Shanghai JCDecaux Advertising Competition

I was delighted to see that my entry for the Shanghai JCDecaux Cup Public Welfare Advertising Design Competition 2013 can now be seen on the Shanghai Metro. I took the theme of World Peace for the posters - Believing In, Uniting For and Celebrating World Peace.

Created using a Chinese brush and ink for both English and Chinese calligraphy - the lettering symbolises how Britain and China - East and West - can work together for World Peace.

Festive Greetings!

Wishing you all a relaxing holiday and a creative New Year

Bill Wyman Website Logo

It was great to work on the new Bill Wyman logo for his official website. 

The development stage included a range of hand rendered styles, from handwriting akin to his own signature to this wilder version of his name, using a dry brush to create a distressed, edgy mark.

Combined with the designer's bold background and retro photo, the lettering makes a powerful impact on the music legend's home page.

If you want to see more of my music work, click through to the word>music folder on my online portfolio.

The Fourth Doctor Time Capsule

I had great fun working on the lettering for the limited edition Fourth Doctor Time Capsule for the BBC. 

It's a delightfully inventive design that includes a range of Tom Baker goodies; a letter from the man himself, an exclusive action figure, DVDs, audio book and novel - not to mention a sonic screw driver! 

The box itself is designed to look like a Gallifreyan artefact and with this in mind, I was asked to create both English and Gallifreyan lettering for the DVD covers. This involved some very enjoyable research, looking at stills from old Doctor Who episodes and discussing the appropriate feel and layout of the two different alphabets with the art director. Once printed the title had the added bonus of only being legible once seen through the coloured disc provided. 

Aimed at the dedicated fan, this is a luxury product celebrating Tom Baker and the 50th Anniversary of the Dr Who TV series, with a limited run of 5,000. Lovingly put together, the attention to detail in this box set makes it a pleasure to open - I plan to keep the sonic screw driver in my handbag, just in case ...

Never Say Never iPhone case

I was recently asked to work on Chalkies, the latest range of iPhone cases for QDOS.

Working with the creative team at NOMO Design, this old school chalk lettering was repeatedly redrawn faster and looser until the right broken, sketchy feel was achieved. Working with chalk has its challenges, thankfully, I'm quite old school myself so I'm used to taking traditional media and translating them into a digital format. 

The chalkboard look and retro styling was inspired by vintage branding, making it a particularly interesting job to research.  

Type Tasting at the V&A Museum, London

I like nothing better than to have the opportunity to get hands on and that's what Tasting Type is all about. Run as part of the London Design Festival at the Victoria & Albert Museum, the Type Tasting exhibition and drop in workshops are open to everyone with a love of letterforms.

I submitted a piece of work for the exhibition, we had to choose a word that described London. I was drawn to the word 'expressive' as it reflects what I love most about London - its dynamic, ever-changing cultural scene. In addition, it's a term often used to describe the loose, gestural nature of much of my work. 

I like to experiment with mark making, tools can vary from the beautifully hand crafted ruling pen used here, to a piece of old stick from my mother's garden. Pens and brushes are the tools of my trade, I've been collecting them for years, I like the fact that each one has its own distinctive characteristics. 

Things can get messy with expressive mark making, the studio looked like an explosion in an ink factory after a morning working on the project. If you'd like to see me in action, I demonstrated with this pen at ScrapbookLive. Luckily, Sarah Hyndman, type enthusiast and work shop leader extraordinaire, isn't frightened of a bit of mess and I'll be helping out at the workshops on the 14th and 15th September. So if you like to get hands on too, then roll up your sleeves and come along.

Savor the Sizzle for Prevention Magazine

Prevention, a healthy lifestyle magazine in the US, asked me to hand letter the titles for a recent article about grilled foods. They wanted something with a little casual flair to complement their stylish layouts.

 This work is created using marker pens - something I've recently been experimenting with alongside my more traditional media. I bought a selection of pens for demonstrating at ScrapbookLive, spending much time in art shops prior to the event testing the different tip designs and line weights. 

I was later asked to help with product development at ColArt, owner of the Griffin Gallery where we exhibited. ColArt comprises a group of famous art materials companies with origins dating back to the early 18th Century, including such well known names as Winsor & Newton, Liquitex and Conté à Paris. I have to confess I am a pen geek so this sort of analytical work, alongside product designers, marketing people and scientists was fascinating to me - with the added advantage that input from artists ensures that products available for sale answer our needs. A win-win situation.

You can see more of my editorial work on my own website or my recently updated agent's site.