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.

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.

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.

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.

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.