I’ve been focusing lately incorporating more digital collage elements into my work, which helps me to communicate difficult concepts in a much more effective way while developing a style and approach that is more unique to my true creative vision.

© Thomas James 2012

What’s more interesting is what they are in reality. These wonderfully strange textures are various types of cosmetics, all shot by Los Angeles-based photography, Nicholas Alan Cope for ‘Filler’ magazine.

While doing a lot of great commercial and architectural photography, Nicholas has a penchant for creating exquisite still life work. The subject matter varies but they are equally beautiful, so make sure to check out his website for his other projects. Here, he tells us more.

At the moment I’m splitting my time between still life projects and a long-term architectural project on Los Angeles. 

With the architecture project I’m limited to what is already there, but with still life I have the opportunity to create anything that I can think of. The only real limitation in still life is with the materials I gather, so I spend a large amount of my time in preparation for shoots. Each project necessitates its own set of materials, so I’m constantly looking for new suppliers and different ways of finding what I need.

I’m in the middle of a move, so I don’t yet have pictures of my new studio, but the attached image is a reasonable representation.

© Nicholas Alan Cope, 2012

From paper sculpture, detailed draughtsmanship, papercut, and plasticine modelling, they have been keeping it exciting with a spectrum of different ideas, we can’t wait to see what they have in store for us next. They tell us more about their studio and the project, and give us a glimpse of the backstage process.

The studio began in 1998 in Verona, the romantic city of Romeo and Juliet. In recent years we have worked with both large and small clients, for local agencies and major international companies.

Our approach to design is always the same: designing a logo, an advertising page, a wall or directing a commercial offers the same opportunity to deal with a problem. With time we have become quite good at solving problems. 

Mixing complexity, order and fatigue is our formula for beauty. Always, in addition to the commissioned work, we spend plenty of energy in research and testing. Visual art, typography, graphic design, illustration, animation, film direction and music. We like contamination between creative disciplines and diversity in general.

We don’t like to do the same thing twice and prefer to go beyond what we are already able to do. It is tiring but satisfying. 

We started collaborating with IL – Intelligence In Lifestile Magazine, supplement of Il Sole 24 Ore. Under the creative direction of Mr. Francesco Franchi, each month we develop the title typography for the brand new column “Remo Contro” written by the italian philosopher Remo Bodei. 

© Happycentro, 2012

I asked Philippines-based illustrator Dan Matutina to create the artwork for the course and to add some further depth to it. The brief was in creating a futuristic space-world that encapsulated the features of Google’s new social network Google+ as a professional tool.

This meant representing ‘Google+ Circles’ with planets and ‘Google+ Profiles’ with spaceships and zany control panels. The results, as you can see, were nothing short of fantastic, and I’m pleased to show them to you in the run up to the launch of the online course, which is available here.

Cover Image:

‘Part 1: Getting Ready!’ Cover Image:

Part 2: ‘Setting Up Your Google+ Hub’ Cover Image:

Part 3: ‘Taking Action!’ Cover Image:

The instantly downloadable e-course is available to buy here.

© Dan Matutina, 2012

My artworks have recently moved away from abstract graffiti-inspired drawings to more figurative ones. Those often show monkeys or other animals in a tribal or cult-like situation. They tend to have a vigorous expression, that contrasts with their almost soulless eyes. I mostly use pencil, ink and aquarelle on big sheets of paper. 

For my commercial illustrative work, I use a combination of hand drawn elements and vector forms. I don’t like the very digital outlook of images, so I try to make all them look a bit more tangible.

© Philipp Zurmöhle, 2012

Illustration for issue 397 of weekly news magazine, ‘Le Cool’.

Can you tell us a little about yourself and how you came about doing the work you do?

I live in London and work from my bedroom using a laptop and a Wacom. I got into illustration through friends who asked me to do flyers for their parties and gigs. I got a pretty good response and loved doing the work, so kept going. At the beginning I treated it as a hobby, just doing it for the love and freebie gig tickets.

Then gradually I got people asking me to do work in exchange for money so that was a bonus! I studied Product Design at university and tried to get a job as a designer, but that didn’t happen, which I’m now pretty glad about.

What’s your typical process when working on an illustration?

Starting normally involves making a list of ideas. I do keep a sketchbook, but it’s mostly words rather than pictures. Once I have the idea sorted, I may make a very rough sketch and then open a new file in Illustrator and get going. I do my sketching in Illustrator I guess, playing with shapes, moving arms and legs, trying to get the composition right, playing with colours, and hopefully end up with something either me or the client or both are happy with.

Have you always been interested in reduced forms and a graphic look or is it something that’s developed naturally? 

I guess it was there from the beginning, although it’s been cleaned up and has become more refined over the years.

Some of your illustrations like your ‘Le Cool’ piece have a hint of dark humour to them. Is this something you like to add yourself or is it just something that crops up in commissions now and then?

Sometimes I get a client who wants to get humour into their commission, but most of the time it’s just me adding it. I can’t really do serious. The ‘Le Cool’ piece was my own doing. It was the first thing I thought of when asked to draw something about London.

We love the characters in your work, are you interested in comics or doing more character-based projects in the future? 

Comics are something I want to get into this year, as well as animation. I’m also working on some pretty ‘character-heavy’ personal work at the moment… so I guess the answer’s yes!

Do you have any interesting projects planned for 2012?

I’m taking over the walls of a cafe in Dalston called ‘Tina, We Salute You’ in February. They’ve said I can do whatever I want, which is exciting but also pretty daunting.

© Stephen Cheetham, 2012

By applying, cutting away, and using negative space, he produces large murals on walls and windows. His work has been gaining a lot of interest from cafe and bar spaces, so keep your eyes peeled for his tape drawings around town!

In his own words, Benjamin describes what he does, “I use black (and sometimes white) electrical tape to create large-scale drawings on walls and windows. My work is often slightly cryptic and sinister, with hints of narrative that is never fully explained”.

“I use the strips of tape to create line drawings, often cutting the tape to different thicknesses to create built-up and detailed images.”

© Benjamin Murphy, 2012

I work with Indian ink to create sensitive, figurative images. Largely inspired by man and beast’s relation to the great outdoors. Sometimes showing concern for the progress of the modern world and its distancing from nature and traditional cultures. That said though, when I let myself relax, I just like to do anything related to fixed gear, skateboarding or modern girls.

People, faces and clothing are my favourite subjects, so I try to incorporate as many of those things into my illustration as possible.

The line work is drawn using pencils, then Indian ink with a fine brush, putting a lot of emphasis on creating contoured lines of even thickness. I use Photoshop to colour and shade, then add some painted textures from a folder full of scanned-in watercolour washes I’ve collected.

My main influences include classical art, good comics (and some bad ones), folklore, skate vids, fashion and ancient cultures/

© Joel Benjamin, 2012

In his own words, Pintachan says, ”Pablo runs Pintachan from the north of Spain. He loves liquorice, playing with Lego, watching old sci-fi movies and collecting children’s books.”

“My workspace it’s nothing special, just a Mac and a bunch of books. So, I’ve attached a photo of my childhood. It’s a bit weird but in a certain way it’s what I wish to transmit with illustration—  childhood, naivety, happiness …”

© Pintachan, 2012

“My work usually originates as pencil sketches with varying degrees of detail. Everything after the sketches is done on Photoshop. Some sketches I work from and others I scan in and work on top of.

By this stage I normally have a loose frame to build up and I lay out shapes with the polygonal lasso. I use a Wacom tablet and custom brushes to make textures or refine the shapes. I’ve also got a bunch of scanned textures, which I sometimes bring in, and on recent projects I’ve blended the white and light greys away, cut bits out and rearranged them.

At the end, I like to merge everything and blend it with a texture, or drop very low transparency colour layers over the top. The picture seems to sit better as a ‘whole’ afterwards— I think that’s just to satisfy myself and make it easier to leave it alone.”

© Will Long, 2011