Community Pubs

The week before last I got a commission for the cover of the South West and Welsh Big Issue's. Here's a quick peek into how the image was created.

The basic premise for the issue was about community pubs and how they are in the risking of closure. As a result many pubs are introducing various other activity to keep them afloat and are be coming much more community based, in one case with the village forming a co-operative to run it.

The Editor suggested a couple of ideas showing a community feel with lots going on but with the 2 day deadline it sort of ruled out going down this approach. Instead went for something simple graphic and hopefully eye-catching.

The ideas was to have the beer engines forming objects at the top of the handles which related to the activities going on in these pubs.



Rough

Once the rough had been approved, I had a day to work up the image. Here are the stages it goes through"



Colour



Shadows and Lighting



Textures and Final Details

I then sent it off to and although the image was well received there was a concern the image was a bit dark, especially for a cover image. I increased the saturation and background colours to make a lighter version, which i think is a better image.
I was really happy with how it turned out.



Thanks to the folks at Big Issue SouthWest and Wales for commissioning me.

A Couple of Fxu Sketches

These are two of the sketches a did for the fxu site I mentioned in an earlier post. The above image is a super pirate. I guess that probably makes him a villian, as most pirates were.. but he means well, honest.

Below is a couple of horses, amazingly drawn I am sure you will agree! It was late, I was trying to draw a horse from memory, you know how it is...

Updated Portfolio

Just uploaded some walking cakes, a pair of tonsils, a spot of high-living, a pig in a blanket and some walking wine bottles!

What more could you want?

Click here to have a look

Fxu

The Falmouth and Exeter student union, fxu, website went live today. It's something a little different from the usual work I do, but fun and rewarding (improving a service for my old college) all the same.

Working together with Michael Robinson (another fellow graduate) we came up with the idea that the website would take the form of students notes. Looking through my sketchbook at roughs for a single header idea we realised that lots of doodles would suit the concept more.

So clearing a space next to the computer I started scribbling away on loosely formed topics. I had pretty much free reign which made for some inspired ideas. The result is a jolly good website and something incredibly different from every other student union site in the country, functional but interesting.

E3 NPower update

There's lots of wintery goodness over at the updated NPower E3 website which I worked on with True Digital. Make sure you bring your scarf... brrrrrrr....