Kids win prizes!

Remember the little art directors and their visions of the future?
Well, they’ve helped us, CIA and the agency who partnered with us to win an award.

AMVBBDO finessed CIA’s concept and packaged the whole thing. At the Creative Circle Awards a few days ago they won Gold for the best illustration campaign!

Well done them, and well done artists, and well done Little Humans, who collectively helped created over fifty wonderful works of art.

http://www.centralillustration.com/blog/look-what-we-won

What Happened Tomorrow After We Drew It.

As a follow-up to the story of Central Illustration’s birthday celebrations with AMV BBDO and the Museum of Childhood, here’s what happened next!

You may remember this Autumn event involved me and other CIA artists drawing live at the behest of assorted children, whose visions of The Future had been fed to us a few days before, but which were art directed live on the day. Mine was called Rex and he was four. Alongside that, other CIA artists had created pre-made illustrations for their 'future visions’, which decorated the walls of the Museum at the same time. You can read the original blog here:

Well, contrary to what was anticipated (a next-day takedown), all of the live-drawn start remained in situ and is still there now for people to walk past and engage with. They were also turned into posters placed around various media sites across London, with no list of whose work went where - all we knew was that our work was out there somewhere! I put a Facebook call out however for any city-based chums to keep their eyeballs open, and astonishingly, it was found within the hour AND round the corner from our mate’s house in East Dulwich! Here it is:

Following that, CIA made a calendar of all of the images and posted it out to all the artists and clients and parents of the participating children:

I’m November.

And Creative Review made the event the subject of their December Monograph, the little supplements that go out to all subscribers to the print mag. It featured every piece of artwork, and since CR is harder to get into than Hogwarts, this represents a RESULT.

(And that is the sultry paw of Ben, who organised the whole thing with Charlotte at CIA. The same hand is also rather good at baking, it is rumoured).

'Can you dial back on the blue crayon please? We need to make the robot owls really pop.'

 

This Saturday, I'm doing THIS at the Museum of Childhood, Bethnal Green, London.

If you've got lil bairns who like drawing, come for the afternoon and watch a 'grown up' illustrator being art directed by a 4-year-old

...LIVE!

Part of The Big Draw, it's organised in conjunction with ad agency AMVBBDO and my agency Central Illustration, who are celebrating their 30th birthday. Open to the public between 12 and 4pm, you can turn up and watch or take part in all manner of crayon-based activities. There'll be a ton of crayons and a big thing to colour in as well as pointing and laughter as 'professionals' attempt to interpret the visions of their tiny art directors for the day.

Mine is called Rex.

Here's the info:
http://www.museumofchildhood.org.uk/whats-on/events-and-activities/the-big-draw-drawing-tomorrow

Advice Line.

Bernstein & Andrilli's new publication 'The Best Advice' was a collection of their artists' responses to various bits of long-held advice offered to a group of creatives.

Mine was pretty taxing. Was not being good enough for the railways a good thing? Or a bad thing?  Did it spell the end of your career before it had even begun? Or the release from a life of locomotive drudgery and into a world of drawing and imagining? Either way...regardless of what Wolfgang Heiss might have told him as an A level student, it got Flo Heiss where he is today. I grappled with the picture for some time before despairing, compiling a 'I'm throwing the towel in' email, then deleting it on realising I couldn't possibly give up and go an work on the trains instead. So I eventually cracked it.

Here's the image shown on screen at B&A's launch of the book at Village Underground, London, 26th June. Really good to meet up with Louisa and Aaron, Ben, Stan, Dave, Harriet, Rod and Chris. The book is available through Bernstein and Andriulli.

Central Illustration Agency

The Central Illustration Agency have just published this beautiful book showcasing all their artists. And I never thought I would be able to say 'I'm one of them'.

That's not some special faux-blog-modesty talking there. Nope, I mean it. I mean it because CIA represent some serious time-served people I admire and look up to as masters of their art - Peter Horridge, Sir Peter Blake, Andrew Bannecker, Paul Slater, David Hughes, Jeff Nishinaka to name a handful. I also say it earnestly because I've happily put in the hours, grafting away at a job I love for many years, to get to the stage where I might be able to sit in the company of these artists, and the relationship I have with Ben, Jules, Rhiannon and Alicja is rather special to me. Long may it continue!


Here's what the press release says:

License To Inspire is an eclectic mix of stunning artwork and fascinating interviews from the world's most talented illustrators and industry innovators. An invaluable resource for art buyers and other professionals within the creative industries, this will soon become a recommended text for art students and particularly those who wish to work in the industry. With inclusions from a diverse range of artists from Jonas Bergstrand to Sir Peter Blake, the book is packed with beautiful images and thought-provoking words. Created by the acclaimed Central Illustration Agency, who have been associated with the brightest talent in illustrative art since 1983, this book will be an essential addition to any coffee table or agency library.

"Illustration has been arguably the liveliest art form of this decade, and CIA have been right in the centre of it. This book paints a brilliant and lively portrait of the world, the art and the business of contemporary illustration." Marc Valli, Elephant magazine & Magma.



You can buy a copy on CIA's website.
or from the ever-reliable Amazon.

Central Illustration 'ACE' Calendar 2010

The new Central Illustration calendar is out! Printed on recycled Colourset Light Grey 120gsm stock, with Trojan Whiteback and Tridon Greyboard card stand, with vegetable based inks, except for the 'Holo' effect foil on the cover. Limited edition of 600 only, 14cm x 14cm.

£7 UK / £12 elsewhere inc. postage

Get one now before they're all gone! (And I'm told they do go quick)