http://www.drawger.com/linzie/ Thu, 17 Nov 2011 13:26:28 EST FeedCreator 1.7.2 http://drawger.com/_images/drawger_leo_logo.gif http://www.drawger.com/linzie http://www.drawger.com/linzie/index.php?section=articles&article_id=12308 After a string of bad experiences as a tenant of ASC studios,  I’ve moved studios and am now based at vastly superior Second Floor Studios just beside the Thames Barrier in the south east of the capital.  And I’ve moved *just* in time to take part in the SFSA Open Studio Weekend   For those of you my side of the pond, please feel free to pop by my studio (Studio 34, Trinity Wharf) during the opening evening on Thursday 12th May or on the afternoons of Saturday 14th and Sunday 15th May 2011.  Along side some 130 different artists, you’ll be able to find out more about this exciting and ever-expanding artist community.  Currently under construction is London’s largest open access fine art print studio and a large-scale gallery space. With plans for a terrace cafe and many more studios on the way, it’s an impressive project.   Other illustration type people based at SFSA include: Author-Illustrators Nikalas Catlow and Tim Wesson,  Illustrator and AOI chairperson Rod Hunt, and my new studio-mate, comic book artist and publisher of Solipsistic Pop, Tom Humberstone. For more info about the open weekend, and to find out about my print giveaway on twitter (!) - click here



]]> Sun, 08 May 2011 18:54:08 EST http://www.drawger.com/linzie/index.php?section=articles&article_id=12289 Anyone that knows me, knows that I'd never stoop so low as to add such a scandalous attention-seeking headline to my post without good reason. Here's some fun and light hearted work I've been doing as part of an ongoing print campaign for Skinny Cow with the lovely team at JWT in New York. Probably don't need to say too much more... And apologies to anyone (?) who may feel slightly misled.











]]> Mon, 02 May 2011 23:22:48 EST http://www.drawger.com/linzie/index.php?section=articles&article_id=10889


This is only the rough sketch so the lettering all looks a bit messy - this stage is usually more about me getting a feel for the overall layout.  I'll go back and tidy up (and in with some cases, completely re-do) the lettering later. I quite liked the woody DIY quality here and liked having the WHERE logo sit amongst the tree top but alas it was not to be. After discussion amongst the editors, I was asked to go a slightly different way and make the tree out of letters, rather than have the lettering sitting within the tree.  It was suggested that all of the tree could be made out of phrases but I experimented a bit and felt that that looked a little forced and came up with a design that just saw the words sitting on top of an illustrated tree trunk.  I was a wee bit happy to hear that there wasn't going to be any photos so didn't need to worry about leaving space for that now. I tweaked the roughs to show two versions with contrasting backgrounds...  



It had been my thought that any headlines could be added in the gap below the tree, but at this stage we got into a bit of discussion on whether or not I would be available to create some custom lettering.  This would mean removing some of the phrases and replacing it with custom text for different editions. Although this would mean more work and probably a quick turnaround,  I did like idea as (totally big-headily) I don't always feel standard fonts sit so well along side hand-lettering.  Maybe I just feel that perfectly scaled, kerned and leaded lettering really shows my work up :-)

The darker of the two was approved and I proceeded to final art.  I was also asked to emphasise "The Green Issue" wording a bit more.  The tree looks a bit egg-shaped but this is to allow the WHERE logo to sit at the top...



In the end I heard back that it wasn't going to be possible for me to create custom lettering.  I'm not sure if this was a budget issue or just the logistics of it all. I was asked to remove some of the text to make space for editorial text and to introduce some more blue shades into the mix...

Here is the final cover, shown here on the San Francisco version. I was a little sad that we weren't able to make the custom lettering work as I do think it would have looked good, but I'm also realistic about the practicalities of doing so.  My own other tiny gripe was that I'd have liked the lettering of the tree not to have overlapped the WHERE logo so much.  This is purely because I had it in mind for the lettering pop against a largely dark background and not white but perhaps that's me just being a too picky. Overall, it was still a good experience and fun assignment to work on!  

]]> Mon, 25 Apr 2011 18:11:17 EST http://www.drawger.com/linzie/index.php?section=articles&article_id=12035

hope this isn't drop cap overkill to also post my contribution to Jessica Hische's awesome lettering project at www.dailydropcap.com.   I spend most of my working hours doing lettering these days but I really never have the luxury of time or indeed the requirement to focus on decorating just one letter so this was a nice change.  I would say I actually found it quite *fun*.   Thanks Jess for the invite and your kind words in the write up.  Really enjoying seeing everyones contributions too.

]]> Sat, 26 Feb 2011 23:49:29 EST http://www.drawger.com/linzie/index.php?section=articles&article_id=11563 When a map job comes in I sometimes have mixed feelings about it.  If you like to travel (which indeed I do), it's a nice way to research an unvisited city or country and I do find it fun trying to figure out interesting ways to illustrate landmarks and geographical features. The downside is that this often involves quite a bit of extra research and fact-checking for me and a complicated map (or street-maps, especially) tend to demand a really strict attention to detail when proof-reading names. There's nothing more embarrassing than putting Birmingham where Manchester should be. Not that I would go do anything so silly, as I won awards at high school for geography after all. Anyway, I'm going off point.  What I was trying to say was that one of the most recent map jobs I took on was a bit different in this respect and allowed a whole lot more creative freedom. I was contacted last month by the very lovely design team at VH1 to create some imaginary maps in the style of those "See where the stars live" type tour guides.  My illustrations would form part of their promotional "liner notes", a regular mailout adverting tv shows from the current and coming season. I was still given a list of features (and tv shows) to illustrate but this time round, I could place them where I liked in an imaginary map...









]]> Thu, 04 Nov 2010 22:57:51 EST http://www.drawger.com/linzie/index.php?section=articles&article_id=11514 Last week saw the first open house event at Erlang House, the 9 floor tower block where I have my studio. Firstly, thanks to everyone who managed to stop by!  We have over 120 studios in our block, so there was loads to see and it was a really good opportunity to meet some of the artists on the other floors. I did mean to take a whole bunch of photos at the Private View evening but a couple of glasses of red wine and too much chit chat and I completely forgot. Oh well! My studio is a modest 164 sq foot so taking a grand tour of the place doesn't really take so long, but here am some photos I took of my studio the morning after (following a tidy up). And just to clarify, it never usually looks this tidy.





















I also had a few bits and bobs for sale over the weekend.  I'm hoping to take part in a pop-up shop venture before christmas so this was a bit of a dummy run.  Hopefully, I will get round to putting that online shop up now too.







Well that's it.  I'm sure I've well and truly milked this tour.  Stop by for tea and biscuits next time you're in the neighbourhood!

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