James Blunt Album

It's been a musical Summer - hot on the heels of the Lennon job, I was asked to work on James Blunt's new album, Some Kind Of Trouble plus his latest single, Stay The Night. The album is due to be released on the 8th November and the single on the 25th October.

The loose brush lettering was created to work with the overall design of the packaging which has an old school, scrapbook feel. The layouts were put together traditionally with sellotape and paper and then photographed, so I felt my lettering needed to be as raw and immediate as possible to work with the designs. The style was also taken through to James Blunt's new website: www.jamesblunt.com

If you'd like to see more of my music work take a look at my word>music folder on my website.

Celebrity Books

I enjoy working for the publishing industry and that work can take various forms; titles for covers, part headings for inside the book, quotes for the back cover as well as author logos that work across a range of books.

Genres can vary but recently I've noticed I've been working on quite a few celebrity books. I think the reason why hand lettering works so well with this type of cover is because it often features a photograph of the author. A simple hand lettered title dropped over the photography can soften the design and give it a human touch.This is particularly true of autobiographies when the personal feel of lettering can remind us that we're reading the celebrity's own thoughts.

To see more of my book cover work click through to my publishing folder on my site.

John Lennon's 70th Birthday

I was thrilled to be asked to work on the John Lennon 'Gimme Some Truth' Campaign to commemorate his 70th birthday, which falls on 9th October.

Overseen by Yoko Ono and EMI Music, the campaign will launch on 4 October (5 October in North America) with the worldwide release of eight digitally remastered studio albums and several newly-compiled titles. 'Double Fantasy', 1980’s GRAMMY Award winner for Album of the Year, will be presented in a new 'Stripped Down' version remixed and produced by Yoko Ono and Jack Douglas, co-producers of the original mix with John Lennon.

I was asked to develop hand drawn lettering to match Lennon's own handwriting which would then be used across the albums. This involved pulling together as many samples of his handwriting as possible so that I could develop the style - research that kept me smiling as his notes were great examples of his dry wit. A reminder of Lennon's art school background, his writing often included playful drawings and sketches. To capture some of this light humour, the logo for the campaign was inspired by the small calligraphic self portraits that often accompanied his signature.

I was born and raised in Liverpool so this project held particular significance for me, it was wonderful to be to be involved. You can see more of my music work in my word>music folder on my site.

Meshminds Interview

I was recently interviewed about my work by Meshminds.com.

Meshminds is a support network for artists based in Southeast Asia and the UK. If you're interested in reading the interview or would like to know more about the site's aims click here.

One of the images featured is a personal piece inspired by the song Wild Thing by the Troggs. I started my career as a lettering artist in the 1980s working mostly for the music industry. My personal work is usually inspired by either music or literature and I always like to have a project on the go that I work on between commissioned jobs. You can see some of this work in my image>text folder.

If you're a student or would just like to know how I started out - you can read more about it in an article I posted on my blog last year. I've also been asked to present a talk about my work here in London in the Spring - I'll give more details nearer the time!

Tasmina Perry - a new book a new look

I do a lot of work for the publishing industry and as an avid reader it's work I always enjoy. I'm often asked to hand letter logos for new authors for use across their future book covers or alternatively for more established writers to refresh their image or repackage their backlist.

Recently Headline Publishing asked me to take another look at Tasmina Perry's name. I'd worked on the logo previously for Harper Collins and they wanted something different to launch her latest book. I worked on a range of options focussing on a fresh, spontaneous feel with a touch of sophistication that would appeal to her readers. The lettering also had to be strong enough to stand alone on the cover as the designer wanted it to be a prominent feature of the over all design.

I don't know about you but it makes me look forward to my Summer holiday!

Mapping the World

Recently I've been asked to illustrate some maps. This is a relatively new area of work for me and something I'm enjoying immensely. Maps allow me to combine my interests in lettering and illustration with my love of travel.

The Wall Street Journal Asia asked me to produce an illustrated map for their latest City Walk article for the colourful city of Mumbai. These maps involve quite a bit of research - luckily I'm helped by the journalists in situ who will answer questions and send images of anything I can't find online - between us we aim to capture the flavour of the city. The article it illustrates describes a walk through the city streets and I'm asked to read through the copy, pulling out any places I'd like to illustrate while highlighting the street names on the route. An image from the map is used on the second page of the article, I chose to develop the Joy Shoes illustration - somewhere I'd definitely like to shop!

The second map was commissioned by Food and Travel Magazine - two of my favourite subjects. This is a much simpler design for their current pull-out magazine on Flanders. I enjoyed playing around with the fresh colours and open textures on this one. It will be printed quite small so it needed to be clear enough to be legible at a small size.

Two maps with very different solutions!

Keeping Warm With Aruba!

While it was snowing outside, I was keeping warm by working on a new set of seven posters for the beautiful island of Aruba. With photography by Jonas Kaarlson, the subjects were selected from the inhabitants of this idyllic island and then asked to provide me with samples of their handwriting. Taking these samples as a starting point I developed a style of lettering combined with spot illustrations for each poster that reflects something of their personalities and interests. With such a wide range of characters it was an interesting and challenging job!

If you want to see more of my poster work - take a look at the advertising folder in my online portfolio.