Computer Arts Gallery: November 2008

Sophie Henson
Location London
Job Illustrator
Contact www.sophiehenson.com
Software Photoshop, Illustrator

After graduating with a degree in Graphic Design from Nottingham Trent University in 2004, Sophie Henson hit the ground running. "I was lucky enough to end up in a full-time job on the south coast as a print designer in a small studio," she says.

While working with clients such as Stussy, MoMA, Topshop and Mooks she also got her first taste of freelancing, which led to her move to London at the beginning of the year and her current position as a full-time freelancer.

Day Job A personal project produced using Illustrator, and the first of a series of three T-shirt placements. "I love the experimentation involved in design," says Sophie, "and this came about when all my experimental bits seemed to sit together more coherently as a group rather than a series of teeny stand-alone pieces."

Sophie Henson
Location London
Job Illustrator
Contact www.sophiehenson.com
Software Photoshop, Illustrator

After graduating with a degree in Graphic Design from Nottingham Trent University in 2004, Sophie Henson hit the ground running. "I was lucky enough to end up in a full-time job on the south coast as a print designer in a small studio," she says.

While working with clients such as Stussy, MoMA, Topshop and Mooks she also got her first taste of freelancing, which led to her move to London at the beginning of the year and her current position as a full-time freelancer.

Dark Summer Produced for Boxfresh as part of its forthcoming collection. "I was lucky, as they pretty much gave me free reign on this project. I wanted to create a series of five designs that sit together as a group, but are quite eclectic in style. 'Dark Summer' was hand-drawn, then manipulated and layered up in Photoshop and Illustrator," Sophie explains.

Stuart Whitton
Location Wales
Job Freelance illustrator
Contact www.stuartwhitton.blogspot.com
Software Photoshop, Illustrator

"I'm influenced by a number of aspects of design and art," says Stuart. "As a result, I try to build a visually appealing relationship between fashionably ethereal illustrations of people, objects and typographical elements."

Ironically, it was his BA Hons course in Graphic Design at the West Wales School of the Arts that convinced Stuart that he was, in fact, more interested in illustration. "My passion for [illustration] and the use of traditional methods made me realise that my admiration for the imagery derives from the personal quality that it possesses."

Stuart's image creation process involves the use of pencils, Photoshop, Illustrator, abstract shapes, patterns and generally a limited colour palette to accent particular areas. "I use careful discretion concerning the amount of detail in my work," he adds. "This is often combined with a degree of ambiguity to achieve a distinctly bold but elegant appearance."

Self Portrait "This piece contains three pencil sketches of myself," says Stuart of this interesting self-study. "The two that depict my face are the same image, only shown at different stages of the illustration. I wanted to create more than a traditional portrait, therefore I used Photoshop to cut a section out of the finished sketch and then arranged the other portraits so that certain areas could flow ambiguously into each other. I think this image is a good representation of not only my physical appearance but also my personality and my influences, which can be identified even in the smallest details."

Stuart Whitton
Location Wales
Job Freelance illustrator
Contact www.stuartwhitton.blogspot.com
Software Photoshop, Illustrator

"I'm influenced by a number of aspects of design and art," says Stuart. "As a result, I try to build a visually appealing relationship between fashionably ethereal illustrations of people, objects and typographical elements."

Ironically, it was his BA Hons course in Graphic Design at the West Wales School of the Arts that convinced Stuart that he was, in fact, more interested in illustration. "My passion for [illustration] and the use of traditional methods made me realise that my admiration for the imagery derives from the personal quality that it possesses."

Stuart's image creation process involves the use of pencils, Photoshop, Illustrator, abstract shapes, patterns and generally a limited colour palette to accent particular areas. "I use careful discretion concerning the amount of detail in my work," he adds. "This is often combined with a degree of ambiguity to achieve a distinctly bold but elegant appearance."

Fashionable Typography For this illustration, Stuart originally had the concept of a single piece of clothing manipulated to spell 'Fashion.' However, he soon decided this wasn't quite enough: "I gathered a range of clothing items and used them to replicate the form of each letter in 'fashionable.' I hand-drew each letter using a varying degree of discretion concerning the amount of detail, and then assembled them in Photoshop. This piece is a part of my personal work; the approach towards creating typography has inspired me to create a complete alphabet."

Kittozutto
Location Singapore
Job Illustrators
Contact www.kittozutto.com
Software Adobe Creative Suite

Kittozutto are Yana and JUN, who describe themselves as "two lost souls in the advertising field who woke up one day and started this business."

Kittozutto combine fine art illustration with digital imaging, and the highly-detailed results are often best seen in a large format, as they point out. Currently, both Yana and JUN have independent day jobs and contribute to kittozutto on a freelance basis, but they hope to establish the enterprise as a full-time career in the near future.

Hawaii An "exploration into hyper-realistic portrait illustration," created with a Wacom tablet in Photoshop and incorporating vector graphic elements done in FreeHand. "The girl was drawn first, with the sunglasses and earrings added in the later stages," says Yana. "We've also added details such as pores on the face. This piece was inspired by Richard Phillips' 'Scout' painting, mixing realistic painting with our surrealistic play on the sunglasses."

Kittozutto
Location Singapore
Job Illustrators
Contact www.kittozutto.com
Software Adobe Creative Suite

Kittozutto are Yana and JUN, who describe themselves as "two lost souls in the advertising field who woke up one day and started this business."

Kittozutto combine fine art illustration with digital imaging, and the highly-detailed results are often best seen in a large format, as they point out. Currently, both Yana and JUN have independent day jobs and contribute to kittozutto on a freelance basis, but they hope to establish the enterprise as a full-time career in the near future.

Accept & Proceed Kittozutto's contribution to the ongoing invitation from Accept & Proceed to create artwork based on the A&P logo (for more info, see www.acceptandproceed.com). "We created an isometric view of a symmetrical 'A+P' wooden structure, with the '+' being painted onto it," Yana explains. "Through this the drawing revealed many more 'A's and 'P's. The object, crafted into form, is a metaphor for A&P as a design facility. We first rolled some paper together and began constructing the structure as a guide. We then got some wood references and started drawing using a Wacom tablet in Photoshop, adding some noise and sharpening filters for the final result."

Chris Clarke
Location Bristol, UK
Job Graphic designer
Contact www.chris-clarke.co.uk
Software Illustrator, InDesign, Fontographer, Photoshop

"In order to change things, we must first attain a decent understanding of them." This, says Chris, is his current creed. "I'm interested in mediating the gap between design and the public, and exploring design's ability to facilitate and benefit social change," he adds. "I have been fortunate enough to be taught by lecturers who were very passionate about design, and promoted design's potential for that change."

A recent graduate of the University of the West of England, Chris currently lives and works in Bristol, often collaborating with Alex Ostrowski, partner of independent design studio CO. Intending to move to London earlier this year, he has postponed the transition to 2009, partly because he's "recently been asked to work on a typography module - communicating with words - with first-year students of UWE," he explains. "It's an attempt to give [something] back to the city after three years of being a student."

Gravesend/Deadend Type Specimen The Gravesend project was originally inspired by the infrastructure of - but has morphed into an account of the death of community in - modern Britain. "It seems while the global village expands, local collective identity and communication have dwindled, to the detriment of communal interest," Chris says. Gravesend, he feels, with its "invisible community," is a perfect example of this. The project took form as an editorial piece, printed on a worn silkscreen to achieve a damaged white UV finish, with a bespoke display typeface called Deadend.

Joshua Hooper
Location Atlanta
Job Illustrator/designer
Contact www.pixel-pimp.com
Software Illustrator, Photoshop

"I went to a sub-par art school and left with a generic portfolio and self-defeated outlook on art," says Joshua, aka Juicy J. "I had such a limited perception of the possibilities of where artists could go in this world, but the emergence of networking sites such as MySpace and deviantART opened my eyes and connected me to new possibilities."

Real inspiration arrived in a rather unexpected way: a near-death experience convinced Joshua to give it his all in an effort to become a world-class illustrator. And despite his funky and upbeat renderings, the bad luck seems to continue, as he's just been laid off from his full-time job. However, he's determined to see this as an opportunity rather than a problem: "That pushed me headfirst in to the world of being a freelancing creative professional,' he says. "I'm currently self-employed and looking to relocate to Europe in the near future."

Freaking Awesome An illustration designed for a self-promotional mailer, featuring Joshua's characteristic energy and humour. "I needed to create an illustration that demonstrated my solid skill set, imagination, artistic vision, and convey that I was a 'freaking awesome' artist," says Joshua. "I just started this with the idea that I wanted to draw a majestically flying unicorn, and the rest came together through accidental creativity."

Andrew Wilson
Location San Diego
Job Illustrator/art director
Contact andrewandavid.blogspot.com
Software Photoshop, Illustrator

In his day job, Andrew is an assistant art director at the hugely successful Rockstar San Diego games developer. He uses his spare time for freelance design and illustration work - or, as he puts it, "selling my drawings to pay rent and support my video game addiction. Over the last year I've been experimenting with very limited palettes, as well as sharing a host of strange creatures called Post-It Pets on my blog."

By his own admission, there are no real rules in the creation of a Post-It Pet, but he feels compelled to make them: "Without dumping these imaginary friends onto the internet, my head would explode." Other obsessions include his silhouette paintings, which are hugely inspired by music, and his two books: Forgotten Kingdom and So Now What Do We Do? (a collaboration with Wade Schin). He occasionally exhibits at local galleries such as the I Am 8-Bit and Crazy4Cult events.

Unfinished Business "Devil girl and angel girl art gets played to death, but that doesn't stop me and an internet full of artists attacking the subject over and over," Andrew says of this typical silhouette drawing. "This piece followed a hellish day of designs and served as a cool-down before I shut off my OS. I don't often paint figures entwined, as it destroys some of the great silhouette shapes."

Mattis Dovier
Location Paris
Job Graphic designer
Contact mattisdovier.free.fr
Software Illustrator

Still just 20 years old, Mattis is currently studying graphic design at the École Régionale des Beaux-Arts (ERBA) in Valence. This follows two years at the French high school of design, Olivier de Serres, and three years of what he calls "the formation of decorative arts" - so while he may be young, he already boasts considerable experience in the theoretical side of graphic design.

In tandem with his academic work, Mattis aims to develop his personal projects on a deeper level. "I'm trying to widen my field of investigation into more diverse media," he says, "and hopefully free myself from certain constraints of applied graphic design. I'd like to be able to return there then with a more personal approach.

"My ambition is to reconcile my experiments to a more institutional school of graphic design," Mattis continues. "My concept [of graphic design] is filled with diverse influences that imply a wide field of visual experiments."

6m1p An illustration for Toulouse-based art magazine 6m1p. Mattis had free rein with the subject matter, as he explains: "The idea was to put my creative universe as an abstract visual. The graphic elements (virtual volumes) float in space, as an immaterial thought... The organic shapes are a reference to the surrealism movement and its concepts. This picture represents my working process."