The City of Bohane

Back in October I mentioned that I was illustrating a book cover, but what I couldn't do was say who it was for or what the book was called, or more importantly show the cover.

But having just spotted the book on Amazon it seems I can finally share it...

The book is called 'City of Bohane' by Kevin Barry, an Irish Author who has won several awards for his short stories and this is his first novel for Random House. You can see what the cover looks like on Amazon:



The actual illustration spans the full book and looks like this:



This was such a cool commission, the dream job, the sort of illustration I love to do with barely any changes and positive responses from all involved. So I'm pleased I can finally share it on here!

When I get chance I'll give an overview of the brief but for now I hope you'll enjoy looking at the design.

A return to blogging (hopefully)

Wow it’s been an absolute age since I was last able to post on here. It’s been on my to-do list for the last few months and finally I'm back with plenty of illustrations to show.

Rolling back the months a bit, I got hold of my copy of American Ilustration 29, with a dramatic cover by Sam Weber:


My image 'Pedal to Enlightenment' that I created for The Ride journal back in Winter 2009, was selected for this book and can be seen below:



I was also lucky enough to be able to go out to New York for the launch party of the book back in November, so here are a couple of pictures from the event. It was held in the Angel Orensanz, an old Synagogue in the Lower East Side, and it truly was a magical venue, everyone remarked upon it whilst entering the space and it just added to my love of the city:







On a vaguely illustration related note I stayed at a beautifully designed hotel, The Jane, designed to mimic a turn of the century ship, with cabin like rooms and styling. I first saw this hotel advertised on GQ.com in their amazing travel guides (I was researching a project at the time) and after mentioning it to a friend who raved about it I was convinced to go there myself and I wasn’t disappointed by the kooky experience including proper bellhops:


(Promo photograph)


As always I had an amazing time in the city, but this isn't a travelblog so back to the illustration and here is a selection of images created in the last few months or so:

Illustration for IET magazine, in the style of Russian revolutionary posters.


Another illustration for IET, this time parodying the cover of 'A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian' for a magazine featuring an interview with the author. All of the text is handrawn.


An illustration with a completely different feel, one for Learning Disability Practice Magazine about song therapy.


I've also just started doing a regular monthly illustration for a problem solving column in Social Work Now and the first image is below. This is a nice change of pace because the images are quite small and thus need to convey a message quickly and simply in a limited space:



I did another illustration in January for a finance magazine about American banking regulations impacting Asian markets. It was a difficult one to get my head around as they wanted me to show the Statue of Liberty stretching from one panel illustration across 2 double page spreads to a panel illustration. I'm not convinced it doesn't look mightily odd, but I was happy with the spread, unfortunately I don't have a version with the copy in, but the layout looked like this:


I've done lots more pieces, but I just wanted to show a selection here, so there you go. I can't wait to share the book cover I did back in October, but I'm waiting for it to be published first then I'll get it on here.

That's all for now, hopefully I'll be back soon.