CD Covers for the Telegraph newspaper

A set of 7 cover designs for a series of Raymond Chandler audio books available through The Telegraph newspaper. Typography by Nick Button

EJECT!

It's been longer than I'd have liked since I last posted something, but I've been a bit busy with a job for the Telegraph newspaper I should be able to show you very soon. In the meantime, here's an image that was initially sketched out as a t-shirt design, but wasn't chosen in the end. I thought it had enough merit to continue on and finish the piece. Colour-way took some time to get right, and the type was the same.

Boardwalk Empire

An image probably more in keeping with the first series of Boardwalk Empire, illustrating the incendiary effect of being on the wrong side of old Nucky Thompson.

New limited edition screen prints in the shop!

Last year I took a few days out to join the people at East London Printmakers to take an introductory course in screen-printing. In the shop are the results, 2 batches of limited edition prints based on a couple of my favourite pieces of work at the time. Very short runs so grab them while they're hot!

Fossil Collective flyer

The band approached me with the very urgent task of creating a promotional flyer to be handed out at their Shepherd's Bush Empire gig next Wednesday. They had been particularly inspired by Jason Munn's lovely poster for a Sufjan Stevens concert and wanted something with similar beauty and elegance. The main typography was created from scratch, though with nod towards circus style fonts and decorative flourishes.

You can also get your hands on the new Fossil Collective t-shirt, featuring my Cervus vs Lupus image, right here!

Fausto Coppi

Il Campionissimo Fausto Coppi, perhaps winning the alpe d'huez for the first time?

Madre Deus and Fossil Collective

Unfortunately not together on stage, but it's early days yet and I'm sure it's just a case of them being introduced by the right people. Both images have been on my mind for a while, and it was great to get them fully finished and on the screen. I especially like the notion of a museum vignette of mannequins and stuffed hides entertaining you as well as enlightening you. Somewhere between Disneyland and the Natural History Museum. It's a Mesoproterozoic world after all.

Poison print

After too much time away from the site and my portfolio, I've started working on my illustration a lot more this last month and will be updating as regularly as I can, which should see a pickup of around 1000% depending on the workflow! This first image was initially an idea for a band poster which was overlooked for another idea.

Cover illustration for Cycle Lifestyle

The second issue of the free London cycle magazine, Cycle Lifestyle is available, and carrying my illustration work on the cover. If you're able to get your hands on it, it's a very well put together magazine and an online overview of some of the content can be seen online at the Cycle Lifestyle website. It's worth getting ahold of if you can though, especially for the article on a revised cycle network map of London.

New self directed work

A portrait of John Martyn and a little tribute to the cult phenomenon 'The Room'

Line illustration samples

I recently worked on a series of line illustration samples for a pitch. Simple line work with 2 keyline thicknesses.

Further Fossil Collective Images

Here are two further images created for Fossil Collective's upcoming EP release, to be printed on the inside left and right of the cd cover. The video created for the featured single On and On took inspiration from the cover image produced for the EP, and likewise, the characters of the wolf and the stag have been introduced more strongly to the cd sleeve design using the above two images. 

These illustrations have now been released as limited edition giclee prints and are available for purchase at the online shop. Each print has been limited to 100 prints, each signed and numbered, and printed on high quality photo rag paper. Visit the KOLB illustration shop to purchase a print. 

Fossil Collective

I've just finished the cover design for the soon to be released EP for Fossil Collective (www.myspace.com/fossilcollective). Based on an older piece of work the band approached me with an interest of using the image for their release. Work was needed to make it suitable for print at a much reduced size (the original was scraperboard b) making it look more in keeping with the cover for a band.

The flames and a lot of extra detailing and line work was the result. A distressed leather surround fit the style and brought an old dusty fairytale look to the image.

Models for the September edition of Grazia

To showcase an accessories special in Grazia magazine's September edition, I was commissioned to create a number of set designs using various frames to contain the fashion desirables. Black roses, black star lights, black acrylic and black artificial grass all lent a rather sexy tone to the final images.

Photography by Omer Knaz

Fashion by Anna Foster

Set design by KOLB modelmaking

Wild Rumpus 3 colour print

Jim and Christina, dressed accordingly.

LEJOG 3 colour print

A personal piece to commemorate the successful latitudinal traverse of the UK in 2007 on bikes.

Vib Gyor T-shirt

The t-shirt design for the band Vib Gyor's promotional push, coinciding with their debut album release has been finally signed off. The illustration itself, although remaining pretty constant since the original concept, has experienced quite a few style changes along the way.

The first quick conceptual sketch proved to be popular with the band and subsequent development kept pretty close to this version.

The first coloured version proved to be a little too colourful and bright, which was the result of looking to present something very bold, using the kind of colour palette that was reminiscent of 50's sci-fi comics and created an other worldly vibrancy . Didn't hit the spot though so changed the focus.

The third installment was originally used and posted on this site, but has since changed. Clear sharp vector illustration and the colours were subdued, choosing a tighter palette with more complementary colours and using halftone effects for all of the shading areas. 

During conversations with Jonny Hooker from the band, the overall feeling was that something that had appealed a great deal when seeing the initial sketch had been lost, so lets try to take it back and get some of that rawness and spontinaeity back. So I traced back to the original and stayed clear of clean lines and pretty much stuck to lots of distressed brush effects in photoshop to get the final image. Starting off with the

 white background helped a lot as the contrast levels in the image started quite high, and once the black background was introduced, these were tweaked and taken down a notch or two. The flash of light in the figures face was a last minute bit of experimenting, which is always worth doing as far as adjusting layer settings and maybe trying out some bold textures. It worked well and all of a sudden the image finds a new visual through it.