Sleeve Design for The Jam

Secret 7" are a group that raises awareness and funds for good causes using music and design as the tools to do so.
In 2016 they asked artists/illustrators to design sleeves for 7" singles which were sold at 50 pounds a piece, the proceeds going to Amnesty International.
I designed a sleeve for the song Art School, by The Jam.

When I was 15, I thought that The Jam were the bees knees. I'd been a heavy metal kid, but now I was getting into things that were more likely to appeal to girls! (I went back to metal later. Oh heck, I love all sorts of music).
Anyway, fans of The Jam were part of a mod revival that happened at the turn of the 80s. So they were trying to replicate an idea of what they thought it was like to be a mod in 1964. That's what I was trying to capture in this illustration. The self conscious effort of trying to be an authentic copy of something. Did I capture it? Who cares. I'm happy with it...

Web Animation for DFS Advisory Group

A short sting for websites and presentations that depicts in a simple graphic way the way that DFS ensure that their clients are protected through the inevitable fluctuations of the financial market.

Book Cover Designs - Trash Can Days / Trash Can Nights

Here are two book covers I illustrated for Disney Hyperion, and which were written by fantastic American author Teddy Steinkellner.
The books are set in a fictional Californian middle-school (yeah, I don't know what that is either..), and tell the funny, dramatic, heart warming stories of the four central characters, who you'll see if you have a close look at my illustrations.
The designer commissioned me for this job having seen my cover for Change the World 9 to 5, which you'll see elsewhere on this blog.

The final designs of the covers were created by the in-house Disney Hyperion staff, but below are my proposed concepts.

Book Cover Design - Fight Like a Girl

Allen & Unwin had an open call for proposals to design the cover for a new book by Melbourne author Clementine Ford.
The title of the book is Fight Like a Girl.
Clementine is an author known for her strong feminist writings and this book is a collection of some of them.
I submitted several designs.
I thought a lot about my daughter when I was coming up with ideas and how great it would be if she could grow up in a world which gives everyone the same chance to be whatever they want to be.
I created a mixture of illustration and photo based ideas

Oh, and I didn't get the gig...

If you'd like to see the design which was chosen, you can find it here on the A&U site:

https://www.allenandunwin.com/browse/books/general-books/current-affairs-politics/Fight-Like-A-Girl-Clementine-Ford-9781760292362

I do not own the copyright for any of these images. If I am breaching copyright please let me know.

Book Cover - Change the World 9 to 5

I designed and illustrated this book cover for a company called We Are What We Do.
The publisher was Hardie Grant.
The interesting part of this brief was that that the cover could be unfolded to make a poster.

Book Design - Death by Coconut

Death by Coconut is a book, published by Affirm Press, for which I created 50 illustrations.
The book makes the point, in a humorous way, that while people (especially in counties like Australia) expend much energy worrying about the possibility of being attacked by a shark, there are many other things which are far more likely to befall them about which they don't worry at all.

The final design for the book was completed by Affirm's in-house designer, but here is my proposed design.

Design for a New Soccer Magazine

No, it's not football!
In Australia we have rugby, football (Aussie Rules) and soccer. It's simple, it works, so don't mess with it.

Soccer, like cricket and baseball, is a sport which has inspired much great writing. But soccer has also inspired great magazine design. People who read soccer mags are not intimidated by experimental design.
Two titles in particular stand out. 8X8 and Field - The Match Day Paper combine compelling writing with design that is right at the cutting edge. If you haven't seen them, take a look.
With these titles in mind, I wanted to create designs for a soccer magazine that were as contemporary as possible.
I chose Forward as the title of my publication. It has a great double meaning. Forward is a position on the soccer field but it obviously also evokes the idea of progress, innovation and positivity.

I decided that this magazine would use illustration for its cover imagery. This puts it in the company of such fine publications as The Word, 8x8, The New Yorker and The Big Issue.

My cover "star" is Sam Allardyce, who, as a result of some very poor decision making, was recently stood down as the manager of the England national team, thereby making himself a prime target for ridicule.

For my sample spread I used Zlatan Ibrahimovic as inspiration. He is a man whose talent is surpassed only by his mind boggling self regard. I thought it would be interesting to create a graphic which showed how many games he has played for each of the many clubs he has played for. It really highlights the obvious fact that while fans may love their clubs with wild passion, soccer is merely a career to most players.