconut by giving him many more than 3 shots for £1, and, a step closer each time he missed. Eventually, of course, the boy won his coconut. The sun shone (yes, really, even oop north) and the boy went off with a grin from ear to ear.

Little Red Riding Hood

Back in the winter when all was white and snowy, I drew this illustration inspired by my friends little daughter who always wore a little red coat with blond hair peeping out from the hood and cheeks made rosy pink by the freezing air. I was reminded of it yesterday when my friend was telling me about a new production at Glyndebourne of Hansel and Gretel. Her son is off to see it soon, and, as he is just 8, she had been explaining to him how traditional nursery stories often have a sinister edge to them. She was preparing him for some of the scenes as she did not want him to be shocked or terrified. Modern editions of nursery stories are often adapted and generally nowhere near as sinister as the original editions could be. These days our children need not be bothered by wolves prowling our neighbourhoods and eating their Granny alive - but we need to be mindful of our innocent little children being led off by a little mouse that clicks and leads them to another (and sometimes sinister) world called the internet...

Incredible Gardens - Identity Design

Incredible Gardens are a new concept in garden design. They have a solid background in agriculture and garden design and have a passion for all kinds of plants that have an edible element to them. Their mission is to design sustainable gardens that are beautiful and contain only plants that can offer something edible, be it a seed, root, leaf or flower.

My role was to design a contemporary logo that emphasised the strong design ethic that they base all their gardens on and that also hinted at the edible content of the planting choices. I have an interest in gardens and garden design and already knew that, on planting schemes, garden designers use a visual system for drawing groups of the same plants involving shapes connected by lines. For aesthetic reasons, there is a preference to plant groups of the same plants in numbers of 3, 5, 7 (etc). I borrowed this system as the base of the design and simply arranged a collection of 'plants' into a shape that resembles a bunch of seeds or fruits. These were set in a rectangle that represents the boundary of a garden.