On The Trading Floor

I recently illustrated the London Stock Exchange's book '1000 Companies To Inspire' for my old college-mate, art director Rob Patterson at Wardour Communications.

The cover was a bit of old-school Molework - all fineliners and simple but busy-busy detail on paper, inspired by my 50-something illustrations for Ernst & Young - hinting at all of the UK's countries and their biggest industries. Drawn on an A2 sheet, it was scanned and given a careful vectorisation so that Rob could suggest myriad colour combinations to the LSE team.

The book turned out really well - however, the extra-exciting bit came next! Rob and his team decided to curate a live drawing event to celebrate the day of publication. Deep in the Stock Exchange building in Paternoster Square, London (home to the London publishing trade, prior to it being destroyed in WW2), and right in the shadow of St Paul's cathedral, the trading floor opens every day at 7am...which is when our event was set to start. Not my usual start time - unless I am on a Virtuous Gym Day - but I was willing to give it a go!

The idea was that some of the 1000 companies listed in the book - all firms who've done exceptionally well, created significant numbers of jobs and contributed heavily towards an overall growth in British revenue - would be invited to attend on the morning of the book launch. And I would be there, pens in hand, already busy adding their companies' names to the board in brightly-coloured inks.

There were a few things to work out - what to draw on, how big it could go, would I have time to create an entire piece, how long would it take. Rob worked out that a large, robust paper-based print with some of the book's cover illustration already present would provide an immediate focus for guests, and it would look like I'd been working on it all night.

Into gaps in the illustration carefully edited in by Rob I would write the company names, in trusty Poscas pre-bought by Rob in a frenzy of pen-buying not seen since his college days! Poscas are renowned for their 'every-surface' reliability and nicely opaque ink, and a bagful of yellows, blues and whites was duly thrust into my palm on arrival at the Stock Exchange at 6.30am.

There was a lot to like about this event. First, staying in a 4-star just down the road from the venue meant a delightful 5.30am walk with commuters, cyclists and paper deliverers through historic London, over the Blackfriars Bridge and past Amen Corner with its ancient, monastical roots. Buildings I'd seen more recently in pictures towered over me, a foot-based rather than the usual engine-powered journey allowing me time to stare up at them. The weather was beautiful. Second, having a big pile of pens handed to you, along with a hand waved in the direction of financially-important selection of breakfast treats, certainly took the edge off any tiredness.

I'd visited the LSE the night before as I treated myself to a solo dinner at the famous Paternoster Chop House, next door to the Stock Exchange. (I'd taken a sketchbook and drawn the diners between courses, and while sipping the eye-wideningly delicious coffee; none of them knew, and some of them (the Boris vs Hunt arguing ones to my right) turned up at the event the next morning, not showing the slightest sign of the 4 bottles of red that came to the table.) I'd seen my work dressing the LSE columns - one of those times you suddenly get all bothered about your 'idiosyncratic line quality'...

Inside, the building was festooned with my art, piles of books ready to give out. Jessica at another fave client of mine, Premm Design, had created all of the huge boards and posters in the building - no mean feat as it was splashed on a real variety of screens, boards, windows and walls.

Female staff arrived in Pantone-correct green dresses and heels, while smartly-suited men walked in with excited faces - all of them looking as if the most studious class in school had just been told a special school outing had been organised for the day. An animation had been made from the work too; everyone paused to watch as the sound boomed and the animation played across the floor-to-ceiling void, all while the Nikkei, Dow Jones and FTSEs flashed green and red in a rapid-fire succession of results. Cue: applause!

Work had begun and needed to continue at a cracking pace - 50 names to add, by 10.30. Jennifer from Wardour read them out to me replete with correct (and sometimes stylistically incorrect) spellings, a colour was chosen, a position for it, and a lettering style. Sometimes with little illustrations, sometimes not! Everyone was keen to know where their name was, and could they please pose with it??

The event was over in a flash. Happy traders and company directors mixed with creatives and watched drawing possibly for the first time since school; they ate posh snacks, drank coffee and biggedr up their own incredibly impressive achievements. Warmth and good feeling filled the building, but it was suddenly time to go and eat/sleep/sit down/rest.

Since I was working most of the time it was hard to take photographs, but thanks go to Rob for some of these and this one in particular taken by an LSE staff member - Jennifer from Wardour (hours away from heading to Glastonbury), and me and Rob about to catch up on our 25 years on the planet since we graduated together in 1993!

Thanks also to the staff who made me very welcome, and gifted me this beautiful metal official Stock Exchange pin. I had to swear to imbue the virtues and values of British industry and trade...or something...which I did, and duly pinned the glittering crest onto my shirt.

Now who's boss.

It’s A Man’s, Man’s, Man’s World.

I was interviewed recently by Visualmente, the creative section of a newspaper in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Unless you speak Spanish you won’t get much out of the screen grab of the article below, so here is the interview in full. Though I think there have been one or two little elaborations for the sake of translation, as the article was read out to me by Hugo Weinberg, my French CIA agent, it sounds like it was printed pretty much word for word!

I think you can probably work out which of the questions is the one which raised my eyebrows and piqued my interest…
I like answering interview questions if they’re considered and the interviewer has done their homework, which I think this guy definitely had.


1. How would you define your style? It is an illustrator or specialist lettering?
Both, But when I tell people what I do, I’m ‘an illustrator’.

2. The world of typographic illustration is revealed as a man's world. How is it for you to work in that world?
Is it? A man’s world? It absolutely isn’t! I must admit, I laughed a bit at this question. I’m surprised you don’t know Marion Deuchars, Marian Bantjes, Paula Scher, Ruth Rowland…there are many more.
I compete with other illustrators, not other men or women - I can’t speak for others but I’ve personally found illustration to be a largely genderless industry. Happily!

3. You have worked on many magazine covers. How was work for Playboy? Can you explain the title "The College Issue”?
Playboy are not traditionally known for their use of illustration - inside maybe, for some of the articles - but there hadn’t been an illustrated cover for 25 years when they called me to make this one. It was a risk for the relatively new Art Director, and he took a chance on it - I did feel the responsibility of it, this famous and VERY long-standing magazine - and I do also know that Hugh Hefner had to approve the cover in person, as he does all issues.

So I know that Hugh himself approved my work!

We did not know until the last moment which of the 9 photographs was going to be chosen for the cover, so I had to create artwork that would work with any of those photographs. That was tricky. Those photographs included some close-ups and tight crops, so the art had to flexible. I managed to do it and the turn-round was very quick - a few days only.

The brief was simply to imagine I was a female college freshman doodling notes around the subjects of the magazine’s features, but not to make it too ‘pretty’ - the girl was pretty enough! It had to have movement and life without putting off its male buyers - I think it worked - and I have never been asked for so many samples of my work by friends, ha ha!

4. You have also worked in advertising. What differences are there for you to work for a client and a magazine?
Advertising has big budgets, so there is a lot of pressure. By the time you have been commissioned, a lot of processes have taken place - meetings, sketches, planning, media-buying, budgeting - to arrive at that point. Therefore you can’t mess it up.

It also has longer deadlines than Editorial work, which is very, very quick - often as fast as a day or afternoon. And a much lower budget, meaning that an Art Director can take a chance on an illustrator or style knowing that illustration won’t be in the public domain for long.

I find I can experiment a little with Editorial, and be a little bit more conceptual, whereas in advertising, my work is usually very heavily directed.

5. How do you usually work? Makes sketches before working?
I always draw in pencil first, then ink it in. All my work is created with ink (which can be nibs, fountain pens, brushes, biros, felt-tips, gel pens or Japanese calligraphy pens and others) on paper. It is of course then scanned to be sent all over the world!

6. We would like you to tell us the choices of different typefaces drawn from the cover of "Sight & Sound”?
Aha; those aren’t typefaces; they’re all drawn by hand on paper around the figures or characters shown on the cover, specially for each issue! Some were made with a pen, some with brushes, depending on the atmosphere we needed to create. I would make perhaps three or four times the quantity of type that was needed, then would experiment with different combinations. I really enjoyed working for Sight and Sound, which is the magazine of the BFI - the British Film Institute.

You can see the online version of the newspaper here:
http://visualmente.info/2015/03/07/visual-tipografias-al-desnudo/
And their Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/visualmente.info/posts/640237406080291