I’ll be sketching at 26 Wordstock @ Bloomsbury Festival. And because my sketching is rooted in design, where I start is with what I’m drawing on. The event will be prefaced by the public launch of pamphlet format poem Berliners by John Simmons at Berliners and Other Poems. Pamphlets, then… … Read More
On the face of it, I have three strands of work: design, creative direction and sketch illustration. But I bring my design knowledge to illustration formats and materials and my reportage eye to my work on communication design and branding. Here, two strands of my work are drawn together – … Read More
Chip fork fish? DIY postcards? There’s been a field trip to the seaside for the latest episode of Studio Snack, a food podcast about design that I make with Narcis Sauleda. We were researching seaside snacks and for our grand day out, as well as my usual hand-bound sketchbook made … Read More
A by-product of writing a bio or summary information is the chance to wrangle the question I’ve often asked branding clients: “In one sentence, what do you do?”. On the face of it, my work has got more complicated as I’ve gone along. As I’ve gathered knowledge, graphic design has … Read More
A lemon top ice cream in Redcar. That hadn’t been the plan. Whitby had been my next colour trip, for jet black and the Old Norse for white, more of which later. But getting there turned out to be fiddly so I had designed a scenic route North, wiggling down … Read More
“It’s very green”, commented perfumer Sarah McCartney of 4160 Tuesdays of my selection for a taster set. Visiting to collect, I dropped off a copy of my Water, Colour zine of live garden illustrations. The result was a fascinating conversation about how green straight from the tube never quite tells … Read More
Most of my sketching work is reporting on things or gathering in people’s stories. But I’ve turned narrative illustrator for the latest episode of Studio Snack, the monthly podcast I make with collaborator Narcis Sauleda. This month’s episode is on fictional snacks and our creative experiment has involved making up … Read More
This year, there’s a new rhythm to the week. My studio days are Monday to Thursday; the fifth day of the working week is Free-range Friday, earmarked for personal work and exploration. So what goes on, on these days resolutely away from a desk? Well, like the best sort of … Read More
Thanks to clients who saw uses for my loose, gestural drawing before I did, what started by accident through a studio booklet about drawing as part of my design practice, has become a thing in its own right. Here, clockwise from top left: A staff portrait wall at Bowen Craggs … Read More
Doing prep for sketching at events, I like to consider context. So for a party at Trampery Fish Island Village, a campus for fashion, innovation and sustainability, I made swing tags from waste, spare supplies and offcuts. This is where my multi-stranded creative practice comes in. But it also uses … Read More