In case you missed my emailer & tweets on Friday morning, I have a handful of new prints available on my Etsy store. Business has been rather brisk, so I'll be replacing depleted stock very soon. Well what are you waiting for… go and have good look around.
Hey there guys, if you live in Northern Ireland or the UK in general, you must have noticed how crappy the summer weather has been this summer. Bad for playing frisbee – good for flexing some creative muscle! The appalling Bank Holiday weather has given me plenty of time indoors to fiddle with my brand image. As well as tweaking the old header up at the top, I've taken a leaf out Illustrator Scott Jackson's book and drawn up my own Web Mascot. Whaddaya think?
I've worked in design & advertising offices for years and have created hundreds of clean, corporate logos using razor sharp sans serif typefaces in Pantone 280 blue They always looked cool, collected & most importantly very, very serious & businesslike. I guess that's why I love working with my own HDC brand so much – it's the polar OPPOSITE of all those logos. I hope it portrays everything Hand Drawn Creative stands for; irreverence, good fun, a love of great design & illustration… and NOT TAKING IT SO SERIOUSLY!
I love doodling at the weekend. Some of my sofabound sketches make it to the Mac. This one is a work in progress which I thought I'd share with you. I may be using this illlustration in future projects.
As you may already know, I recently completed a series of illustrations for Sheffield's GB Eye. I believe the poster is doing brisk business and you should be able to find copies in most major high street music stores like HMV or FOPP. And that, should be that really, just sit back and wait for the odd royalty cheque to come in. Imagine my surprise then, when GB Eye contacted me last week to ask for clearance for the poster to be used in a movie!
Yup, my illustrations will be appearing as part of the set decoration in Mike Leigh's latest film which is currently in production in London. So maybe I'm not quite walking down the red carpet, but it'll be fun seeing my work in a movie by an internationally renowned Director. If you're not familiar with the name; Mike Leigh is responsible for films such as Vera Drake, Life is Sweet, Naked and Secret & Lies. He made his name in the 1970s, writing memorable television plays like Nuts in May and Abigail's Party.
The folks on set were kind enough to mail a pic of the poster on set. So remember to keep 'em peeled when you go to see the film in cinemas.
…so where has Neal been you ask? Well, I've been working hard on a lot of projects for existing and new clients. Word has been spreading it appears, and the phone has been ringing with news of some great illustration jobs. I'm still working hard now, so time is tight. Until I can get down to some proper regular blogging, I'm posting a few illustrations I've completed over the summer months.
Here's fun… I've always been a bit of a trainer obsessive. I've got loads of pairs in my wardrobe (I consider it my final vice, now that I now longer smoke). So whenever the UK's premier sneaker store size? opened a store in Belfast I was VERY excited. In fact, strolling through their new store gave me the idea to team up with size? on a promotional poster for their store, so I've been working on and off with their Head Office bods (Matt & Marc) on illustrating some of size's coolest offerings. You can see the results below…
Pretty cool huh? As you can see from the pic; below the chaps in Belfast seem to like it. If you do too, keep an eye on the size? site… another print will be given away as a prize in an online competition very soon. Can't wait? Drop me a line – I'll be printing a short run of A1 & A3 prints for anyone interested.
Hi Guys… trying to get back into the way of regular work after an almost successful, self-imposed paternity break (which was peppered with the occasional Craft Fair). I'm working on a few little jobs here & there this week, one of which I'll pop up on the blog this week (it's a great little kids project). Funnily enough, the client (internetsense) asked me for a few illustrations to be sized down to display on his iphone. Great idea of course, so I thought I'd share it with all of you. If you whizz over to my flickr page, you can download all seven of these lovely little wallpapers for your iphone absolutely free of charge! No, really… it's okay. No, don't thank me… really, you deserve it.
After a seemingly unending pregnancy, the fledgling McCullough family welcomed it's latest arrival at 4.45am this morning, an 8lb 1oz. bonny, baby girl! Like I say, julie & I are barely married a year and we were expecting to wait a long time for kids, but destiny clearly has different ideas for us! Mother and daughter are doing remarkably well following a relatively swift 5.5 hour labour in an exclusive birthing pool in the Ulster Hospital.
Right then, I'm off to wet the baby's head properly with a Guinness! See y'all soon.
Still waiting for the baby today (10 days late now). So I find myself blogging nervously mere minutes before heading to the hospital. Along with the arrival of babymac, I'll be at the Black Market again on Sunday (21 June) and also I'll be appearing at Ballymena's AOVC Classic Car Show as a guest of Autoregister's Michael Beeney. To mark this occasion I've expanded my range of classic car illustrations adding; 2 new prints the Mini Cooper & Ford Capri as well as new classic car badges. Expect to see them on the HDC store very soon!
I've been hellishly busy for the last month or so. Things have been taking off with good, regular briefs and favourable mentions from other esteemed creative professionals (Hats off to the good people at Bittbox, OMG Posters, internetsense etc.) My Etsy Store has also been ticking over on a regular basis. I'll be winding things down a bit throughout June with the arrival of Mini-Mac (our baby) scheduled in any day now. Obviously Jules & I will want to spend some quality time with our little bundle of joy. That's not to say I haven't been drawing up until now… here's a piece I'm putting together along with 2 other illustrations which will act as future marketing material for HDC.