Having been away from the design board for just over a month now, I'm pleased to announce things are back up and ready to go with a new lot of commissions (get them in while I've still got space!) having survived exam term (hopefully) unscathed. The prospect of being able to read what I want, paint for fun and generally expand my design skills a bit is an excellent prospect for the next few months. Coming up, of course, is Homerton's May Ball, and I'll be showcasing some of the graphic design work for that on here towards the end of June. 
In the meantime, here's an image I created for a poster which sadly didn't make the final cut, but which is nonetheless somehow intriguing. Enjoy, and don't worry - I'll tell you what it was for when the poster is finished! Things here are rolling along nicely, so there should be some more updates in the next week or so, including that long-awaited mystery commission from Marketing Chap.

One for all you Star Wars nerds out there...
Beware the Revenge of the 5th!
(Graphics tablet with lots of lovely textures)

It's almost time to hand my baby book over to the examiners as part of my Creativity and Thinking paper, so here's an album of the book for you to see what I've been up to. I'd have made an e-book of the images, but the book's a little more complicated than that! It's got fiddly bits to do and make in it (as you'll see) so this album will have to do until I strike lucky with a publisher.

The small activities are designed to promote creativity in children by providing visual inspiration, but allowing free reign for the child to create keepsakes as their own response to the book. Although the feeling of walking down an Indian street and being completely overwhelmed by the variety of colours, textures and smells can never be replicated in a book, Shailaja hopefully brings just a small aspect of that rich culture home for children to enjoy.

Each page is an individual image layered with textures and drawings. I used the graphics tablet to draw Shailaja and her surroundings in a bold cartoon style, but have combined it with feathers, fabric textures and activities to bring across the Indian culture.

Enjoy reading it as much as I've enjoyed making it!

(Click on the image above to view the album on Facebook)

I got bored of the dissertation this afternoon so went outside for a quick sketching break to catch the last of the (very late) daffodils. It cheered me up, so here it is in the hope it'll brighten up one or two evenings in the digital sphere.

Finished a new book cover today! This is for 'The Swordsman of Calais' trilogy which focuses on the life and love of Anne Boleyn from the perspective of Jean Rombaud, her executioner. Part history part fiction, it'll be ideal for fans of the Tudor period or a fresh take on one of the most illustrious Queens in history.

Because there are so many books about Anne Boleyn, both fictional and historical, I wanted to stay away from the stereotyped covers of her portrait, her 'B' necklace or photographs of women in period costume. Instead, the allusions to the Tudor period are subtly portrayed in the lace pattern circling Rombaud, with the flames implying passion, chaos and destruction. 

I'll keep you updated about its imminent Amazon release, and will be publicising a new piece for Marketing Chap ready for next week. After that I'm afraid things are slowing down as deadlines start to squeeze along with the urgent necessity to revise.

Don't forget to like my Facebook page if you're a Tweeter, or follow me on Twitter @EstherKeziaH to keep up to date with snippets, sneak peeks and commissions. Over and out!

I wasn't planning to do a blog post on today's bit of work as it was only supposed to be a bit on the side, but I loved the way it turned out, so felt its glowing goodness had to be shared.

'Game of Colleges' started as a joke on the popular 'Overheard in Cambridge' Facebook group, and is slowly becoming a reality thanks to James Baillie and his team putting their degrees on hold to create a Game of Thrones themed game in the style of Rome: Total War. Inspiring many different imaginative scenarios on the Overheard thread, it isn't hard to visualise this becoming very popular among the Cambridge students and their fierce allegiances to their respective colleges.

The banner above was created for the Facebook group along with a profile picture, and is (obviously!) inspired by the Game of Thrones logo. It has a number of different layers to create the deep metallic textures of the bands, and includes crossovers in the style of the sun in the opening credits of the series. The glowing text is a proud point, as are the bands of crests. 

Nerd moment over! Enjoy perusing the Facebook Group, whether a Game of Thrones man or a loyal Cantab.

Here's another poster that will soon be gracing the railings of Cambridge. Le Pauvre Matelot is a chamber opera set in 1920's France which tells the story of a barmaid awaiting her husband's return from travels at sea. Amidst the madness of eternal anticipation, the family business is about to fold and she's struggling to make ends meet...but unbeknown to her, the sailor has already returned to the village, his weathered face almost unrecognisable. If you want to know what happens next, you'll have to buy a ticket! And don't worry, the libretto's sung in English and is apparently based on true news events at the time. 

The creation of the poster is another story entirely. With no dominant tragic or comic theme and with a production team wanting to keep the plot twists under wraps, finding a tone for the poster was difficult. I started out down a block colour line, going with understated graphics and a minimalistic feel, but realised early on that it was too clean and modern for both the setting and tone of the opera. After a good scratch of the thinking cap and a morning spent playing around with different ideas, I hit on the idea of using planks in the style of a pub/bar sign, which would also tie in to the ships and sailing theme. Then it was just a matter of experimenting with textures to get a rough, 20's seaport atmosphere which can almost make you smell the sea salt on the crusty French flag. The font, for any of you nerds out there, is similar to the one used on the Talisman game cards which I fell in love with the instant I saw it and have been waiting for an opportunity to use ever since!

If you're in Cambridge and fancy seeing this, the details are on the Facebook event here. 

Thanks to all your support over the last few years, I have decided to take the plunge and go freelance when I graduate in July. However, the exciting bit is that I won't be doing it from this website. I'm proud to unveil Magnet Design as the agency I'll be working as (magnets...attractive...gettit?!), which is a scary but hopefully successful progression from this website.

I'll still be taking commissions through this site so don't worry about it all shutting down, but from July 2013, I'll be working through Magnet Design and probably won't update this page as much any more.

There'll be some more posts and info about the upcoming changes, but in the meantime, connect with the Facebook page or follow Magnet Design on Twitter for snippets, and to get involved with choosing the logo in a few months!

Just a lil' illustration to wish you all a Happy Easter (albeit a slightly late one...but hey you're all still off work).

Sadly the blog title is not my magic answer to the terrible weather, otherwise it would read 'When the snow stops falling'. Instead, it's the title of the play I've just finished designing a poster for. For anyone following me on Twitter or Facebook, I released a sneak peek a few weeks back of the man, the umbrella and the fish hook. Well, here is the completed piece, ready to be printed on flyers and posters around Islington!

The brief was very open; to be as close to the tone of the play as possible and to avoid being gimmicky or comical. A little research on the play drew out a couple of main themes - the rain (obviously), the idea of the past reverberating through the present and a hint of the macabre, drawn out through the textured red background. The poster combines vintage layering with clean modern silhouettes, and the areas of blank space play just as big a part as the graphics in the overall composition, creating a place where the rain has stopped falling.

In other news, the pipeline is stuffed with two more posters, another piece for Marketing Chap and the book cover for Richard Walmsley's Dancing to the Pizzica, all of which will be featured here in the next few weeks.


For anyone wanting to commission a piece, I'm afraid I'm booked up until May, after which I'll be taking a break to focus on finishing my dissertation and passing my last year of exams. I'll be firing up again at the end of June, so do get in touch to be added to the list for then.