One of my illustrations was selected by Spectrum for the second consecutive year for inclusion in their annual Spectrum 19: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art, the authoritative publication in the field of science fiction and fantasy art. The chosen image was the Halloween-themed illustration “Trick”.
Kelly Murphy and I earned a Gold Award in the book category of the Society of Illustrators of Los Angeles‘s 50th annual competition, Illustration West 50, for our illustration “The Lodge”. Kelly Murphy also earned a Bronze Award for her illustration “The Princess and the Golden Fish” and an honourable mention for the cover of “The Unicorn’s Tale”.
An exhibit displaying the winning entries will be held at the Gallery Nucleus, where the awards will be announced and given to the winners on opening night of Illustration West 50, March 30th 2012 from 7:00 pm until 10:00 pm.
I have recently created an illustration for Samsonite, a large scale image representing Manhattan for print on hardside luggage. A rush job, most of the line art was executed in a single 16 hour session of drawing.
I was honoured to receive a Gold Award from Graphis Magazine for my Euro-Transfer logo.
My description of the design project:
“The Euro-Transfer logo was commissioned for a pioneering service allowing online payments and money transfers to be made through the Internet in the nascent euro currency. I was contacted to provide a logomark to represent this budding company, with a request preoccupied with advertising and copy.
While a logo is seldom a description of a business or trade and essentially derives its meaning by association with the identifi ed product or establishment’s merits, I intuitively sensed a necessity and rare opportunity for a design that would not only symbolise corporate qualities but also inform prospective users of the nature and usefulness of this new service. Though the client had expressed a desire for but a company signature, I identified hitherto unimagined uses and possibilities for the image, notably in user interface; as a button or very small size icon with the dual property of clearly informing an Internet customer of the availability of a payment option in euro currency and as a trigger to execute this action.
The logo’s design was based on the euro currency’s glyph, capitalising on its familiarity and musing on its geometry. A resolute dedication to formal refi nement and simplicity elegantly reached objectives in three criteria: aesthetics, communication and technology. The fi nal logo seductively incarnates the client, e ffects clear and immediate communication of service purpose and allows a full range of reproduction methods. As a visual designer there are few achievements I fi nd as ful lling as resolving the challenges and realising the possibilities of such a logo.”
King of the ILL is a character design tournament in which tag teams designed by students from the Montserrat College of Art face each other in a juried competition. The 2011 edition, organised by Kelly Murphy and I, is judged by an all star jury of artists and designers, Ann Smith, Cutter Hutton, Paolo Rivera, Scott Campbell (“Scott C.”) and Willie Real.
My work is featured in Taiwan-based illustration and design publication dpi Magazine‘s Design Stars Boulevard vol.12, a special edition on “meticulous art”. My specific article’s title can be loosely translated “The Extension Lines of Imagination”. It was an honour to be selected among such diverse and inspirational artists as junaida, Kris Kuksi, Bente Olesen Nyström, Tomislav Tomić, Marie Desbons to name a few, as well as to join my wife Kelly Murphy, who had been featured in the very first volume of this series, Design Stars Boulevard vol.1.
Many thanks to editor Vicky Liao for the opportunity.
I have recently created an illustration depicting an enchanted letterpress workshop, where the presses and power tools come to life at night. While the full illustration can be viewed here on my portfolio, I thought I would reveal some close ups of details that I enjoyed devising for this piece.
I took the opportunity to subtly insert a number of favourite covers, writers or subjects on the dancing sheets of paper which are shot out of the enchanted presses: Euclid’s Elements, Edgar Allan Poe, Sherlock Holmes, the Book of Changes, Titanic newspaper announcement.
Adolphe Mouron Cassandre’s legendary poster L’Atlantique, Méliès’ Le Voyage dans la Lune.
Scattered pages of Euclid’s Elements, Da Vinci drawings and imaginary anatomical illustrations.
A special guest, the studio cat.
My logo design work has been selected by Graphis, The International Journal of Visual Communication, a bastion of excellence in design and visual imagery, for publication in its upcoming annual Graphis Logo Design 8.
I was delighted to learn that my illustration “The Seed” was selected by Spectrum‘s jury to appear in Spectrum 18: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art.
An illustration created for the Montserrat College of Art‘s Illustration Department theme show exhibited at the 301 Gallery from February 14 to February 25, 2011. An artist reception and awards ceremony is held Thursday February 17th (6:30PM – 8PM).
Close up of the pencil drawing foundation:
