Alex Fowkes - illustrator, graphic designer, typographer

I ran across Alex Fowkes in the Advertising Annual of Communication Arts magazine (Nov/Dec 2013). He is listed in the "fresh" section. His typography and retro designs first caught my eye (see my blog for GDS 122) and then his illustrations. The images I'm including here are for T-shirts & removable bicycle mudguard. The product is Awesome & the illustration is, too.

These designs are for Full Windsor, which is a company that carries "Innovative cycle accessories that capture the imagination." Full Windsor uses a monkey (or ape - I don't know which) on their website and the designs also have variations & tribal influenced designs with a monkey skull in them. The t-shirts also have a design across the bottom on the back with a skull at the top center. 

Check out more of Alex' designs on his website.

A Local Company . . . McKenzie Wagner Inc.

While reviewing my process for my Illustration class this week, I discussed screen printing. I enjoyed the experience, but now know that it's not something I could do very often. This made me wonder whether or not any local companies design for screen printing any more. So... I started looking online & came across McKenzie Wagner's Illustration department. Above is a picture of a 5 poster series that they did that were screen printed. These were "developed for the Greater Community AIDs Project of East Central Illinois. Inspired by WWII propaganda posters..." This explains they "dated" look that these posters have, but, I really like that look for these. I think that screen printing was the right way to go in printing this style of poster, anything crisp & clean wouldn't have gotten the same message across.

Then I came across their cover for the 2013 Springfield Visitors Guide - SCVB. It is an extremely strong illustration that definitely gets the "Illinois" point across. Multiple images of Abe Lincoln with key "Springfield" points of interest catch the eye.

They also did the branding for SCVB's Celebrity Citizen campaign. The final designs for this are at left. Again, a VERY strong Abe Lincoln, tall hat and all! Very clean design with subtle hints of color, but overall pleasing to the eye.

 

The 10 images above are all part of the Springfield Grooves" theme that McKenzie Wagner created for the booth and pre-conference promotion to attendees of the
Illinois Society of Association Executives (ISAE) Annual Meeting. "Shag carpeting, lava lamps, incense, bean bag chairs, racks of records and rocking 70s tunes to get meeting attendees’ feet tapping set the flavor of the booth. MW designed a series of ten 70s-inspired album cover parody posters that swapped Abe Lincoln’s face or a Springfield scene for the original images on the covers. The posters were popular give-aways at the booth." The really funny thing is that I actually have some of the original albums that they are imitating.

Feel free to check the rest of their work out at McKenzie Wagner.

Illustrator Lesley Barnes

I was looking through Communication Arts Sept/Oct 2013 issue and ran across Lesley Barnes in the "Fresh" section. I don't usually go for these kinds of illustrations, but for some reason I liked these. I think usually bright colors & shapes like these are on abstract artwork, which I don't really care for, but these are more like children's book illustrations and I think that's why I like them.

She lives in Glasgow, Scotland and has been doing illustration for about four years. She also does 2-D & 3-D animation and studied English in college. She's had no formal training whatsoever.

You'll notice that both of the first two illustration I've included have castles in them. She seems to really like the castle, dragon, mythology, type of thing (I do too). But, she has also done adds for makeup and many other things that have nothing to do with her other imaginative designs.

I included this third image basically because I'm a big nerd and the name of it is "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds". If you don't know that this is the name of a song, then shame on you! (Just kidding - kind of)

The fourth image is a Christmas card she designed for V&A Museum. I thought it was pretty cool! Having just done our Holiday Card project I thought my classmates could appreciate it. You can even buy these on her website.

The final illustration I'm including is a book cover. She has done quite a few book covers and book illustrations. They all just have a kind of fantasy feel to them. Google her or check out her website that I linked in the previous paragraph.

"Christmas in the Bell Shop"

Since we were looking at Children's book illustrations this week, I wanted to share a favorite from my childhood. This was put out by Ambassador Cards and doesn't even have any names attributed to it - written by or illustrated by. It was printed in the 1960's (I received my copy for Christmas in 1968). It is full color and even has gold on the cover. It is also embossed on the cover. Very cute & very cool!

This book only has 14 pages, plus a front & back cover (back is blank except for "Ambassador Cards" logo typical # info).

On every inside page, the first word always has this enormous initial cap. They are different on every single page - colors, styles, etc. never being the same. I like the way that every time the word "bell" appears, there is an actual bell design shadowed behind it.

The story is really good, too. You should look it up some time. It's kind of about not judging things by their cover/ price/place in life/etc. You get my meaning.

I wish I knew who the Illustrator was, but, there doesn't seem to be much information about it out there. I'll keep looking though.