Old Iraq, New Iraq

Contrasting the old and the new is Ian Naylor and this recent cover image for MEED magazine.
Ian’s powerful design illustrates the rebuilding of Iraq’s infrastructure after the invasion, by contrasting a foreground of twisted material, against a map of the country through which we see the new Iraq within.

Sweet Job for Cadbury

Ruth Rowland has been asked to work on a new logo for Cadbury's popular chocolate assortment, Roses, originally introduced in 1938.
The distinctive blue packaging has been retained, while Ruth has added textured brush lettering combined with clean graphics to give the packaging a more contemporary and spontaneous feel.

Welcome to Nuno DaCosta

New to the agency this month is the elegant and extremely chic fashion work of Nuno DaCosta.
Nuno’s loose and stylish brush work has already found favour with some of fashion’s top creatives: Neil Moodie, Lisa Butler, Zoe Irwin, and designer Melissa Odabash among them — and his illustrations have appeared in Marie Claire, You and Cosmo.

Six of the Best

Chris Ede is behind these excellently rendered portraits for Soho House Quarterly Magazine.
Working initially with ink and later reconstructing in Photoshop, the six portraits show the magazine’s house guests, and appear in the Spring issue 2009, and also online here.

Portfolio Show

Come and put some faces to names at the up-coming “Portfolios” exhibition, where Illustration Ltd. will be among the many pools of talent on show.
Organised by Creative Review and the Creative Handbook, this is a dedicated event for all art directors, designers and buyers of photography and illustration. So come and say hello on June 9 and 10 at the Central Hall Westminster, London — it would be great to see you there!

More info on the show here.

Spring into Summer

This nicely hippy spring illustration is by Tianyin Wang, and is currently featuring proud as this month's cover for Fashion Monitor magazine.
Tianyin was given a free reign to create whatever his mind allowed, and his playful colour palette conjures a mellow 60s feel, providing the perfect intro into the summer we all need.

Unlikely Wrestling Match

Ben Tallon has just completed round 1 in his “Versus” series — a personal series of hand-drawn posters for unlikely wrestling matches, inspired, explains Ben, “by my love of sport, mainly Professional Wrestling!”
Ben’s humorous approach, superb drawing skills and command of typography makes for a quirky, slightly naive feel. Up-coming matches include: Orton v Helmsley (Wrestlemania 25), Obama v Clinton (race v sex challenge) and Ian Brown v Ricky Hatton.

SmokeFree Homes For All!

Currently splashed across leaflets, posters and flyers are these cheery designs by John Paul Early for Foam Design—a project run by Westminster Primary Care Trust.
The aim of the campaign is to raise awareness of the affects on health, especially second-hand smoke on children, and drum home the message that “Kids are healthier when homes are SmokeFree”

Flair Winner Bertrand

Bertrand Le Pautremat is the proud winner of May’s Flair competition for illustrators on Creativematch.
His entry comprises one of twelve images created for a Moulin Rouge poster in Paris. Each image depicts one of the twelve main Cancan dancing steps. For these illustrations Bertrand used thin Thaï paper, which has a light fabric look to it.

Bertrand Le Pautremat's portfolio.

Zarafa by Britt Spencer

This month sees the publication of “Zarafa”— Britt Spencer’s third children's book
Zarafa, follows the adventures of a giraffe that travels all the way from Egypt to Paris to meet the King. Explains Britt: “The publisher Philomel [an imprint of Penguin] have given me a lot of creative freedom, but I am still bound by the comments and suggestions from the great team of Art Directors and Editors, who have definitely helped guide the book to better directions”

Slippy Feet

The team at CUBE are now iphone application developers, with the creation and release of their “Slippy Feet” game. Produced entirely at CUBE studio, this home-grown piece gives players the task of helping Slippy the penguin to slide and jump his way around the icebergs in 12 challenging Antarctic levels. Irresistible! See a glimpse of the fun.

Dark Is Daniel O'Leary

Staring darkly and mysteriously from bookshelves across the land is Daniel O’Leary's front cover for "The Afghan" by Frederick Forsyth. Commissioned by Anthony Ramondo of NAL for The Penguin Group USA, Daniels' brief for the digital photo-illustration was to create a mood of shadowy mystery with only a suggestion of the character and setting to be shown. The hardback edition is on sale now, and the paperback edition will follow later this year.

Making Fashion Waves With Gina Adams

Gina Adams' subtle and evocative illustration work has been enjoying great success in the fashion world lately - creating work for, among others: Chelsea Collections, Marine Avraam Design, and Roubi L Roubi Couturists. Working in pencil, ink, watercolour, and also digitally, Gina's dreamily understated lines are definitely her selling point, and ones which are currently proving popular.

Mark's Stylish Holiday Threesome

Mark Watkinson has been commissioned to illustrate three images for the Holiday Inn. Directed by James Mountain from Proximity London, the images are featuring in national press ads. In keeping with the simple and clean look that the Holiday Inn have been running, Mark's brief was to produce work that fitted this same uncluttered style.

Antonia's Animated Art

Traditional art meets Flash animation in a delightful e-card produced by Antonia Enthoven for the printers Ikon. The Quantos Consultancy commissioned Antonia to create a snowy festive London street scene which had to work in colour, as well as a monotone too. In the animation the scene opens in black and white, and you are invited to bring the scene into colour via a quick 3-minute memory game.

With Friends Like Tanja........

Tanja Szekessy's stand-out illustration work has been unleashed on six full-page images, and one front cover, for DAS MAGAZIN's December issue. With art direction from Inka Baron, and the theme of "friends" as the basic brief, Tanja's humorous and warmly odd illustrations each represents well-known friendships or relationships - such as the Three Musketeers, the Seven Dwarfs, and the girlie-crowd from "Sex & The City" - albeit without showing the original scenes or characters.

Welcome To Echo Chernik

A huge welcome for the immensely talented Echo Chernik, who brings with her to the agency an already-impressive client list that includes Penguin, Random House, Miller Brewing Company and Rocket Dog Shoes. Echo is an award-winning illustrator, specializing in art nouveau poster and logo design, as well as work for advertising, editorial, packaging and publishing. We are delighted to have her aboard!

Ella's Big Yellow Taxi

Out now is "Anybody Out There" a novel by Marian Keyes, with a front cover by our very own Ella Tjader. Commissioned by Nikki Dupin at Penguin the brief was to show a swarm of beautiful butterflies and a yellow NY cab with a silhouette of a woman in the back seat. Pitching against three other artists, not only did Ella win the job, but her coloured rough was approved for the final art without changes!

Paper Artist Bertand Le Pautremat

New to our already-fabulous hub of artistic talent comes the highly-gifted and well-known paper artist Bertand Le Pautremat. His deceptively-clever use of paper has a distinct and refreshing look, and has already featured widely in advertising, educational books and annual reports.

Peter's Creations Come Alive In Budapest

Budapest is the showcase location for Peter Meszaros' animated oddball creations. Peter has animated various characters from each scene of the performance at the MU Theatre, where he can be seen veejaying the animations live on the stage during February and March.

Hunt Gets Shirty

Graniph; a design company based in Japan have selected Nadia Hunt’s sensational images to liven their tees. Nadia was approached after her work was spotted in Marie Claire UK and Semipermanent Book and now her work can be seen splashed across the chests of anyone who enjoys original art on their clothes. At a very affordable price, the limited edition shirts are glam and fun.

Biker Daviz

Vintage bikes get animated by Paul Daviz in his recent commission for Fanatic Scooters; a shop in Bristol which imports reconditioned classic Vespas and Lambrettas from India. The final animation is a cool intro to the shop’s website showing quirky characters driving their funky machines. Brrrmmmmm!

Bag Lady Sarah

The incomparable Sarah Beetson has sold the rights for the US company Littlearth to use one of her illustrations on one of their very wonderful Fender bags. Retailing at $280 a piece, we are sure her design will sit very comfortably on these particularly cool accessories! Littlearth discovered Sarah through our site.

The BBC Goes Colour With Christopher

Christopher Corr is halfway through a delightful set of illustrations for the BBC's No 1 Ladies Detective Agency. Working with Paul Hocking at BBC Audio Books, Christopher's task has been to interpret "the really expressive story-telling" heard on the CDs in his own vividly colourful way. The first two audio books are out this month.

The McGreg

Commissioned by Christine DeBlangy at Leo Burnett, Greg Becker has created artwork for bus shelter ads, tube and restaurant posters for the McDonalds "McFlurry". His brief was to draw a nice big snowy backdrop with sky colours to match the McFlurry's packaging. Greg stayed quite close to the brief, but at the last minute added a robin (a not too well fed robin) which was happily accepted.

Steinar OnEarth

Tackling the environmental challenges of our planet; OnEarth Magazine has commissioned Steinar Lund to deal with some serious issues too. Juggling the fate of an endangered species; namely the Preble Mouse and the development of the Rocky Mountain West, Steinar using his super-realistic style, has produced an atmospheric and cleverly composed piece.

Hannah Covers Seven

Surrounded by a beautiful border feature is Hannah Firmin’s cover for The Sunday Telegraph Seven Magazine. Commissioned by Alex McFadyen, Hannah’s truly unique decorative style illustrates a short story by Alexander McCall Smith, a typical Botswanen building and van set the scene for the fiction with earthy colours chosen by Hannah to create the mood of the tale.

There's no better way to finish the year than with this crisp and sensual image from Montana Forbes, wishing you all a very merry Christmas and a healthy New Year. Montana wanted to sum up the spirit of the time using a female representation rather than the traditional Santa Claus. We all look forward to more creative fun!

Expert in watercolour

We are equally as delighted to welcome Kathy Wyatt to the agency. Already a well-established illustrator in her own right, Kathy's formal training and understanding of anatomy and movement shines through in every outstanding illustration. An expert in watercolour, she has worked in advertising, publishing and film industries. Nice to meet you Kathy.

Russ Mills In Playstation Farewell

US Playstation Magazine have commissioned the mighty Russ Mills to illustrate a full-page piece for an article on Dr Richard Marks - inventor of the Eye Toy Playstation accessory. Commissioned by Ryan Vulk at Ziff Davis Media in the US, this quality illustration makes its appearance in the magazine's final closing issue.

Meet Masha

Masha Karpushina’s world appears black and white on the surface, but a recent confidence with colour and an intensity of both line, subject and skill has engaged us. Her client list includes Kube Media, Crate and Barrel and UOVO Magazine, whilst her numerous collaborations have her working alongside Moscow’s top make up artist Natasha Vlasova on a beauty project. She is unique.

Extinct No More

Bringing the distant past back to life in a most vivid way is S. Timothy Walker and his children’s book of extinct animals for Random House. The commission for ‘Extinct!’ was for a factual book about extinct animals concentrating on the lesser-known creatures that came after the dinosaurs. The brief demanded a fairly high level of scientific accuracy while at the same time keeping the fifty-plus illustrations bright, characterful and entertaining. S.Timothy Walker's portfolio.

Church Of Torture

The standout engraving work of Caroline Church has somehow found its way into the world of torture. But don't worry, it was all in the name of advertising - namely Buell Motorcycles. Directed by Bruno Banaszuk at Euro RSCG C&O Paris, the illustration shows a "typical" torture scene from the Middle Ages, with a motorcycle as the unfortunate victim. The image was then placed in an aged book to look as if it were a genuine advert of the time.

Bee Willey Shows Us How

The long hours of illustrating have come to fruition for Bee Willey with the publication of this outstanding pop-up book for Carlton. The book's theme: "How to be a Princess" is brought vividly to life by Bee's illustration work. Working alongside designer Zoe Dissell, the book explores concepts of health, honour and duty through the examples of famous princesses around the world, and is packed with secret pockets and flaps, all concealing various hidden items. "Definitely my favourite job of the last 2 years" says Bee.

Baker In The Charts

The famous wall charts free with The Guardian last year were unmissable, and Alan Baker who was responsible for the art on most of them can now proudly reflect on the brilliant and informative result of his labours. Commissioned by Darren Gavigan, the tough schedule to turn out all the individual insects, biscuits, mammals etc left Alan with an immensely painful hand. But with the posters over many walls in homes, schools and colleges, Alan can now enjoy the success of the wall chart phenomenon.

Price And Wilson Go Commercial

Spring has been put on screen with the art of Anne Wilson and Nick Price. Commissioned to paint backgrounds to be used in a TV commercial for Zellers; the Canadian department store, Anne and Nick created magical scenes depicting words beginning with the letter ’S’. These two fine illustrators were chosen by Leila Courey at Leo Burnett to bring their charm to the TV.

Philip Bishop Does Wine Down-Under

It's all-things-Australian for Philip Bishop and this stylish cover for the current edition of The Wine Society List. Says Philip: "The client wanted to show imagery that was typically Australian, but without being stereotypical. They needed a sophisticated feel to it, with a wine society twist." Commissioned by Louise Herring at The Wine Society, the front design opens out to show the full landscape of gum trees, surf shops, work boots and beaches.

Hello To Jacqueline Bissett

A warm welcome to Jacqueline Bissett and her cool lifestyle and fashion illustration work. Jacqueline is no stranger to the market, with Elle, Company & Options, MarieClaire, Tatler and Vogue among her impressive client list. Jacqueline also produces regular work for Sunday Times Style. Her style ranges from loose watercolour ink washes, with a touch of collage in Letrafilm, to entire collages in Letrafilm giving a more graphic feel. Nice to meet you Jacqueline.

Kat Springs Large For Coca-Cola

Welcoming in the spring in suitably joyous colours, is Kat Cameron and her explosive new design for Coca-Cola Ireland. With the ad campaign's line "The Coke Side of Spring" as the basic brief, Kat was asked by McCann-Erickson's Dylan Davis to design a piece that conveyed the sense of moving into a bright new season. The image also had to work large: reproducing in both 6 sheet and 48 sheet formats.

Ruth Rowland - The Author's Choice

Also creating a loud 'wow' in publishing circles is Ruth Rowland, whose work features on the latest title (and indeed entire back catalogue) by author Carmen Reid. Working within styles designed by Diane Meacham at Transworld Publishers, Ruth's task was to create accompanying author logos and title lettering - resulting in a fun, fresh and entirely pleasing collection of books.

Hannah Firmin - Award Winner

Winning awards like there's no tomorrow is Hannah Firmin, whose work 'Garden Notes from Muddy Creek' has just won her the Silver Award of Achievement for the 2007 Garden Writers Association Media Awards Programme. The book features over 200 of Hannnah's highly-decorative (yet technically accurate) illustrations. As recipient of the award, Hannah is now a candidate for the GWA Garden Media Gold Awards for Best Talent and Best Product, to be announced in Oklahoma, this October. Go Hannah, go!

Up Close And Personal With Grizelda Holderness

Next month sees the chance to view the work of Grizelda Holderness up-close and personal at the 5xSEVERN show from June 10 - 14th. Her work is on display at Frampton Wool Barn, The Green, Frampton On Severn, along with four other artists. Grizelda is also opening her studio over two weekends in June: the 9th and 10th June, and the 16th and 17th respectively at Parks Cottage; just a few minutes walk across the green from the Wool Barn.

Ian Naylor's Monster Machines

Bringing machinery to life this month is Ian Naylor and this intimidating new piece for US hydraulics company Tompkins Industries Inc. Working in 3D modeling software, and later in Photoshop, Ian's brief was to portray the heavy-duty equipment in both a technically accurate manner, but also as if the machines themselves were living entities: monstrous machines able to shift a ton of earth without breaking a sweat.

A Big Hello To Mr.Holland

Fresh to the agency is Paris-based artist Paul Holland, and his uniquely flamboyant view on fashion and popular culture. Formerly a tattoo artist, Paul's linear style neatly fuses delicate traditional drawing techniques with often stark motifs. Paul's influences lie within the worlds of 'le freak et le chic', fashion, music, and all nature of subjects, "twisted" and otherwise. Welcome aboard Paul.

Middle Age And Beyond With Andy Hammond

Leaping from bookshelves as we speak are three new books featuring the work of cartoonist Andy Hammond. The titles: 'So You're 40', 'So You're 50' and 'So You're 60' by Mike Haskins and Clive Whichelow each feature a cover illustration, and twenty other cartoons throughout. Briefed by Jennifer Barclay of Summersdale Publishers, Andy's comical imagination was given free reign to interpret the manuscript as only Andy's comical imagination could.

Time Travelling With Greg Becker

Currently in production is an exciting new children's book illustrated by the talented Greg Becker. Published by Random House, 'The Time Traveller's Journal' is the educational scrapbook of a time traveller as he ventures through earth's history, both past and future. Greg's imagination was given full scope for this job - to create a book with a delightfully authentic 'on-the-hoof' feel to it.

Rosie, Rod and Kira Keeping It Fresh In France

Stylish and humorously-understated are three new designs by Rosie Sanders and Rod and Kira Josey. Commissioned by French agency Robinson, the illustrations feature in an advertising campaign for frozen food manufacturers, Picard. Each design features a tag line which works in comical contrast to the uncluttered illustrations: "There is one day in a vegetable's life where they must stop growing!" being one such example...

Paul Daviz Is No Jaded NYC Mother

Paul Daviz's loose and loony black and white cartooning style has landed him a regular column for Time Out New York. The column: "Antonia Kidd, a jaded mother of three, takes up your questions about raising kids in New York City" features a new illustration each month from Mr Daviz, as well as advice from "Antonia" - the mum who knows everything. (It's worth noting that "Antonia" is actually a fictional character. Paul we believe to be real!).

The Beach Life For Philip Bannister

Philip Bannister's wonderful watercolour work is currently working to promote a new beach being created at The Grove Hotel near Rickmondsworth. Katharine Walsh commissioned Philip to create a cheery summer scene that showed typical beach activities, as well as beach huts, and even a giraffe... all in readiness for the beach's grand opening this summer.

Keith Robinson Re-Animates Britain's Past

The UK's Channel 4 will soon be airing more work by Keith Robinson in its "Face of Britain" series. The programmes look at the historical distribution of DNA in Britain, discovering who our ancestors really are and whether regional faces can be traced back to ancient invaders and settlers. For Keith the task was to produce a number of animated maps and sequences illustrating the routes of migration and invasion, as well as the distribution of DNA around the country today. The maps also feature in a book that accompanies the series. See for yourself on 14th, 21st and 28th May.