Lettering for Four Four Two Magazine Messi Issue

It was great fun working on the hand lettering for the July issue of FourFourTwo Magazine with guest editor Messi. 

The work extended beyond the double cover to the opening article title lettering and can also be seen throughout the magazine in the form of smaller playful notes and jottings.

Guest edited by celebrated footballer, Messi, the design team at FourFourTwo wanted to give the magazine the personal touch with casual handwritten elements to complement the bold design.

As with all magazine work, the timings were tight so I worked closely with the Deputy Art Editor as the copy evolved and the design was finalised, both to the satisfaction of the design team and Messi’s sponsors, Adidas. It was a fast and furious job but a satisfying one - plus, I know a lot more about Messi than I did at the start of the project!

If you'd like to see more of my lettering and illustration for magazines, head over to the editorial folder on my portfolio site where you'll see an interesting variety of commissions for different publications.

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 Van Morrison Duets: Re-working the Catalogue

I was thrilled to be asked to work on musical icon, Van Morrison’s latest album release, Duets: Re-working the Catalogue on RCA Records.

Having steered away from some of his more well-known classics, Van Morrison enlisted the help of some of the artists he most respects to perform and re-craft the songs with him.

This theme of re-working is reflected in the sketchbook feel of the design with pencil lettering, notes and doodles used throughout the CD cover, booklet and disc. Sensitively designed by Michela Comisso, I was asked to reference Van Morrison’s own notebooks and handwriting for style, complimenting the soft hues and textured papers of Michela’s beautifully conceived packaging.

If you’d like to see more of my album cover work check out the music folder on my portfolio website or follow my day-to-day posts from the studio on my new Facebook Page.

Vintage Malamud Book Title Lettering

Vintage Classics has just released a series of Bernard Malamud novels with new covers designed in-house by Matt Broughton. I was delighted to be asked to work on the title lettering and designed some crisp vector drawn script to work with Matt's painterly,  retro-inspired illustrations. 

I like to work with a variety of media - both traditionally with brushes, pens and ink, as well as digitally. Recently I've been working on the possibilities of combining my hand lettered ink work with vector based drawings, opening up some interesting new avenues of exploration.

If you'd like to see more of what's interesting me at the moment, take a look at my side projects folder on my newly designed portfolio. If you're interested in book design you can see more of this work in my publishing folder.

Pilot Pen Advertising Campaign

I was delighted to be asked by the Zimmerman Agency in the US to work on their latest Pilot Pen Advertising Campaign.

A lettering artist's dream - a huge box turned up in the post stuffed full of Pilot pens in every colour of the rainbow. As you can imagine, I had a lot of fun working on these characters, developing different styles of handwriting appropriate to each ad.

Don't forget to double click on the image if you want to see it at a larger size.

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.

Longleat House Lettering

I was asked to work on some lettering to promote Longleat House, an impressive example of Elizabethan architecture, set in the beautiful Wiltshire countryside. Home to the 7th Marquess of Bath, the house is surrounded by 900 acres of ‘Capability Brown’ landscaped gardens and parkland.

This lettering was designed to work with the hospitality side of the business, so as well as the site, it will be seen on wedding and corporate events brochures, stationery and promotional material. It needed to reflect the elegant, historic surroundings with a contemporary flourish, so I focused on a soft italic hand, aiming to keep a fine balance between the flow of the line and the legibility of the form.

You can see more of this type of work on the corporate folder on my online portfolio.

Midsummer Night's Dream

Recently I've been working on a personal project inspired by Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream.

The beautiful language is an ideal subject for the word-heavy imagery, which is influenced by my love of expressive typography. My aim is to get the feel of the spoken word across by combining letter and image.

I'm about to set up a blog dedicated to my personal work - read more about it in my next post.

Hardys Nottage Hill

I was asked to work on the new logo for Hardys Nottage Hill as part of Accolade Wines' new packaging and promotion for the range.

The client wanted to re-tell the story of Thomas Nottage Hardy, their founder's nephew who worked for the family business for 66 years, having started as a boy of 15. The wine is named in honour of him and the lettering is designed to have the familiarity of a signature, to reflect this rich heritage and identity, while retaining a strong fluid line to make it stand out on the shelf.

You can see more of my packaging work in the folder on my portfolio site.

Twiggy - Romantically Yours

Having worked on the latest release from Cliff Richard this summer, it was great to be asked to work for another British icon - Twiggy. Released by EMI, Twiggy's brand new album Romantically Yours marks a return to her music career with a collection of her hand-picked favourites.

I was asked to work on the artist's name for the CD cover and started by taking her signature as my original reference. Using a dip ink pen that was sympathetic to the line quality and flow of the signature, I fine tuned the letter forms and opened up the letter spacing to maximise legibility while trying to keep the spontaneity and character of the original.

To see more of my music work - click through to my word>music folder on my portfolio site.

Cliff Richard - Soulicious

Released by EMI, Soulicious is the latest album from Cliff Richard, a collection of duets featuring some of the most respected names in soul music, including Roberta Flack, Dennis Edwards and Freda Payne.

I was delighted to be asked to produce the album title, using sophisticated thick and thin curves to add a lyrical flow to the letters. The hand drawn lettering was commissioned to give a personal touch to the elegant cover design. More lettering and calligraphic swashes continue the style across the CD packaging.

You can see more of my music work by clicking through to the word>music folder on my portfolio.

We {Heart} Art for Teaching Tolerance Magazine

This month Teaching Tolerance Magazine features my hand lettered illustration on the opening page of its article, We {Heart} Art. The chalkboard style illustration combines word and image, using the opening copy to outline the affects on American pupils when vital arts programmes are cut.

This was one of several school-related options presented to the art director, who when he saw the chalkboard route, asked me to extend the illustration behind and around the opening paragraph to make a full page illustration, neatly combining the hand drawn lettering and typography.

You can see more of my illustrative work on the images page of my online portfolio.

One from the Archives: Bede's World

In the Spring I took a driving holiday through the beautiful landscape of Yorkshire and up into the North East of England. It was a nostalgic trip for me as I'd studied as an undergraduate at Newcastle Upon Tyne. While there I decided to take a look around Bede's World, Jarrow, a museum that celebrates the life and achievements of the Venerable Bede, a remarkable Anglo-Saxon monk, famous today as the first historian of the English people.

In 2000 I was commissioned to work on the lettering for the 'The Age of Bede' Exhibition in the new museum building. I'd never seen the lettering in situ, so it was a great thrill to see how well the exhibition had been put together with lettering, murals and models skilfully combined to make an informative and interesting tour through the Anglo-Saxon way of life in Northumbria.

The uncial lettering had to reflect this specific place and time, samples were provided by the museum so that I could fine tune the style to be as authentic to the period as possible. It can be seen throughout the exhibition on walls and panels - I've worked on a wide range of projects over the years but it's always a pleasant surprise to see my work reproduced at a large size and so well integrated into the overall design.

One from the Archives is one in an occasional series I'll be posting about jobs I've worked on over the years. If you have any suggestions of jobs you'd like me to talk about - just drop me a line!

The Olive Farm Series by Carol Drinkwater

Lately I've been working with Orion Publishing on a series of titles for Carol Drinkwater's books, the Olive Farm series. I was delighted to learn that Lara Harwood, one of my favourite illustrators would be working on the project. Lara's beautiful, lyrical watercolours are combined with my soft, linear lettering for a warm Mediterranean feel. I look forward to working on the next title in the series.

You can see more of my title lettering in my publishing folder on my online portfolio site.

Delta Sky Magazine

Delta Airways Sky Magazine asked me to produce some hand lettered titles and a map of Paris for their stylish article about contemporary French culture.

This casual, edgy style of lettering was developed using a marker pen and runs throughout the article as subheadings, highlighting the work and opinions of an eclectic mix of influential French celebrities.

The map of Paris has a deliberately simple, casual style, reflecting it's subject - the bohemian Left Bank and the new areas now populated by artistes and academics in the working-class districts of the city's East End.

Paris is one of my favourite cities to walk around, so discovering a new area to explore just gives me another reason to visit. If you'd like to see more of my maps - click through to my image>maps folder on my portfolio site.

BAA Welcome Campaign At Heathrow Airport

I've been working on the lettering for a series of large posters for a BAA Welcome Campaign at Heathrow Airport. The idea is for recognisable London characters to welcome passengers on their arrival - real people rather than models were used - this is a real Guardsman!

So far there have been 11 characters used - you can see the Carnival Queen and Chelsea Pensioner above, followed by the Doorman and the Policeman. I was asked to write the word Welcome in a style to reflect all their different personalities.

These posters can be seen along the Terminal 4 Travelator at Heathrow. So if you're flying into Heathrow this Summer look out for this eye catching series of cheery Londoners! See more posters in my word>advertising folder on my portfolio website.