Hartfield Capital identity

Here's a sneak preview of a brand new identity for the London-based financial services executive search firm, Hartfield Capital. The coat of arms logo is highly symbolic – each element describing an aspect of the company, the etymology of its name and its history – from the white hart to hidden references to the heritage of the founding partners. More detail on this once the full identity has been rolled out.

Your Square Mile – interactive map

It's been incredibly busy here over the last few months, so here's a much overdue update on some recent work:

A new interactive map biro doodle for the UK community transformation organisation, Your Square Mile, developed with Antidote and Conran Singh agencies. The website, launched this autumn, is designed to enable local communities to take more control and make changes to the way their community services are run – from police, schools and libraries, to transport and the environment. Special thanks to Fran and Tim at Antidote.

Gorilla magazine

Part of a series for the ‘Top Five Alternatives to Summer Blockbusters’ – all the stuff you could do by using your imagination instead of ‘having money thrown at your eyes by massive blockbuster movies’! Needless to say the guys at Gorilla aren’t too keen on highly grossing Hollywood drivel – and who can blame them? Always a pleasure to work with the likes of David and Jack at Gorilla magazine.



Now I don’t often do parody, pastiche or satire, but this one kinda needed it: the article, highly critical of all those brilliant kids’ TV shows spawning hideous 3D animated monstrosities, ‘dancing to the same effing hip-hop beat’, instead suggests abstinence and self-harm with compasses as a preferable pastime. Parental guidance advised!

Mildmay International

I recently finished this series of illustrations for Mildmay International – a world-leading HIV charity based in East London and working in the UK, East Africa and Eastern Europe. They tell a story, part of a marketing campaign, which demonstrates the various points of intervention the organisation makes in people’s lives – from care and treatment to prevention, rehabilitation, education and training – all told through the eyes of one individual, Esther, who in fact represents a great many people affected by HIV.

My original idea was actually to represent Mildmay as a little green bird, always present at critical moments in Ether’s life, points of intervention, such as the hospital treatment as a child, community support, healthcare training and maternal health later in life, but it was felt it wouldn’t quite be clear enough that it represented Mildmay, so instead we switched to incorporating their logo into the images.

Still a great campaign and superb organisation to work for – many thanks particularly to Chris and the communications team at Mildmay.

Annabelle magazine

This one is for a feature in Annabelle – the Swiss fashion and lifestyle magazine for women. It was quite a straight, informative feature on personal savings for the future, how much to set aside to maintain your standard of living in later years. So the idea was simply to show what certain savings would give you, what you would get for your money. It was really nice to have a little fun with quite a serious feature (and avoid the dreaded clichéd piggy bank) all thanks to the lovely Annette at Annabelle.

Gorilla

These illustrations are for a spread in the new underground Gorilla film magazine, a very funny and cynical article entitled ‘The Top 5 Pointlessly Reincarnated Films for Easter’ – the Hollywood-ization of Medusa in the remake of Clash of the Titans (turning her from a hideous cursed monster back into a beautiful goddess, apart from the serpentine coiffure), and (the fear of) the rise of the working classes in the re-adaptation of H. G. Wells’ classic Victorian novel, The Time Machine. Great fun to work on these with Jack at Gorilla magazine.

Popshot

I’ve just finished this piece for the forthcoming ‘childhood’ issue, to accompany a stunning poem about the ability of kids to swiftly unravel the logic and precepts of us adults: unpicking the ‘tightly woven strands of reality’. You can pick up the latest issue in the shops very soon – massive thanks to Jacob at Popshot magazine.

It’s been a little while since I’ve posted work up here – I’ve been super busy the last couple months working on a few identity, design and web projects, which hopefully I can roll out soon – very excited about that.

Santa Darwin on Creative Review

Creative Review have been very kind to feature my illustration ‘On the Origin of Christmas’ on their blog over the festive period – many thanks to Eliza at CR. I’m really honoured that it’s been at the top of the CR blog for nearly two weeks over the holiday. Read the article here.

Popshot magazine have also very kindly featured the illustration on their blog over Christmas – thanks to the wonderful Jacob at Popshot, as well as the many other blogs who have done the same. Look out for more work from me for Popshot coming up very soon.