Independent 22nd February

It's unusual to be thankful for this as a freelancer, but last week was a quiet one and I have to say I enjoyed the breathing space. It gave me time to get stuck into some Laurence King work and finally wrap some projects up, as well as prepare for my upcoming trips to the USA. I'll be jetting off to Chicago and New York with my Second Year students at Loughborough, for the Illustration and Graphic Communication study trips respectively. It's a great experience for the students and usually has a profoundly beneficial effect on their work, making them more ambitious and (as much as it's a cliche) opens their minds to a whole new world of possibilities. Most of the students have travelled to the States before, but holidays are different to study trips and visiting a city with your 'studio' head on, surrounded by your peers, makes you see it in a different way and ensures you really start to connect your method of communicating visually with the environment you find yourself in.

As a student my study trip was to New York and it kicked off my love affair with the city, so of course I'm excited to return. Hopefully it will give me an opportunity to create some personal work inspired by the city just like it did last summer. Excitingly I'm then flying onto the Cayman Islands to visit my friend, sometimes-collaborator and regular blog commentator Bowerbird in her new Caribbean home and to have some deserved R&R time. We have plans to discuss a new online project, so watch this space for details of that.

Finally I'll get round to this week's Indy illustration. It was about Israel, and its self image in the wake of the recent revelations about Mossad. This was a nice graphic representation of the Star of David made from Israeli weapons. It doesn't really need much more explanation, so here's the image:



Article here.

Enjoy the week!