Latest Welcome Campaign at Heathrow Airport

I have to confess I was pretty psyched to see the wonderful Tim Peake standing in front of my lettering at Heathrow … This is one of a series of large format posters for the latest Heathrow Welcome Campaign featuring my hand lettering. 

The posters can be seen looming large across the walls at the airport’s arrivals and departures areas and is one of the jobs that people tend to mention to me most, normally seen when returning from holiday. 

As with the Tim Peake’s poster, real people rather than models were used and a zoo keeper, a town crier, a Red Arrows pilot and even Santa (yes, he’s real!) amongst others, stand alongside the famous astronaut. See the full set of posters on the advertising page on my portfolio site.

I was commissioned by Chaos Design to create different styles of hand lettering to capture the personalities of the featured people as they welcome travellers to London. 

As you can imagine, the Welcome Campaign at Heathrow Airport is always a great project to work on but the added excitement of Tim Peake's inclusion made it an extra special commission.

Isabelle Broom Book Title Lettering plus Brush Lettering Demonstration

Having worked on the title for Isabelle Broom's debut novel published by Penguin Michael Joseph, I was delighted to be asked to work on more of her books.

Loose brush lettering was chosen to work with the atmospheric background imagery of the first novel, My Map of You and we continued in style with flowing lines and textures to draw the reader in. 

If you're an Isabelle Broom fan, there's more to look forward to, as I'm currently working on the next in the series ...

If you'd like to see more of my book cover lettering, click through to the publishing folder on my portfolio website.

Brush Lettering Demo at the SSI Lay Members' Day, London

I was thrilled to be asked to demonstrate and talk about my lettering work in the graphics industry at the celebrated Society of Scribes and Illuminators' Lay Members' Day on Saturday 29th April, 10am to 1pm. As time is short, I've decided to focus on a couple of my ongoing jobs - Country Living Magazine and Heathrow Welcome Campaign. I'll be bringing along samples of these jobs and a selection of my other work to show and discuss, while demonstrating brush pen lettering.

If you're interested in attending or would just like to see what's on, you can see details on the day's events here. Hope to see you there!

Hand Lettered Illustrations for Nebianax plus Journaling Addict

I was excited to work on this challenging job for Mass Agency, creating hand lettered illustrations for a brochure for Nebianax, a new treatment for Cystic Fibrosis.

Attention to detail and constant revision helped me build up a series of word as image illustrations to get across the problems related to the illness. 

The restricted colour palette and clean design work well as a foil to the intricately expressive imagery. You can see the rest of illustrations, along with a larger detail view, on my portfolio.

Journaling Addict

Since the beginning of year, I've been enjoying playing around with imagery in a series of journals, which I post sporadically on my dedicated RR Mapmaker FB and IG pages. A chance to flex my hand skills and experiment with new media, it's great fun and an opportunity to hook up with people with similar interests. Head over to my online accounts if you'd like to see more of the work ...

Lettering for Simple Minds Acoustic Album

It was great to be asked to continue my work for Simple Minds with some lettering on their latest album, Acoustic.

Taking the acoustic guitar as inspiration for the album design, Stuart Crouch Creative asked me to create the track list in a combination of scratched and marker lettering styles, harking back to the punk era. Read on ...

I was delighted to see the mesmerising videos created by Able Media using my lettering. There are five videos, focusing on different tracks on the album. Here's the lead single, featuring a collaboration with KT Tunstall. 

There’s just something magical about watching the lettering create itself ...

Happy Halloween!

It's that time of year again, I couldn’t resist the opportunity for a bit more hairy lettering to celebrate Halloween - hope you all have a scarily great time!

If this makes you smile, you can see more of my ballpoint pen sketches on Instagram.

Hand Lettering for Simple Minds New Gold Dream Deluxe Boxset & Country Living Video

It was exciting to be asked to work on the hand drawn lettering for the New Gold Dream Deluxe Boxset. I remember its original release in 1982, Simple Minds’ fifth studio album, taking them from revered cult status to a chart band with hit singles and a full year in the UK album chart.

With the original New Gold Dream design as a starting point, I developed a sympathetic style of pen-drawn Roman Capital lettering for four of the disc covers within this collectible boxset. The challenge was to create new custom drawn titles for the fresh designs that also worked with the original 1982 cover.

It’s always a pleasure to open up a well designed boxset and this one didn’t disappoint with its inventive packaging, wrap, ribbon and booklets - it delivered in spades. When you work on a project like this, I imagine it’s much like being an actor in a film, you understand the concept and all the parts you worked on in detail but it’s only when you see the completed piece that you appreciate the whole.  

An inspired collection of remastered album, mixes, radio sessions, videos and tv footage, the stylish design lives up to its content. If you’re a Simple Minds fan - you’ll want it in your collection.

To see the rest of the individual wallets in more detail or more of my lettering for album titles and band logos check out the music folder on my portfolio site.

Online Update: Brush Lettering for Country Living Magazine

I've enjoyed working for Country Living since their design refresh at the beginning of the year, providing hand lettered logos, titles and pull quotes for the magazine each month. Last week I was asked into their London office to be videoed in action with my brush pens. Unnerving but certainly fun!

I also have a modest set up in the studio for videoing, handling a pen and camera at the same time takes a certain amount of practice but I'm slowly getting the hang of it. You can see some of my self promotional work below for the July issue of Country Living.

To read more about the job, head over to my website editorial folder or see more of my lettering videos on my Facebook Page.

  
   

Pixar Lettering for Wired Magazine

It was exciting to be asked to work on the lettering for Wired Magazine’s fascinating article on Pixar’s John Lasseter.

Referencing early animation titling and sign writing brush script, I was asked to develop a sympathetic style that would work with the dynamic opening page photograph. It’s always great when an art director gives you this sort of challenge, short on time and with quite a bit of copy, I immediately started experimenting with a variety of brushes and papers to get the feel I was after.

Finally settling on this softly textured brush stroke and controlled script form, I completed the title as well as additional lettering throughout the article. As ever with Wired Magazine, it was a pleasure to see how the hand drawn forms complemented the abundant colour photography and vibrant design of the piece.

Click through to my editorial folder to see more of the project.

Lettering for Chrissie Hynde - Stockholm Album

If you've read NME lately, you'll know that Chrissie Hynde, lead singer of the Pretenders is going solo and is about to release her debut album, Stockholm on June 9th.

As a fan, I was delighted to be asked to work on the hand drawn lettering for the album and related singles. The rough brush lettering was designed to work with the wonderfully anarchic shots from the photoshoot. 

You can see more of my record work in the music folder on my new website.