jingle bells ... jingle bells ...

Wishing you all a magical Christmas and an inspirational New Year!

Get the festive spirit with Ruta 40!

Ruta 40 is a supplier of Argentinean boutique wines, all sourced from small and independent bodegas connected by the legendary road. I was asked by the Ruta 40 team to develop a logo to reflect this exciting new venture.

Ruta 40 is the name of the longest road in Argentina. From La Quiaca in the north to Punta Loyola at the southern Atlantic coast, it crosses every significant wine making region in the country and was the inspiration behind the visual work. My client wanted the logo to capture something of the raw beauty and energy of the landscape combined with their own drive and passion for the wine.

Along with the logo, I was asked to provide a set of imagery that could be used alongside it to unify the brand. The starkly beautiful landscape dictated my approach to the illustrations - rough, grainy pen marks for an earthy, textural quality and erratic, organic line work for the twining vines and mesmerising sun.

You can see more of my packaging work and logos on my website.

Images 35 and LX Talk

This month I have two pieces of news.

The first is that I've had two of my Aruba posters accepted into the Association of Illustrators Images 35. I blogged about the campaign in March, you can see it here. I'm delighted the work has been accepted - the ads will be printed in the Images 35 Illustration Annual and the exhibition is in London in September 2011. It's an important year for Images - the AOI will be celebrating its 35th anniversary with an illustration festival centred around the show.

My second piece of news is that I've had the date of my Letter Exchange talk confirmed - the 16th February 2011. Letter Exchange is an association for professionals in the lettering arts, I'll be sharing the evening with talented calligrapher, Mary Noble. I plan to talk about my career as a lettering artist, I'll blog more about the talk in January but if you're in London around that time come along and say hello!

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.