Another quick blog I’m afraid. This week I have my graduation ceremony for my Illustration MFA (completed with distinction last October - yay! - but this week I get to wear the hat and robe 😉), so I’m writing between work bits n bobs, sorting all that and a bit of celebration.
So this week I’m looking at some commissioned work - staff identities for a website, St Giles Medical (a medical communications company based in London and Berlin) [fig.1 & 2], which to me are celebratory.
Fig.1 “meet the team”
I loved doing these as they combine pencil drawings [fig.3], portraiture, cartooning and colour design (there’s also lettering which I’ve not included here - except fig.4), and each step has its own joy for me in the process.
Fig.2 “meet the team” (Additions)
These images have a nice tension for me - between realistic depiction and a stylised line that want more simplicity. There’s also something really cool about the way the pencil works with and against the colour - which is first gouache, then digitised as the drawing and image is refined.
Fig.3 “meet the team” Pencils
At all stages there are challenges of depiction, of tone and colour and of composition - for the individual images, and how they can work together.
Fig.4 “meet the team” (individual and lettering)
But ultimately, what I enjoy is the task of finding the personal in the professional and reminding myself how humanity is central to my illustrations and design.