I made this illustration for The Atlantic for an article titled "Alexa is a revelation for the blind" by Ian Bogost.
Stroke Art Fair
My "Suffer The Little Children" - illustration is exhibited right now in the illustration section at Stroke Art Fair in Munich, Germany. The exhibition is still open until May, 13th.
Thank you to curator Nevena Chopova.
The Fabmobil - the rest
I am back at home. Here are the rest of the drawings from the Fabmobil project. They were made on Monday and Tuesday in Bautzen and Löbau, Eastern Saxony. I am just going to post them now here, but I am planning to write also a longer article about what I did and what I have learned. Stay tuned.
We posted the drawings "live" on the Fabmobil's instagram account and my instagram account as process videos, with audio recorded on site. If you are interested in that check these accounts.
The Fabmobil, last day
A short note from Re:publica 2018. This is what happened so far ... More on the channels I mentioned in the last post.
The Fabmobil
Next week I will join the team of the Fabmobil, a project of art-design-media-collective The Constitute from Berlin. The Fabmobil is a black bus, outfitted with 3D printers, lasercutters, and various other ´modern´ technologies. It is touring the rural areas of Easter Saxony in Germany to bring this technology to schools in the area, to teach workshops to the kids and maybe also show the teachers what’s possible.
I will go along with the Fabmobil for a bit more than a week to document what I see, to filter what is happening through drawings, made in the moment, from real life.
Even though I have been thinking about this project a lot in the last months, I cannot predict exactly what is going to happen, how it will look and feel. And come to think of it, maybe that is exactly the good part of it.
I will keep you updated how it is going right here, and possibly also on the channels of the Fabmobil:
Fabmobil website, Fabmobil Instagram, Fabmobil Twitter.
Illustration for Psykologi
Illustration for Psykologi for a quote by Finnish movie director Aku Louhimies, "My mistakes are not your mistakes". Here an excerpt from Wikipedia:
"In March 2018 8 female actors came forward accusing director Aku Louhimies subjected them to demeaning tactics and abuse in the work. (...) At the 2018 Jussi Awards during his acceptance speech, after receiving the Audience Award, Louhimies apologized for his behavior and thanked everyone, who had started the process to ´air the movie industry´. He has also responded to the accusations in his Facebook posts."
The quote (originally "Mun virheet eivät ole teidän virheitä.") comes from his Jussi Award speech.
Illustration for The Economist
I made this Illustration for an article in The Economist titled "Yearning to be free? Bad luck" or "America is on track to admit the fewest refugees in four decades" in the online version. Art direction by Mirabel Fawcett.
American Illustration 37
My drawing for Sadhbh Walshe's article in the The New York Times has been SELECTED to appear in the American Illustration 37 annual award hardcover book. Thank you to the jury!
The American Illustration journals in the publishers own words: " … the leading hardcover, juried annuals, offer an expansive view with hundreds of images selected by an outstanding jury from thousands of entries submitted to our two annual competitions. Regarded by creative professionals as the “books of record” and best sources for today’s top image-makers, … "
Illustration for The New York Times
I contributed an illustration to an article written by Kamel Daoud for The New York Times titled "Can It Be Illegal To Leave Your Country?". It was published on Sunday. Art direction by Alex Hunting.
Feature on Behance
Every half a year or so I collect my dark, monochrome illustrations into a project gallery on Behance. I did this for the first time at the beginning of last year. The third installment of this series, that I call "(You Want it) Darker", has been featured in the illustration section of Behance. Thank you to the curators! And welcome to all the visitors that find here that way!
You can see the whole gallery here. The previous installments are here and here.
Puddin'
In 2015 I made drawings for the book cover of Julie Murphy's Dumplin'. Julie has written a companion book for Dumplin' titled Puddin'. You can read more about it here.
I was asked again to draw the two main characters Millie and Callie for the book's cover.
Julie has posted the picture of the completed book above and a few more on her Twitter.
Depicting a book's main characters is always a tricky thing, because you do not want to take away too much from the reader's imagination. This time around I made quite a few sketches to try out different poses and got very valuable input about clothing and other details from Aurora Parlagreco, the art director, and Julie, the author.
Dumplin' managed to be a New York Times #1 bestseller. I wish Julie and the team the best of luck with Puddin'.
Illustrations for DIE ZEIT
These are the illustrations I made for the last issue of DIE ZEIT, for the article Wirtschaftsspionage: Die Schweizer Kavallerie schlägt zurück (paywall)
Illustrations for Cicero
Here are the two illustrations I made for German Cicero magazine. The article was about the sudden influx of thousands of members into the social democratic party of Germany (SPD).
Art direction by Viola Schmieskors.
Published recently
Yesterday an article titled Wirtschaftsspionage: Die Schweizer Kavallerie schlägt zurück (paywall). was published in DIE ZEIT. At least the print version should feature two illustrations of mine.
Today comes out the latest issue of German soccer magazine 11 Freunde for which I drew a portrait of Swiss soccer coach Lucien Favre. And also today on the newsstands is the latest issue of German political magazine Cicero, which should have also two illustrations of mine in it.
I will show all of these drawings here in the near future of course.
SPIEGEL making of
This is a bit of a making of of the SPIEGEL drawing opener. I made this from the layers I used, so it is not exactly representative of the actual process of making the image. I wish in real life the process would be so straight-forward (and fast!) as it appears in this animation.
I make these drawings in ClipStudio Paint, a software that as far as I know, does not have a recording feature. But I also started using Procreate last year, which has a recording feature. I make sure to post a video recording of a complete drawing I make with that in the near future.
Der Spiegel - "Turbodenker und Gedankendiebe"
I made this series of illustrations for this week's issue of German Der SPIEGEL. The article is titled "Turbodenker und Gedankendiebe" ("Turbo-thinkers and Thought-thieves"). It examines the claims of some recent, very successful books that predict societal upheaval caused by the nascent technology of brain modifications, thought reading and artificial intelligence.
The opening image, especially the glasses, is very much inspired by a photograph of the model Twiggy from the 1960s. Unfortunately, I do not know the photographer.
Art direction by Claudia Jeczawitz.
Paper Backups
Most of my work is digital and I try my best to keep backups. Of course illustration is ephemeral by design and still, I feel a bit uneasy about the fact, that all these drawings could just be wiped out at one point along with the couple of hard-drives they are on (the magazines and newspapers they were originally in, gone long before that of course).
So I started a couple of years back to make books of all the final drawings. Usually, about two years worth of illustrations fit into one of these. Here is a flip through the 2015-2016 book.
Illustration for Psykologi
This is the latest illustration I did for Finnish Psykologi magazine. The quote illustrated this time was "If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor." by Desmond Tutu.
Art direction by Johannes Rantapuska.
IBE-UNESCO In Focus
I added the illustration series I did for the International Bureau of Education's In Focus publication to the work section of the site. The IBE is a part of UNESCO, and even predates it. It was the first intergovernmental organization in the field of education and established in 1929.
The graphic design was done by Spanish design studio biografica. They have since then re-grouped as multiple studio.
This is one of the most beautiful publications I have worked on so far. I like the understated layout and typography with attention to detail. I am very happy to have been part of this.
Tobacco Atlas published
For the last half year, I have been working with RadishLab on the sixth edition of the Tobacco Atlas. It is a resource that tries to gather in one place everything policymakers, medical professionals, and anyone interested needs to know about the current state of tobacco consumption and its effects in the world.
I added a selection of the drawings to the work section.
The Tobacco Atlas was published in print, but all the information of the print version was also carefully prepared and adapted for the Tobacco Atlas website. There is a feature, that gives an overview of the current state of tobacco consumption in many of the world's countries. Check out your own.