Finally jumped on the tweetwagon...

I've been debating joining Twitter for a long time... I was always interested but I don't have internet on my phone (way too expensive) so didn't see the point if all I could do was update from my laptop "rachel is on the internet", not very interesting is it.

Anyway, I've finally given in. I've seen the benefits of it in a professional setting, I've seen the curses of being addicted to it, weighed up the pros and cons and thought I may as well sign up. When I get mobile internet it'll be a lot more useful, although I'm trying to figure out how to set it up so I can text my updates to it. If anyone knows how then let me know.

So you can now follow me on Twitter at: rachillustrates - I wanted rachelsayshello of course but that was taken :( so whoever that is, isn't me. Rachel Lewis the official illustrator = rachillustrates. Subscribe to my Tweet feed. Awesome. Come and stalk me.

2009 Penguin design award ceremony!

On wednesday night I went down to London for the Penguin Design Award 09 award ceremony! It was such a great evening, my guest that I was going to bring fell ill so I went down on my own, but it worked out great because I met loads of cool people and we had a really awesome evening :)

First off, Penguin HQ is ridiculously grand and expensive-looking. I felt a bit special, I must say. The awards were taking place on the 10th floor (ohh yeahhh) and it was an amazing view off the balcony:


A random picture of a cool little boat:
Me with Ed Essex, one of the 3rd place winners:So like I said, I met a few of the other finalists, along with Ed, also Lianne Harrison and Paul Saag, and a few of their mates. I also got chatting to the Penguin Art Department (such a cool bunch of people), Amelia Noble of Kerr|Noble who was so nice and had tonnes of useful and really interesting things to say, and Jonathon Barnbrook, who also came for a drink with us after which was so random but immensely cool. He was ace, so down to earth and not a scary design-type-person at all. Needless to say, I had a really good night and it was so nice to meet new people and revel in our 'how did we end up in the penguin HQ again?' wonderment.

All of the shortlisteds/winners/etc got given Seven Hundred Penguins in our little goody bags, which I was tres happy about because I've wanted that book for a while. It's amazing, just stuffed full of inspirational/weird/random/funny/clever/classic Penguin book covers, I've been flicking through it ever since I got back.

All in all, a pretty special night, and I can't wait for D&AD next week! Bring it on, London.

To see all the posts about this year's Penguin Design Award including my entry etc, clicky here.

Portfolio review with Airside!

As I mentioned before, I'm going to be exhibiting at D&AD New Blood next week. That in itself is pretty damn exciting, but my tutor also told me that they'd be booking me in for a portfolio review with an art director/someone in the industry/person. I got an email today saying that my Review will be with Chris Rain, who is one of the Senior Designers at Airside. So exciting... I did a little girly squeal when I read it actually, I love Airside's work and they've cropped up in sketchbooks of mine here and there. I can't wait! :D

One of my favourite projects they've done is the Identity for Airplot, a Greenpeace initiative where they've bought a piece of land right where the proposed 3rd runway for Heathrow is going to go. Which means they can't build it, if Greenpeace have got anything to do with it. It's a great cause and I love the identity for it:
Taken from their blog post: "In 2008 Greenpeace secretly bought a plot of land within Heathrow’s proposed expansion zone and asked Airside to develop an identity that would be able to weather the storms of what could be a very long, unpredictable and difficult protest. With the need for clear communication amongst fast changing circumstances, Airside’s goal was to create an identity that would stretch much further than a single logo. Greenpeace’s latest campaign would have to communicate many different things to many different people and considering Airplot’s abstract form of protest, Airside made a conscious decision to make what needs to be communicated central to the identity. A volatile campaign such as this needed a language."

What I also love is this post here, which explains the process behind creating the logotype, sketches that sort of thing.


Cardboard stamps, printed then scanned in. Sooo simple but looks great. I love this kind of thing - reminds me that I need to experiment with printing so much more.

They've also done...

Title sequences for The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency, on BBC

TV adverts for Virgin Trains (with the hoppy frogs and 'big train' music.... we all know this one)

A series of short films to demonstrate Fiat's new eco:Drive technology

and... (weirdly/coincidentally) the Identity and interior for Wolverhampton Art Gallery's new Pop Art gallery. I didn't actually know that. This was a big deal when it opened for the city, I remember being bombarded with those pop stickers in 1st year. It's actually had some pretty amazing stuff in there so far, I'm not a huuuge fan of Pop Art (take it or leave it, me) but for lil' ol' Wolvo, it's quite spesh.

All of these images are from Airside's website and so copyright is theirs, obviously.

So yeah, pretty excited/scared/humbled to be having a Portfolio Review with someone who is part of a design studio I admire so much. Better make sure my portfolio is as good as it can be, now. Which reminds me I need to go and pick it up from Uni tomorrow so I can work on it a bit. So much to do....

I'm also going to be attending 8x8 on 1st July as I'll already be in London for D&AD so making the most of it! One of the members of Airside will be giving a talk there too, as will 7 other design-type-people, like Matt Dent (who designed the new coins, surely you know that), Alex Bec & Will Hudson from HudsonBec, and each will be speaking for 8 minutes. Hence 8x8 :) I'm looking forward to that too, should be fast, intense and inspiring! Like it.

I sense a lot of blog posts next week.

British Grand Prix 2009: Friday Practice

Well I had an awesome weekend, as you know, I'm a huge fan of Formula 1, so it was so amazing of my parents to take me to the Friday Practice sessions of the British Grand Prix at Silverstone last friday, 19th June. Had such a great day! It was a shame we couldn't afford the saturday qualifyers or the race on sunday, but I have 0 moneys (hooray for graduating in a recession) and my parents are in roughly the same boat as they've had paycuts and all that jazz. So we had to watch it on telly. Anyway; friday was still a treat and we got to see all the cars and drivers and a bit of GP2 and Formula Renault and Formula BMW too.

It was ridiculously loud.

You really don't appreciate it on the telly, but the roar of those engines are deafening. And they do this strange little pop when they gear shift which you don't hear on telly too.

My camera is 7mp and not great... so I was pleasantly surprised by the clarity of these:

No idea if that's Hammy or Kovaleinen; can't really see the colour of the helmet from here.

That's Button 'cos he's got the red bit on the top. This was in the last 10 minutes of the second practice session, Webber clipped a curb or something and his car just died. So he took a (slightly annoyed) walk through the crowd, which was nice. Can you see him? Next to the guy with the stupid Union Jack shorts.

The actual race on sunday was good and I'm glad Vettel won - he's such a happy guy, I can't begrudge him (even if he is German...) :P
Webber did well to get 2nd too, I really hope he wins soon, he definitely deserves it.
Tough luck to Button though, would have been so good if he won this weekend - wasn't to be though, 6th for him. And Hamilton continues his terrible run with another non-scoring place. I feel bad for him actually, he does try so hard. Maybe next year they'll give him a half decent car again.

Aside from that, I just chilled out at home with the 'rents, came back to Wolves last night and started my new admin job today! First day went well :)

Winners of 2009 Penguin Design Award announced!

I've been looking forward to this!

If you click here you can see all the winners and highly commended/shortlisted people. They were right, the standard of the work is so high, a lot of these covers are amazing.

Well done to Peter Adlington who won 1st Prize and the coveted 6 week placement at Penguin... I really like his design and it's definitely deserving. I'm tres jealous, lol.

Great colours, and very graphic, that's what I'd call it. So modern it looks retro, if that makes sense, and very ambiguous. Great title font too. Niiiice.

Here are my pick of my faves from the selection:

Edward Essex (what a great name) joint 3rd place:

I love the black and white of this, really striking and it feels very busy and manic, but in a good way - reflects the book really well. Great style.

Ben Cain - Highly Commended:

I'm a sucker for inventive use of type and this one pleases me greatly. Really simple execution but a strong idea, I bet this guy played around for hours getting this perfect. Love it.

Sara Mulvanny - Highly Commended:

Really nice illustrative style, good to see something not so 'designy'. Deers seem to have cropped up a lot in these covers (including my own - well we did read the book, you know) but this one seems to have used it the best. Nicely eery and really great type treatment, love those muted colours.

Sonia Poli - Shortlisted:

Again, hand rendered type always goes down well with me, especially massive type that take up nearly the whole cover. This just struck me as understated and simple, but really strong. Ah, there's the good ol' deers.

Sarah Prismall - Shortlisted:

This one is great, I love the geometric shapes and the pure white background, feels really clean and modern. I'd definitely pick this one up on a shelf. I'd perhaps have made the title larger though, or not centre aligned. That's just me though.

(All these images are taken off the Penguin Award website, copyright to their original designers.)

And of course you can see my entry here. It's so exciting finally having it up there, yay! :D

I'm going to the Awards evening next week, I can't wait! I will of course update here with how it goes.

I've been super busy recently so haven't been able to update as much, let alone draw anything. Silly me. I want to do a couple of new Editorials next week, I've found a few good articles so I'll make sure I do that. Also, I got offered a new job today which I'm so happy about, no more being on the dole for me! It's a good number of hours and it means I can finally like... buy stuff. Haha. Omg maybe I can finally replace my holey jeans :O

Illustration Degree Show 2009!

Today was the final day of our week-long degree show. It went really well and our work looked great - we are definitely an eclectic bunch! We all got loads of great feedback and on the Private View I overheard many people saying how good this year's illustration work is ^.^ hurrah!

You can have a look at the spangly 2009 Degree Show Website where a lot of us have work up. (Visual Communications > Illustration > )

Unfortunately, I was over-excited mess of glee at the Private View and I forgot to take any photos until we hit Oceana... which is no help to anyone. Luckily, my dad did, so these are all his photos. I'm going to see if Tom has any from the actual night and if he'll let me put any up later.

Edit - Tom kindly sent me some photos so here are a few of us enjoying ourselves greatly:




Click on people's names to go their websites.

Tom Ellis:




Tom is amazing at building set designs, prosthetics, freaky 3D stuff basically. He then photographs his characters in his sets to create narrative illustrations. As you can see he's a bit macabre, but a super awesome guy and my shot-drinking buddy on many a student night in Oceana!

Iain Garbett:

Yes, this is me ^^^ Oh the wonders of Photoshop...!

Jenny Smith ^

Danielle Brady ^

Iain works mainly digitally, these are all adverts for a make up brand, with a heavy fantasy theme. I think they look awesome. The models are us illustration girls - Me, Danielle, and Jenny, and the photos were taken by one of my really good friends Henry, also graduating this year from the Photography course. He doesn't really do fashion photography (he's more into war and destruction actually...) but it was cool of him to help Iain out with this.

Danielle Brady:

These are some album covers that Danielle did, using photograms. Really nice work.

Jenny Smith:

I love Jenny's work, she has two sides to her - Fashion illustration, which is mainly hand drawn and quite free and lucid, and her children's illustration, which is done on Illustrator, she's designed some baby clothes and also a couple of children's books. Really pretty stuff.

Carina Stylianou:

Carina uses found imagery and textures and collages it all together in sometimes-surreal way. She did a few book spreads and images for calendars, she's going back to Cyprus soon though so any Cypriot art directors out there, snap her up!!

Matt Clarkson:

I don't really know a lot about Matt as he didn't really come in to Uni like... ever. But his work is good, what I've seen of it.

Alex Marchant:

Alex does a lot of narrative illustration, she has quite a unique style, I don't know if she has a website or anything though =/

Pete Dunbar:

Pete's style is totally handrendered, very satirical-based. Definitely inspired by Ralph Steadman and the like. He's amazing and never touches Photoshop (as he doesn't know how) and I think that's cool.

Peter Tinkler:

You should definitely check out (the other) Pete's work, he's ridiculously good at drawing people and painting and general awesomeness. He'll go far. This work is a series of editorial illustrations for a group of famous people - from Fidel Castro to Bob Dylan.

A bit more Pete Dunbar, Kim Price, and Suriya Chadwong:

(From left to right) Kim does fashion based and children's illustration and Suriya's work was based on anti-war posters and CD covers.

And last but not least....

Me!:


These pictures are of my sketchbooks that were on display in one of the cabinets, I filled it with awesome retro stuff like lego, floppy disks, cassettes, VHS's, nokia phones... fun times. It's to link in with my 'Retro is the way forward' mobile phone project ^.^
Here I am! And in true Winnie aka DiamondCanopy form: tutu skirt (topshop) tshirt (primark) bag which you can't see (primark) and AWESOME SHOES THAT YOU CAN'T SEE THANKS DAD!! :( (new look) damn it. They were blue and awesome. Sigh.

Also, this is not the most flattering photo ever. How did I put on so much weight? I blame 24 hour asda and alcohol. And myself. Haha. That is one thing I will not miss about being a student. Health-tastic exercise plan, here I come.

Edit - Here's a slightly better photo, you can see my bag and shoes now yay:

Mum checks out the portfolios.

So there we are. Hopefully Tom got some good photos so I might stick them up here soon.

Well done to everyone who is now a BA (Hons) official amazing illustrator type person! Yay aren't we special. Everyone's worked so hard, it's really sad it's all over. Can't believe it :(

The rest of the degree show throughout the building was excellent too, well done if you managed to see it, we are quite talented in Wolves it would seem.

Next: D&AD in London! See you there.....

Thames & Hudson 20: An ongoing post of my humble thoughts and opinions

I found out about this a few weeks back and completely forgot to blog about it, so I'm doing it now. I always spend my money on art books and I don't think that's a bad thing. I won £100 of Amazon vouchers last year and that was immense; got so many good books. However, I want to keep adding to my collection so I'm going to have a look at the books mentioned here and see if I want any. Or all. All would be nice. Seeing as they're a set. Ha.

To celebrate 60 years of Thames & Hudson, they have created a collection of 20 books, each with special edition covers, that encapsulate the range of books that they publish. From their website:

"Thames & Hudson was founded in 1949 by Walter and Eva Neurath. Their passion and mission for T&H was that its books should reveal the world of art to the general public, to create a ‘museum without walls’ and to make accessible to a broad, non-specialist reading public, at prices it could afford, the research and the findings of top scholars and academics. "

Which is pretty much exactly what they've done. They always publish really interesting books and I'm excited about this collection, they've picked some great books and some that I haven't heard of, and it's making me itch to 'complete the set' as it were. All of these have been previously released in 'normal mode' but they've just decided to give them all a unifying cover design so they function as a set. I'll post all the titles in the range, probably tell you if i'm interested in it, go check it out in the library soon-ish, update with a lil' review, then tell you if I buy it. Right now I can't comment on the design/layout as I haven't seen most of them so that'll get mentioned too.

So this is what I'm calling a 'live' post - definitely leave comments as I go along guys, if you've got any of these books, would be nice to have a little collective of opinions. I'll blog on the main page whenever I have anything new to say on this post.

That sounds like a plan. A very long plan. Er.... Let's have a look....

1. Henry Moore's Sheep Sketchbook.
Apparently, Henry Moore liked to draw sheep. Well, why not, I say. If you're really into Henry Moore then this will probably be quite a nice purchase, reproductions of artist's sketchbooks usually are quite interesting and insightful. Probably not one that I'll rush to buy though. I'll see if it's in the library (I'll bet it is) and see what it's like. Amazon link.


2. Concepts of Modern Art by Nikos Stangos
I quite like having books like this - something to dip in and out of and refer to every so often. I'm quite a fan of some (not all) modern art movements and find the theories and concepts behind them really interesting. (See my Futurism post) so I'll definitely check this one out. Amazon link.


3. The Shock of The New: Art and the Century of Change by Robert Hughes
For some reason there's no link to this on the Thames & Hudson website - there's 2 and then there's 4. Look. So you'll just get the Amazon link. Reading the reviews on there, this seems like a really good book - I'll definitely buy this one I think. I lack 'general art' books, as I'd call this. Amazon link.


4. Colour and Culture by John Gage
This is basically a big book on colour theory. While interesting and actually quite relevant to my work, I never really read much on colour theory during my course. Possibly should have. I just find the idea a bit dull... I'll have a flick through this, and unless it's amazing I doubt I'll be rushing to get it. I may be proven wrong; I might suddenly love the whole idea of colour theory. Who knows. Let's find out. Amazon link.

5. The Book of Kells: An Illustrated Introduction to the Manuscript

This doesn't really interest me at all to be honest. Maybe it's the religous aspect to it, or the fact that I don't love medieval art. I recognise how important manuscripts have been in shaping books and art in general, but to be honest, this just doesn't float my boat. It's probably nice to flick through, and I'm sure some people would love this kind of thing, but I don't. Amazon link.


6. The Body: Photoworks of the Human Form by William A. Ewing
I don't actually own any photography books - I should do, I'm sure. This one sounds fairly interesting - different photographers through the ages depicting the body in various ways and meanings. Could be cool. I'll let you know.

7. Derek Jarman's Garden
I definitely want to take a good look at this one. The premise sounds awesome: "It is a fitting memorial to a brilliant and greatly loved artist and film maker who, against all odds, made a breathtakingly beautiful garden in the most inhospitable of places – the flat, bleak, often desolate expanse of shingle overlooked by the Dungeness nuclear power station." What an amazing concept. I love the idea of new things growing from death and desolation, this book documents the growing process of the garden and I bet it's fascinating. Actually my mum would probably like this, she's very much into gardening. Actually, gardening has suddenly got really 'cool' recently - even the fash pack are doing it - which amuses me slightly. It's not exactly a bad thing though, us young, trendy people should be interested in nature and plants and growing your own vegetables and pretty things. This is a tangent. Back to the books.


8. The Renaissance Complete by Margaret Aston
All about the Renaissance, basically. Can't really say a lot until I have a look. I'm not rushing out the buy it though - the renaissance was arguably the most important period in history for art and culture but I'm not sure if I could take a whole book of it.

9. Sensation: Young British Artists from The Saatchi Collection
This could be good. I don't know a lot about the exhibition this book is centered around, which was called 'Sensations' and ran in the early ninties; showcased artists like Tracy Emin, Damien Hirst, Rachel Whiteread, all of who are terribly famous now. But as I was probably about 6 when this exhibition was running I'm sure I can be excused. I'll reserve judgement because I have strong feelings about some 'modern art' but then love others. Tracy Emin's tent I though was actually quite good. The unmade bed though, oh dear. Apparently this exhibiton was quite important to British art so this book should hopefully educate me a bit. Innit.

10. The Complete Zaha Hadid
So this is the first book that I've found inside spread images on Amazon. I'm not hugely into architecture - too technically and maths based for me. So I can't imagine I'll look much at this really. From what I can see, her building designs look quite interesting, but yeah. It's architecture. I'm not really an architecture girl unless I'm looking at some kind of Georgian/Victorian features. The most I can say is 'Ooo I like that, that's nice'. I stick to 2D designs.


11. Lives of the Great Modern Artists by Edward Lucie-Smith
This on the other hand, looks great; I love reading about the background of artists that inspire me. Hopefully it's more than just a collection of run of the mill biographies - a bit of a deeper insight into the way that these 'great modern artists' think and operate would be really tasty.


12. William Blake: The Complete Illuminated Books
Ah, good ol' Will B. He's a bit of a staple of my humble literary/artistic state school education. Definitely worth a look, this one. "This edition, produced together with The William Blake Trust, contains all the pages of Blake’s twenty or so illuminated books reproduced in true size, an appendix with all Blake’s text set in type and an introduction by the noted Blake scholar, David Bindman." Nice one.

13. Secret Knowledge: Rediscovering the lost techniques of the Old Masters by David Hockney
Quite an interesting premise this one, I can't really explain it better than this: "Secret Knowledge created an international sensation when it was published in 2001. David Hockney’s enthralling story of how some of the great works of Western art were created with the help of mirrors and lenses and how the optical look came to dominate painting attracted major media attention around the world and generated intense debate in the fields of science and art history." I'll have a look at this one excitedly; in fact it might even go on my 'to buy' list. (Which is extensive). It sounds a fascinating read, I don't know a lot about the old Masters aside from who they are and their most famous pieces of work. Everyone knows they are geniuses... uncovering exactly how they produced the stunning artworks that they did, especially with David Hockney doing it, sounds awesome.

14. The Mind in the Cave: Consciousness and the Origins of Art by David Lewis-Williams
Cave painting, many would say, is the first example of illustration in human history. I'd tend to agree with that. Illustration is essentially either story telling or depicting an idea, which is what cave paintings generally did - before letterforms and written language were developed. So this could be a useful one for me, it definitely makes me curious.

15. Wonders of World Architecture by Neil Parkyn
Well, it's an architecture book, and as previously mentioned, I don't dig this. I'm sure it'll be pretty to look at with some breathtaking feats of engineering and the like, but, you know, I'm just not that interested =/ As all the other books in this series though, I'll give it the once over when I find it. It might be awesome, who am I to judge? I feel a bit guilty for not getting over excited about building design. I don't do 3D, ok.

16. Manolo Blahnik Drawings by Anna Wintour
This on the other hand, is first on my list. I love Manolo Blahnik shoes... of course I don't own any but they are definitely some of my favourite elaborant shoe designs and his drawings are just amazing. So fluid, and dramatic, and just uber everything. Maximalism at it's best. As most people know I do love a bit of high fashion and couture (from afar) and fashion illustration is so exciting to me. It's strange because I don't actually do much fashion illustration even though fashion is really important to me =/ Probably something to do with the fact I still can't draw figures as well as I should. Sort it out Rach. Oh, and the foreword is written by Anna Wintour, who is a fashion legend. She's who they based Devil Wears Prada on. Awesome.

17. Sneakers: The Complete Collectors' Guide by Unorthodox Style
If you're into 'sneakers' (or trainers, as we like to call them over here) then this looks pretty sweet. I'll bet it's fun to look at even if you're not obsessed with casual footwear. I'll give this more than 2 minutes of my time for sure, but probably wouldn't buy it. I'm more of a heels girl. See no.16.

18. Factory Records: The Complete Graphic Album
Even the title of this makes me wee a bit. This book looks immense. Everyone knows how awesome and influential Factory Records were in the 80's (was it 80's? I'm pretty sure), and this book is full of album covers, poster designs, everything visually tasty from the legendary record label. This is also high on my list - I'm a sucker for music design of every kind and can't believe I never knew about this book until now.

19. The Proms: A New History
Er. I'd be lying if I said I'd ever watched the proms. Not really one for me, this book. I'll give it a browse but it's probably aimed at someone who is a bit more interested than I am. Oh how uncultured of me.

20. Street Sketchbook by Tristan Manco
Hurrah! The one book I own in this collection :) I can actually tell you my actual opinions about it now, actually. The author, Tristan Manco, did a lecture at my Uni, Wolverhampton a while back, I mention it here, really interesting; he's actually a graduate of my Uni so isn't that cool. He's a bit obsessed with graffiti and street art and has become a bit of an authority on it, going all over the world and talking to the artists who make it happen. The main reason why I love this book is because it has rounded corners - it feels like an oversized moleskine. Which is a bit exciting to a strange person like me. And the cover feels nice. Haha. But honestly, this is a great book because it's split into two halves - one half is 'street', images of the graffiti in situ, and the other half is 'sketchbook', all the sketches and initial doodlings and ideas from these artists, which is my favourite half. I love seeing sketchbooks from any kind of artist, but graffiti artists in particular because there's no preconceptions, (and often no observational drawings) just purely what comes out of their heads. It's a great book and I'd recommend it to anyone who has an interest in visual communications, not just graffiti art.

What an epic post!

(All the images are just copied and pasted off Amazon btw, I don't own them.)

Lastly, I can't round up without featuring the Limited Edition cover design. I think it's brilliant, really subtle but ties all 20 books together so well. The idea of having this semi-transparent layer over the top of the original covers, with the number of the book in black bold - looks really good. I love how all of the numbers are there, faded out in grey, then just the ones that are needed are picked out; they never move from book to book, it's just the correct numbers that are picked out in black. And it doesn't feel like it interfers with the original cover too much - repeating the title over the top in the same type and positioning on every book helps bring the series together visually, and it makes it easier to read which is a bonus. Nice one, I can't really fault it. I want to see one in real life now. Off I go...