Mt First Kafka is One of the Best

'My First Kafka' illustrated by Rohan Daniel Eason makes one of the thirteen 'Best Children’s, Illustrated, and Picture Books of 2013'.
Selected by journalist and writer Maria Popover of Brain Pickings, the book is Matthue Roth's adaptation of Kafka for kids. Rohan gets much praise for his work too, Maria writes " Indeed, it’s hard not to see Sendak’s fatherly echo in Eason’s beautifully haunting black-and-white drawings." Read more on the book here.

STOP PRESS: Asiago Award Winners

Top left: Shailesh Khandeparkar, top right: Gail Armstrong, bottom: Russell Fei

Watch Gail Armstrong create her stamp

We are delighted with the news that three of our illustrators have won the prestigious Asiago International Award for Philatelic Art.
Commissioned by the United Nations Postal Administration, Gail Armstrong, Shailesh Khandeparkar and Russell Fei were asked to create stamp designs to mark the UN's Conference on Sustainable Development which took place in Rio last year. Along with some background material on the conference, each artist was given the theme of either Land, Sea or Air and encouraged to go and create something beautiful.
Gail, Shailesh and Russell have not only achieved this but have been crowned with an award which is given annually under the patronage of the President of Italy.

An Emmy for Aardvark

Nathan Aardvark played Art Director and Lead Illustrator on this Emmy Award winning title sequence for Starz's 'Da Vinci's Demons.'

Last night's Emmys saw Nathan and the team crowned with the 'Outstanding Main Title Design' award for the show. Talking of the commission, a very proud Nathan says "The job was to create short animated illustrations to go on top of footage from the show. I was supplied with various clips and painstakingly sketched over the top of each frame....frame by frame! In the end I had hundreds of drawings which were then composited later in post production. I tried to keep it close to the classic style of Da Vinci as much as possible."

Another cool feature of the title is the crab cannon; when the music is played backwards the melody is the same. Watch the titles.

The Art Of Winning Awards

BoomArtwork was featured in Computer Arts recently and the issue is now online. If you'd like to read about BoomArtwork's Dieline Award for his DrNo Effects designs go here .

Care For Our World

Alexandra Ball has been busy working on a commission from Compendium Inc. (a US publishing company who specialise in inspirational ideas). The brief was to illustrate a children’s book, the text being a beautiful poem by Karen Robbins with an environmental message to Care For Our World. Alexandra says "It was a wonderful project to work on as they gave me pretty much full rein of the content and with the environmental theme, one which is very close to my heart, I couldn’t have asked for more. My initial sketches of the animals gave the brains behind Compendium Inc. the idea to create a play-set to go along side the book. This consisted of a number of punch-out animals and habitat box that children can play with to stimulate their imagination." The play-set has proven a success with quite a collection of awards so far; 2012 Mom’s Choice Awards, 2012 Playset of the Year; Creative Child Awards, 2012 Top Toy of the Year; Creative Child Awards, 2012 Runner-up in the Children's Books Category; Green Book Festival and a silver in the Moonbeam Children's Book Awards. Super work!

Fritz and Franzi Campaign

A campaign for Fritz and Franzi involving Natalie Kilany's Love Bug illustration has been shortlisted for the Art Directors Club Switzerland. The commission, from Jung von Matt Switzerland, required Natalie to tackle the delicate subject of youth violence. Natalie's clever composition evokes the loneliness of the situation in this very triumphant piece of art. Fritz and Franzi is a magazine for parents, guardians and institutions covering all matters relating to the problems one can face when bringing up children and adolescents.

Dieline Awards 2012

BoomArtwork is thrilled to have won 3rd Place in this year's Dieline Awards with his DrNo Packaging designs. This award is the result of a worldwide competition devoted exclusively to the art of brand packaging.
Featuring in the Electronics, Technology, Movies and CDs category, BoomArtwork was just beaten by the album artwork for Lou Reed and Metallica in 2nd place and album artwork for Jay Z / Kanye West in top position. He says "Recently I created packaging design and artwork for DrNo Effects, a range of vintage guitar effect pedals...........Unfortunately I wasn’t able to come over to Boston and except the award in person; therefore DrNo and I created with the help of my friends at Konacoast a short ‘award acceptance speech’ video that was shown during the awards in Boston." See the video.  Huge congratulations for this very deserved award.

The Chocolate Lily Award

We are very proud to announce that Louis the Tiger Who Came From the Sea, illustrated by Sholto Walker, has been nominated for the Chocolate Lily Award. Sholto worked on the book with Annick Press at the beginning of the year alongside writer Michal Kozlowski.

"The Chocolate Lily Awards began with a desire to encourage B.C. grade school children to read books by authors and illustrators living in British Columbia. After seven years, Chocolate Lily has grown into a nationally recognized book awards program. By exposing children to the best of B.C. fiction and introducing them to the creators of these quality books, we hope to ignite a passion for reading that will last a lifetime. The Chocolate Lily is a real indigenous flower that grows in woodland areas along the west coast of B.C. but nowhere else in Canada." See the other nominees here. 

Good Luck Sholto!

John Holder - Honorary Doctor of the Arts

Super news comes in the form of artist John Holder and his very prestigious award of Doctor of the Arts. It is a most deserved accolade. Please read the citation below:

John Holder 
Honorary Doctor of Arts 
Faculty of Arts, Law & Social Sciences

Alumnus John Holder is a veteran illustrator who is known internationally for his phenomenal creative talent. He specialises in classic pen drawing with a generous twist of humour and these intricate, expressive and mood-setting drawings have been acclaimed by art critics from every corner of the globe. 
John is a published author illustrator. His published credits include distinguished authors, john Steinbeck, Dickens, Evelyn Waugh, Kurt Vonnegut, Graham Greene and Henry James. John has exhibited his drawings, paintings and illustrations in England, Croatia, France, Poland and the USA. His work is seen across the UK, Europe and the USA appearing in books, magazines and newspapers as well as for advertising and packaging. He penned the distinctive illustrations that helped to put Phileas Fogg crisps on the world map. 
An alumnus of our Cambridge School of Art, John has kept a close connection with us for the past 50 years as a teacher, mentor and friend to our many art, design and media students. He is among a number of other famous former students of Cambridge’s only university-level art school, including classmates and lifelong friends Spitting Image creators Roger Law and Peter Fluck and the illustrator of the world-famous St Trinian’s school cartoons, Ronald Searle. John attributes his career success to the fact that he was top of his class in art at school and cites his biggest inspiration as Paul Hogarth, his former tutor. 
John was most recently a Visiting Fellow of the Faculty of Arts, Law & Social Sciences specialising in Illustration. Today, when he could be long retired, he still enjoys working from his 17thcentury home and studio near Cambridge. 
His vast portfolio of work includes original and highly creative drawings commissioned by governmental organisations, corporate contacts and private individuals. Some of his most notable clients include Penguin Books, Harper Collins, Random House, Saatchi & Saatchi, BBC, Macmillan, The National Trust, The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Observer, Prospect and New York Times. 
A man with many creative talents, John founded the first ‘bluegrass’ bands in Europe in the 1950s and helped set up the Cambridge Folk Festival a decade later, which still today enjoys huge success. 
In the mid 1980s, he co-established the Friends of Cambridge School of Art (more affectionately and less reverentially known as ‘Posers’) and set up a weekly ‘Life Drawing’ session which still takes place in the Ruskin Building. He is currently working with Philip Hodkinson of the Simmons Group, to whom he is mentor, to arrange drawing trips in innovative commercial buildings around the country. 
John has ensured that, while being open to the public, current students of the Cambridge School of Art do not have to pay the nominal fee to attend the weekly drawing sessions in Ruskin building. He has also insisted that surplus revenues from this project together with Philip Hodkinson’s philanthropy, be used to subsidise the cost of the annual European drawing field trip. This has enabled students with limited means to attend an incredibly worthwhile trip that they would often otherwise not be able to attend. 
A lifelong follower of both Cambridge School of Art and the discipline of drawing, John has been a great ambassador for the school and the Ruskin Gallery and is an inspiration to budding artists everywhere. 
Vice Chancellor, it is my pleasure to present John for the award of Doctor of Arts, honoris causa.

Sarah Beetson wins Creative Review - Best In Book 2011

Sarah Beetson's success continues with the recent announcement that she has won the Creative Review Illustration Annual - Best in Book. Sarah is very excited at the news, her winning 5 entries are from her “I Dream In Celluloid” exhibition showing in London next week. Sarah says of the show:

"“I Dream In Celluloid” is my 4th solo exhibition, exploring the link between an obsession with film and how this affects my dreams. Each morning, I record the night’s dreamings via my dream sketchbook, where I have rediscovered memories from my childhood, my displaced identity and nationality, relayed interactions with friends, colleagues, relations and pets; both dead and alive, past and present. I'm discovering facts about the essence of my existence via my subconscious. I watch a movie every evening, and find elements from these films within my dreams. With support from RADF, the exhibition culminates in a series of larger fake movie posters, a short animation and a giant digitally printed, hand painted embellished quilt cover. It has toured The Gold Coast and Melbourne; Australia, London; UK and will go onto Ottawa; Canada in October 2011."

"I Dream In Celluloid" London opens on Wednesday 3rd August, 6-8pm @ The Brick Lane Gallery, as part of Art in Mind.

The exhibition runs 2nd - 15th August, open daily 1pm - 6pm.

Grahame Baker-Smith wins CILIP Kate Greenaway Award

We are immensely proud to announce the news that Grahame Baker-Smith has won this year's CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal for his novel "FArTHER" published by Templar. Congratulations to Grahame for this much deserved and prestigious award. Read more here.

Anne Wilson in Digital Arts Magazine

photo by Russell Cobb

Our GOLD Serco Award Winner Anne Wilson continues to celebrate the very deserved award. Her latest piece of exposure is an interview with Digital Arts Magazine, about the award and Anne's reaction to her win. Have a read.

Anne Wilson - SERCO Award Winner

photo by Russell Cobb

We give a huge round of applause to Anne Wilson, winner of the Serco Prize for Illustration.

Anne’s ‘Winding Through The City’ beat 400 entries for the competition, 50 of which are on show at the London Transport Museum until June 3rd. The brief was to show the Thames as a diverse and exciting place for Londoners and visitors. The winning image is to be reproduced as posters to be used around the transport network and also sold at the London Transport museum shop. Photo of Anne by Russell Cobb.

Ben Tallon April Flair Winner

We are immensly proud to announce Ben Tallon has won April 2011's Flair competition run by Creativematch. His conceptual, beautifully drawn piece brings Ben a second win...and another ipod!

January Flair Winner BOOMARTWORK

 

Congratulations Eric Van Den Boom of BoomArtwork. He has won Creativematch's January Flair Competition with a superb image originally done for Ray Ban. A prize truely deserved, Eric now awaits an Apple ipod plus much exposure on the Creativematch site.

Number 1 Press Campaign in the World

Gail Armstrong's award winning campaign created with JWT London for Kimberly Clark has won yet another award, and one which is truly the icing on the cake. Achieiving the title of Number 1 Press Campaign in the World for 2010 is something to shout about, well done Gail! Have a look at The Big Won Report for more info.

Top 10 Press campaigns in the world 2010

Campaign	Agency	Points
1. Yes/No campaign – Kimberly Clark	JWT London	46
2. Billboard Magazine campaign	AlmapBBDO Sao Paulo	41
3. Living Room/Campaign - Sima Foods	Elephant Cairo	30
4. Screams campaign – Strepsils	EuroRSCG Spain	28
5. Vespa campaign	Ace Saatchi Philippines	26
6. Great Emotions – Zürich Orchestra	Euro RSCG Zürich	25
7= Everywhere URL	Y&R Johannesburg	20
7= Melting campaign – Perrier	Ogilvy Paris	20
9= Cause & Effect campaign – Harvey Nicholls	Team/Y&R Dubai	19
9= Aircraft, Baby, Prisma – Rolling Stone	Ogilvy Frankfurt	19
9= Gun, Palms, Mask – Tribune	Juniper Park Toronto	19

Cannes Advertising Awards for Gail Armstrong

 

These spectacular images created by Gail Armstrong with JWT  for  Kleenex have won one Gold and two Bronze  awards at the Cannes Advertising Awards. This is incedible news as one of the awards was specifically for illustration using craft. Getting awards at Cannes is a huge boost for advertising agencies and something they strive for, good old Gail's got a glorious 3!

Info on Gold Award

Info on Press Awards

Gail Armstrong's portfolio

An Award for Jamel

This stunning illustration comes from the wonderfully talented artist Jamel Akib and is one of several spreads for the children’s book "Tan to Tamarind".

The book has already gained award winning status after being selected as the "Honor title in the Picture Book category of the Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association (APALA) - Literature Award". Jamel explains: "The book was a collection of poems on the theme of the colour brown. Celebrating the shades of skin colour in all shades and how the shades conjure up different memories".