New Shop Items

Introducing new stock now available in the online shop. Children's white cotton vests for toddlers (18-23 months) in three ladybird designs see the shop page for more details.

 

 

 

Exhibition

I am going to be part of an exhibition held at the Art House 2 gallery in Havant later this month.  The exhibition features a selection of artists, designers, makers and illustrators and will run from March 20th to the first of May.  A special event open evening will be held on the Thursday 8th April, so come along if you can.  The art house 2 gallery can be found at 8 East Street, Havant, Hampshire. 

 

Short Film completed & screened - trailer online

 A short film called The Special Effect that I was involved in has been completed and is to be screened in London.  I did some character designs for Tim Prescott (the writer & director of The Special Effect) which will be featured in the credits of the film.  To see the trailer for the film go to Tim's website certain things at: 

 

 

September came and I designed a Speakerdog which for those of you who have not yet been introduced to the wonderful world of speakerdogs, is a small paper toy.  Speakerdogs are the brainchild of Ben the illustrator whose wide range of colourful and funky Speakerdogs (designed by a wide range of fantastic illustrators) are available to buy and can be found at -www.bentheillustrator.com/speakerdog

 

Though a little different from what I have been used to doing, I was happy to be involved when I was asked to design a wedding invite.  The theme for the design was bluebells as the bride to be had been proposed to in a field of bluebells.

I put together this double panel invite. The first image is of the initial bluebell design I created which I then based the rest of the invite on.  The front of the double panel invite showing each side of the symmetrical heart, which then opens out to reveal the inside of the invite.

 

 July 2009 - New Designers London Exhibition

Taking part in London's massive New Designers exhibition and managing to sell a bit of work too!

This July I was luckily enough to take part in the New Designers graduate show at the Business Design Center in Islington. As one of over 4,000 graduates, and with over 18,000 visitors, the event proved to be a huge attraction for the forerunners of the design scene.

The week proved an exciting and vibrant experience to be a part of, and with a whole new body of work to show, I was extremely pleased to be there. Alongside my entry for the Macmillan prize this year (alpha bird and the rain cloud), I was showing a new body of work to promote my children's educational card game that I had successfully entered into the Enterprise Challenge Event last month, see the Ladybirds page to view these designs.

The show proved to be a worthwhile investment, and the new body of work proved very popular, resulting in me managing to make a few sales.  Many thanks to everyone who came to the show to visit me and to everyone who stopped to chat.

   

June 2009 - The Enterprise Challenge

Winning an award for the design and creation of a children's educational card game.

In June this year I took part in an event called The Enterprise Challenge.  The event is a business marketing event for the creative industry. Entrants are expected to promote a product they have created, and have enough market knowledge of the product that they intend to market, to win over a panel of judges. 

I created an educational card game which encourages children to learn about the natural world around them while developing essential learning skills. The game won first prize in my category, and I am currently in the marketing process with intentions to have the game available to buy in the near future. Updates on the games progress and details of the game will be posted here in the future, so watch this space!

Currently I am in the process of creating a new range of imagery to promote the game for an up and coming exhibition in London.

 

March 2009 - The Reading for Life Event. 

Creating a series of illustrations for the children's story The Discovery.

This month marked the last installment of the rolling story The Discovery, the children's book written by children for children. The Discovery was an exciting new project set up and supported by the Portsmouth local paper The News, as part of the Reading for Life event, a scheme to get children engaged and active in contemporary literature. A year earlier the idea began, and children from local schools were invited to write a chapter for the ongoing story. With each new chapter complete, the story was then passed onto another participating school to write the next installment, and this month, the story was concluded. 

I was really excited to get involved in this project. I thought the idea of a rolling story was a brilliant way to get children interested and active in the Reading for Life event, and I was very happy to be a tiny part of that. The great thing about working on this project was that it really got children involved in an exciting event, and the unlimited imagination of the children involved proved a great opportunity to really relish in the chance to create some fantastical imagery.