Trend Report: Jack Hughes

"It's always tricky trying to explain not just my style, but how it makes me different from the billion other illustrators," confesses London-based freelancer Jack Hughes. "I like gradients; they're the main basis of my illustrations. Colour too, although I do feel a bit restricted by my obsession of blue. Colour is vital to my work: without it I'd be a mere shell of an illustrator."

His Usbek & Rica project for French design studio Almasty is featured in the Trend Report in Computer Arts Collection's Illustration issue as an example of the airbrush style currently gaining popularity in the industry. Compiled by experienced trend forecasting agency FranklinTill, the report explores styles and movements as diverse as psychedelia, native, mash-up, phone art, brush stroke and 80s pop.

"I try not to get caught up in what's trendy," insists Hughes. "It can be so easy to obsess over a trend and want to jump the bandwagon when the going's good, but once it passes and something new comes along you're left with a style that needs to re-adapt." 

"As for the airbrushing movement, I wasn't ever consciously aware that my style was headed in that direction, which is nice because you've ended up with a result with minimal outside influences," he continues. "I'm quite obsessive over my style. I like clean cut, clinical precision lines and gradients. By using gradients in an airbrushed way, I can maintain that level of satisfaction I get from clean looking work."

After graduating from a postgrad course at Kingston in summer 2011, Hughes was snapped up by illustration agency YCN. Over the past year has already notched up commissions from the likes of Google, Time Out, The Sunday Telegraph and our very own Computer Arts, and we also featured him recently in our own Inspiration Gallery.

Two of his favourite recent projects, however, have been for smaller clients: a fully illustrated book called The Gentleman's Guide to Cocktails, and counselling magazine Therapy Today. You can scroll through a selection of the final pieces below, or see more of Hughes' work at www.jack-hughes.com