Illustration Design for Reading's Whitley Arts Festival

Recently finished illustration/design Commission:

My flyer for 'Constellation,' part of Whitley Arts Festival taking place 25 October 2013 in Reading, England. The art will be printed at A4 and folded in the middle for distribution at A5, thus the sort of split-sided-conscious design to work as a folded object.

Flyer Front:
The front had to combine celestial themes with an actual, usable map of Reading, so that town visitors would be grabbed by the imagery, but could also use the map for real way-finding in the town.

Flyer Back:
The back had to stylistically match the front, but fit all the text about the festival events and venues. The main challenge came in fitting the information about 10 venues, whilst keeping everything both readable and interesting - and making sure that the most important wording stood out.

Flyer Front + Back Together:
Hopefully, the front and back of the flyer work together to form a cohesive piece - both engaging and useful. The final design object is printed at A4 and folded horizontally to make an A5 card. The right side of the flyer 'front' forms the front of the folded card, the wordy 'back' image forms the inside, and the left side of the 'front' forms the back of the folded final.

Project was art directed by Edmund Harcourt of Hogarth Productions for 2013 Whitley Arts Festival.

Nottingham LeftLion Magazine Illustration

Editorial illustration I made for Nottingham's LeftLion Magazine to accompany an article called 'How Soon Is Mao?' featuring an interview with author Rhiannon Jenkins Tsang on her new book 'The Woman Who Lost China.' The book tells a tale surrounding 1949-era China, when the Chinese Republic was being overtaken by Chairman Mao's communist regime.

I also did the page design and typography, which I created to reflect the lettering used in Chinese propaganda art of the time. The article text fills lined background on the page.

You can find the article and artwork in LeftLion Issue #54 (Aug-Sep 2013) here:
http://www.leftlion.co.uk/articles.cfm/title/leftlion-magazine--54/id/6080#.Ugkpd2TwLEU

Many thanks to Jared, the editor of LeftLion, for being a lovely client and general human.

A Rather Beastly Dance

Private illustration commission of dancing animals, created for use as art for a children's nursery.

(See? I can do light and silly, too. I'm only, like, 87% snark and sarcasm. The other 13% is totally sparkles and unicorns.)
Click the picture below to see the image of the beasts dancing larger-ly.

Dance Umbrella 2013 Imagery

I created the illustrations used for promotion of 2013's Dance Umbrella festival, one Europe's leading contemporary dance festivals, taking place this October in locations all over London. Here is the main image, used for the brochure cover and posters across the city:

To download the full brochure, designed by Gorm from Bullet Creative, which utilises my illustrations throughout, click HERE.

Many thanks to Gorm and to Emma Swan, who art-directed the project, along with Dance Umbrella's lovely artistic director, Betsy Gregory. Wonderful clients!

Photos of Dance Umbrella art around London:

(Me + Art)

Music Video: Hurts 'The Road'

Here is a music video made by myself, Thomas Kranabetter, and Paul Pajot for Hurts 'The Road.' Created for and shortlisted for use by Sony Music and Adam Buxton's BUG Videos in a competition in collaboration with Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design. Starring A.J. Dean.

This was the first music video Thomas, Paul, or I had made, and was a truly collaborative effort. The three of us conceptualised, wrote, shot, edited, and animated the video together, though we worked to our various fortes where suited. As such, I was responsible for most of the animation, and Thomas for most of the post-production. This was a massive learning experience, as I've really not done any animation before this, bar some simple little experiments. We had a great time making this video, and we hope you enjoy it!

HURTS - 'THE ROAD' from Rebecca Hendin on Vimeo.

Ultimately, our video was shortlisted as one of the final six videos in the competition after being selected from a list of entries that included over 100 participants. Though we didn't win the competition, we were very happy to be shortlisted, and to be invited to Sony's London headquarters for the awards ceremony, where we got to meet the lovely people from Sony, BUG, and the band, as well as view the videos, and drink plenty of wine!

Here is a video about the competition featuring snippets of our music video and the awards ceremony, as well as bits the other five shortlisted videos:

SONY- HURTS 'Look to the Future' Competition with Central Saint Martins from Carolina Aguirre on Vimeo.

For more information about BUG and the competition, visit BUG's website:
http://www.bugvideos.co.uk/

Foyles Bookshop Charing Cross Road Mural Commission

In early 2013, British bookshop Foyles commissioned ten illustrators including myself to pitch ten illustrations for a large-scale mural to cover the new Foyles building while under reconstruction on central London's Charing Cross Road. Foyles decided to use my illustration. I'm massively stoked to finally be able to reveal the art, as today it was publicly unveiled.

The actual mural is 29 metres by 8.5 metres and will remain on display at 107-109 Charing Cross through May 2014. The art was commissioned in honour of the old Central Saint Martins building being redesigned and turned into the new Foyles flagship store. Artwork jointly commissioned by Foyles Bookshop and Saint Martins Lofts. Project curated by Futurecity.

'All Paths Lead To Foyles'
by Rebecca Hendin

THE MURAL DESIGN

(Click to see larger)

Detail of illustration:

Mural Installation Video
(Shot by a me, rather badly and rather excitedly from the roof of the Phoenix Theatre on Charing Cross Road. Video comes complete with old smartphone bad quality and an overly excited wave to the camera.)
ENJOY.


My Foyles Mural Installation from Rebecca Hendin on Vimeo.


Photos of the mural being unveiled and in action:

 

 

 (Photo 1 courtesy of Steve Speller. Photos 8-13 courtesy of Frantzesco Kangaris/Getty Images Europe) 

CLICK HERE FOR THE PROJECT PRESS RELEASE.

Some press about the mural:
DESIGN WEEK
FUTURECITY BLOG 1
FUTURECITY BLOG 2 
CENTRAL SAINT MARTINS WEBSITE

THE BOOKSELLER WEBSITE
DESPOKE
ATELIER TALLY

ZIMBIO

FAD WEBSITE
ARCHITECTS DATAFILE