Jazz in the Hall

I recently produced a poster for a series of jazz concerts in Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada.

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A history of my non-creative working life

Often artists have to have ‘other’ jobs to pay rent, eat food, live a normal life etc (something which art directors often balk at, as if you’re not taking your art seriously; look, pal, if you paid me on time I wouldn’t have to). Over the years I’ve done my level best to avoid a 9-5, and as such have ended up doing a variety of weird and wonderful jobs, ranging from some-level-of-responsibility to absolutely-no-responsibility-at-all. I find it curious when I meet people who have only had one or two jobs in their lives; I can’t tell whether it’s a positive or negative. I thought I’d put down on paper the jobs I’ve had, for no reason other than gentle, warming nostalgia, a rush of intense relief that I’m no longer sweeping up food detritus, and a love of drawing words.

Schilder in Deutschland

For the last month I’ve been travelling in Germany, generally having an ALL-ROUND GOOD TIME, seeing friends, walking in amazing scenery, and consuming plenty of pretzels, cheese and beer. There are some amazing old neon signs in cursive lettering still hanging on a lot of buildings (though not necessarily working). Here are some sketchy bits and bobs.

If you’re interested in not entirely accurate drawings of weird foreign signs, these prints are available to buy for £30, just drop me a line.

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Overheard in Cambridge

So very Cambridge.

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Cambridge Community Arts

Recently I created a design for graduates of this year’s courses at Cambridge Community Arts, to be printed onto t-shirts and given out at graduation. The words to be included were creativity, wellbeing, confidence and inspiration, and I made a little picnic party scene. Through my side project Hot Yoghurt with my partner, we printed 30+ of them – originally it was going to be in orange, but we decided on turquoise in the end. CCA do really great work in so many creative fields – you can find out more about them here.

inside nic farrell’s bonce

In reality it’s 90% my lovely boyfriend, but I wanted to retain some credibility.

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Yonda

Back in 2014 I started work on branding for a new self-drive tour company, Yonda. And now they’ve launched – and you can spot my lettering and illustration on cars zooming around London. Their HQ is on Park Lane (see vinyl window sticker below) or you can have a butchers here to find out more and see more of my work.

Croatia sunburn

Rotund, balding, sunburnt men on Croatian beaches.

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New work: Innside hotels

I am finally able to show work that I have produced for Innside hotels over the last year. I have created a full hand-drawn Latin alphabet and so so so many icons for all sorts of purposes: hotel products (slippers, mugs, door hangers etc), promotion and business (internal documents, business cards etc) and signage within the hotels, as well as animations for social media. They have hotels in the UK, US, loads in Europe and new ones opening in Asia. You can see more of my illustrations and typeface on my website here.

miscellaneous lettering from sketchbooks old

Shop signs and bits and pieces from Madrid, Copenhagen and other forgotten trips with sketchbook in hand.

Manchester

I was in Manchester last weekend for the Manchester Print Fair (see the Hot Yoghurt blog) and saw this wonderfully overcrowded and DECIDEDLY DIFFERENT shop that was too good not to draw. Run-down areas of cities for me are way more informative and inspiring than visiting art galleries sometimes. It’s great to visit cities with distinct areas and different vibes (no offence Cambridge). Also, note ‘visit our internet website’, in case you were wondering which type of website you should be visiting.

giochi a premi!

A dingy games arcade spotted in a dusty barren park in Palermo, Sicily. Note the knock-off Disney typeface.

ikea pitch

This is from sometime last year… for a (winning) pitch to Ikea, to turn unused and run-down urban areas in London into communal eating and relaxing areas, using their furniture.

E G Y P T

Cambridge isn’t great for art and museums (in my opinion… if you love old crockery and swords then it’s probably heaven on earth) but the Egyptian section of the Fitzwilliam is EXCELLENT. I am always amazed by the incredible patterns and also how they’ve stayed intact for thousands of years. Here are sketches of some hieroglyphs and a wonderfully intricate sarcophagus.

Boots part deux

Following on from my last blog post, my illustrations are now online at Boots.com too!