After a busy few weeks Urban Reiver is back in the land of communication!  This latest sketch (done when I was supposed to have finished work for the day) was drawn out in marker pen, just developing it as I went along – a nice, creative way to work  Mind you, it was [...]]]>

After a busy few weeks Urban Reiver is back in the land of communication!  This latest sketch (done when I was supposed to have finished work for the day) was drawn out in marker pen, just developing it as I went along – a nice, creative way to work  Mind you, it was used as inspiration for a commissioned hoodie design (wait for it, I’ll get the photos up soon!), so it was time well spent.

I am currently finishing off the table plan for an impending wedding, so check back soon for images of the completed piece (contact me for wedding stationery design quotes).  It has a 1950s, Hollywood theme, so is going to look fabulous!

Another website overhaul is imminent (yes, I change my mind quite often) so be prepared for a completely different look to my site – onwards and upwards!

UR

As you’ve probably seen I’ve been updating my website look (to keep it fresh and exciting of course!) and you may have noticed a new page, Special Offers.  At the moment I have one deal available (£350 for logo and business card design), but this area will constantly [...]]]> Just a short post here…

As you’ve probably seen I’ve been updating my website look (to keep it fresh and exciting of course!) and you may have noticed a new page, Special Offers.  At the moment I have one deal available (£350 for logo and business card design), but this area will constantly be changing, with new offers being added, but each being in place for a limited time period.  If you don’t see something specific to you but have an idea about what you are wanting then send me a message on katherine@urbanreiver.co.uk and I’ll see what I can do.

Keep an eye out!

Here is my latest submission to Threadless for their “Threadless Loves Weird” competition.  Since watching Despicable Me (fantastic movie by the way!) I have gained a sort of obsession for unicorns, so with unicorns on the brain I created this piece of fantasy artwork.  It was drawn by hand with 0.1 black [...]]]>

Here is my latest submission to Threadless for their “Threadless Loves Weird” competition.  Since watching Despicable Me (fantastic movie by the way!) I have gained a sort of obsession for unicorns, so with unicorns on the brain I created this piece of fantasy artwork.  It was drawn by hand with 0.1 black fineliners, scanned to the computer and turned into a vector image.  Oh and then I coloured it in My-Little-Pony-esque pastel shades to complete a pretty, dreamy yet weird image.

You can also see my love of comic-book style sketches in there, although I tried not to exaggerate the lady’s figure to extreme proportions.  As in much of my other artwork, I have paid extra attention to the hair, giving it movement and unpredictability by concentrating on the definition of shadows and highlights.  I think my original sketch looked far better, but it is now sharper and easier to colour, so there are pros and cons both ways.  All in all I’m pleased with the result – plus it was fun to do!

You can see my Threadless design here.

There are some fabulous designs [...]]]> Well, I finally got around to submitting a design to Threadless!  After I’d sketched out this little guy I thought how sweet he would look adorning somebody’s clothes, so decided to put it in for scoring.  A nice, fun little project when you have a little spare time.

There are some fabulous designs on there though – some very clever and witty, others incredibly complicated and artistic.  It’s so inspiring to see the unique ideas others have come up with, that I feel spurred on to step it up a notch and do something amazingly unique.

You can see my design here.  I drew him using black ink and a good old-fashioned dip-pen.

Have a look!  Tell me what you think!

As promised, here are some images of a traditional book that I designed previously, oooh, back in 2008 I think.  It was created as part of my Fashion Design course at university – the brief was to design and make a collection of 6 outfits based around a theme and for this [...]]]>

As promised, here are some images of a traditional book that I designed previously, oooh, back in 2008 I think.  It was created as part of my Fashion Design course at university – the brief was to design and make a collection of 6 outfits based around a theme and for this particular sub-project we had to make some sort of book/box/diary/collection of images to reflect these outfits.  I absolutely love Grimm’s Fairy Tales (who doesn’t?) and one night after reading through some of these whilst curled up in bed I wondered about how to incorporate that into the task that had been set.

After looking long and hard at my outfits (based on the Scottish Highlands, wildlife, people etc) I realised that they had characters of their own, almost embodying sort of half-animal, half-human creatures, quite Pagan-like and primal in their appearance.  This thought inspired me to begin to write my own fairytales, imagining my outfits as heroines with individual personalities.

As there were 6 outfits I split these up into 6 separate stories, each one a couple of pages long and each with an illustration at the end. To keep everything nice and traditional I studied the layout of old fairytale books and tried to make mine similar.  I even used a thick, textured, vellum-type paper for the pages (after many failed experiments printing onto tea-stained paper, not recommended!).  I laid out the pages on MS Word, making sure to leave extra space in the margins where the book would be bound, printed them out double-sided onto A4 sheets of paper and cropped them down to A5 using a sharp scalpel and a steady hand.  For introduction pages like the one opposite, I added a hand-drawn crest using black ink and a dip-pen.  To be honest I would have preferred to use a feather quill, to really get into the spirit of it, but there were none available at the time.

For every story, I introduced it by creating an illuminated letter, to highlight the differences between each one.  Again I used the black ink for this, but I did make many mistakes and reprinting was a regular occurance, so I think next time I would definitely have designed them on Illustrator and placed them onto the page before printing. Still, it adds a little “je ne sais quoi”, so I’m not complaining.

So, onto the illustrations!  Firstly I knew that I must paint with inks – what could be more traditional than that?  Unfortunately the ink bled freely through the vellum paper I used for the text pages, so I had a hunt around numerous art shops before I found this lovely, textural canvas paper.  The packet told me it was only suitable for oil paints, but I bought it anyway, determined that it would work.  Luckily it formed the perfect base for my ink drawings and really emphasised the rich colours (some papers seem to absorb it, leaving your illustration slightly dull).  I used the back of the canvas, which was still nicely textured, but with a smoother, less rough quality to it.  I loved the result!  Each story had its own nicely painted illustration, depicting a scene as well as a quote to go with it.

The final stage was to get my pages bound together, so after worridly checking over and over that I had them arranged in the right order I took them to Bookbinding by Crawford in Edinburgh and they completed the job in a matter of days – plus they die-stamped the title and my name on the front in gold which made me quite ecstatic!  The whole book is of beautiful quality, even the text pages which were produced on an HP Photosmart Printer.

I am currently planning to write a collection a short fairytales, old-fashioned in style and illustrate them myself (of course!), so I shall keep everyone updated with any progress I make on that front.  I hope you have enjoyed this post!

P.S.  If you would be interested in seeing the outfits that inspired me, please have a look at the “Into the Wilderness” Collection on this blog

The day has finally arrived that I am able to show off my most recent completed piece of design!

A lovely lady that I have known for a while asked me if I could create a one-off book to mark the Christening of her grand-son, containing  a collection of personal [...]]]>  

The day has finally arrived that I am able to show off my most recent completed piece of design!

A lovely lady that I have known for a while asked me if I could create a one-off book to mark the Christening of her grand-son, containing  a collection of personal short stories.  Well, I was very excited, as there’s nothing I love better than working on a proper, traditional book.  Although, it was quite a daunting task considering it was somebody I knew well.  I decided nothing less than perfect would do, so set about to achieve this.

I began by taking my time choosing a good old-fashioned book binder.  I came across the cheap, the extravagant and the plain incompetent, but finally settled on one which looked just right for my price range as well as the quality I needed.

Then onto the design!  After carefully reading through each story to check for any typographical errors I laid it out on a book template I had created on Adobe Indesign.  I had to keep it simple in terms of text size and fonts as it needed to be suitable for a child to read.  The next stage was to illustrate each story – some had two images (as in photo opposite), some only needed one.  I played it by ear according to the story content and the space I had left on the page.  I drew the illustrations by hand, before scanning them to the computer and converting to vector files, then colouring.  My client and myself decided on a clear, cartoony style for the drawings, in bright shades to appeal to a young boy.  I love how well the printing has turned out on the lightly textured paper.

And then onto the cover!  My client and I chose a lovely baby blue shade for this and I began work on a suitable illustration.  As the sea was an obvious fixture in the grand-son’s local area and featured in several of the stories, it seemed very fitting to use this as inspiration.  I sketched out stylised waves and little boats by hand before scanning these in and also hand-writing the name “Isaac”.  The result was a lovely, flowing design that wrapped around the book, travelling from the front across the spine and onto the back.  The binder that I used commissioned a printer to print onto fabric which was then covered with a sealant – a great technique which allows complete freedom with your artwork.

So, the book arrived and it was fantastic.  Great quality, hand-stitched, also supplied with a fabric-covered hard slipcase and my favourite bit – a little ribbon bookmark, how sweet!  This is the second traditional book I have designed (I’ll put a post up on the first one later) and I must admit it’s far better than a flimsy, mass-produced novel.  For a special gift, it’s just perfect and so meaningful.  I’m so happy to have been involved in this project.  Thanks to Otterbookbinding for their great work on it, a really creative binder and highly recommended.