Illustration, Entertainment and the Age of Distraction – Free Event

Thursday 14 June, 18.30
The Foyles Gallery, Third Floor, 113-119 Charing Cross Road, London, WC2H 0EB

In an era of social networking, texting and ‘always-on’ smartphone culture, the way we access and consume our entertainment is rapidly evolving. To launch Varoom issue 18: The Entertainment Issue, at Foyle’s Bookshop in London, three distinguished panellists from different areas of the industry will discuss illustration work that in the age of ‘fast food’ media has taken the idea of entertainment in bold new directions. The debate is chaired by Varoom’s editor, John O’Reilly.

The panellists are: 

Emma Hayley is Director of SelfMadeHero, a new independent publishing company specialising in original graphic novels, who aims “to create a publishing house relevant in the 21st century, developing new inspirational concepts and publishing across multi-platforms.” SelfMadeHero’s latest books include a version of Freud’s classic case study, The Wolf Man, and When David Lost His Voice, a personal account of a family dealing with a father’s battle with cancer.

Director Grant Orchard’s animated short film ‘Morning Stroll’ received both Oscar and BAFTA nominations, and won the Jury Prize at Sundance. This hugely successful interpretation of a story from a collection edited by Paul Auster about a chicken going for a walk, was entirely self-funded by Studio AKA, an animation production company whose clients include Guinness, BBC, and Lloyds TSB.

With its five different covers representing each of the Best Film nominees, the BAFTA Film Awards 2011 brochure is now a highly desirable and collectible item. Adam Simpson who created the iconic images talks about the project’s intense deadlines and how to slow down and define a movie in a still, single image.

Admission free, pre-booking required, please email events@foyles.co.uk to book.

Jo Davies interviews a major American talent

“I established early on the kind of work I wanted to do. The effect has been that the people who call me now usually want the kind of work I’d be likely to do on my own.”

The use of metaphor within illustration is now commonplace.  Many complex, contentious or banal concepts are brought to life through their visual interpretation within editorial contexts where dense pages of text are supported by intelligent sometimes challenging imagery.  There are several illustrators, whose work engineered a significant shift in practice, establishing the power of the image as a distinct tool for communicating ideas.  Brad Holland must be recognised as one of these pioneers.  When he arrived in New York in the 1970’s his approach to creating imagery was radical.  The notion that an illustrator was merely an instrument to technically render an art director’s idea was extant.

Resilient to the resistance he encountered Brad succeeded in finding avenues for his work contributing a redefinition of the subject and demonstrating the right of the illustrator to retain intellectual autonomy. “One of the things I like about working in print is that you’re always being confronted with new subjects; news events compel you to think about things happening in the world.  If you have opinions about life and you’re inclined to express yourself, either in writing or drawing or something else, I don’t see why you should have to channel someone else’s point of view into your work.”

What is distinctive about the approach Brad brings to his work is the specific relationships and function it fulfils in relation to text. Although editors control the content of newspapers and magazines, delegating through art directors to achieve their personal dimension, Brad has steadfastly refused commissions which have diluted his own authorial power as an illustrator. Through establishing this stance early in his career he has attracted clients who have respected this position and been receptive to his conceptual intervention.

“I always work with the text I’ve been assigned but my ideas don’t necessarily come from it.  When I first worked with Harrison Salisbury at the New York Times I said ‘imagine you’ve locked the writer in one room and me in another and given us both the same assignment. The writer will give you an article, I’ll give you a picture; you marry the two.’ Their original assumption, that the art should just reinforce the text, was an idea whose time I thought had come and gone.”­

Most clients require preliminary drawings before committing to an idea but this can dull the creative process as well as forcing an image to be overly explicit to ensure the editor can access it more immediately.  This can impede the evolution that happens during the process of producing artwork.

Early in his career Brad drew many visuals for himself building the foundations before starting work on the finished piece.  One of the reasons he enjoys working with acrylic is the flexibility and freedom it now affords and because of this he has established a more organic approach, starting a piece and “messing with it” until it becomes right. “When I was young I invested a lot of energy in my preliminary sketches. They were often so completely realised as drawings that when I painted them, the finished pictures were nothing more than coloured drawings. That was fine but coloured drawings just seemed too self-contained for the images I had in my head. They didn’t pack the emotional punch I was looking for. So ever since, whenever I do a sketch, I tend to leave something unresolved about it, something unfinished. That leaves room for the colour to take over where the drawing leaves off.”

He favours the clients who invest complete authority in him to create images unimpeded.  In the early stages of his career his was commissioned by Playboy and as he says, “They never knew what they were getting until it arrived each month.”  He cites a “perfect” commission to produce a series of 28 images around the theme of fish for a casino. Although specific about the scale of the pieces and deadline the client gave almost complete freedom to exercise creative and intellectual integrity within the project.

It is clear that Brad works for himself and his methodologies are similar to those painters who may be classified as fine artists.  Early in his career he was repeatedly told, despite his immediate and repeated success, that he was un-commercial. In common with many fine artists he has always been entrepreneurial finding avenues for his ideas. “My idea is to come up with the work I want to do and then find the market for it.   I’ve never seen the virtue of finding what the market wants and then trying to supply it.  The market doesn’t know what it wants.  Art isn’t a commodity. It’s the result of a vision and vision has to start with an artist.”

For this reason he considers the definition and labelling of illustrators a constricted one.  He admires Graham Greene, a literary polymath, who worked fluidly within a broad literary field unfettered by boundaries. He says of his own beginnings as a ‘commercial’ artist’, “I’d rather be a fugitive than have art directors tie me down to one thing. I’ve always assumed my voice would have many octaves. The business was constrained by style but I was always happiest being un-caged.”

Anchored by a prodigious ability to draw and to think, Brad has been open and varied in his use of media, cross hatching with pen and ink, gritty pastel drawings as well as acrylic paintings. Of the fluctuating styles in the illustration markets which have punctuated the decades of his career he says, “I’ve never kept up with trends.  If I notice a trend, my inclination is to go in the opposite direction.”

He has over the course of time been prolific both attracting and declining high profile clients internationally across a spectrum of areas beyond editorial work.  His visual language has been appropriated and a rash of ‘Brad Holland clones’ have yielded their clichés. Ubiquitously some are prepared to be the conduit for an art directors idea where Brad has consistently refused.  Few if any of these imitators exercise the sincerity of intention of the original.  He is clear that commercial practices don’t impede or compromise his vision.

“I love the work I do. Since I was 17 I’ve been paid to do pictures I’d have done anyway. I hate deadlines but I find them useful. They concentrate your attention. They force you not to dither. You don’t always do your best work under pressure, but you can always do your best to do your best. And – if a picture needs to be reworked later, you can always do that too.”

Brad recalls the incident of a client who wanted to commission illustrations for an advertising campaign. When Brad refused to ‘render’ the art director’s ideas he was offered a challenge.  A Brad Holland ‘imitator’ was brought in to fulfil the brief as originally proposed.  Brad was given carte blanche to interpret the brief according to his own concepts.  The client was given the ultimate choice. Brad’s work was chosen.

He developed an external attitude to himself when he was a child, an outside persona who he called upon for judgement.  He called this “thirty-year-old Brad” and recalls, “I always needed someone I could turn to for advice, but there was nobody around my little town I could count on. So I made somebody up. I tried to imagine myself as a thirty year old. That seemed to do the trick. I’d always ask myself if the things that mattered to me as a teenager would matter when I was 30. As a rule the answer was no. So thirty-year-old Brad kept his eye on the horizon while I navigated the bumps in the road. Then, after I turned thirty, I realised that that state of mind would be as useful leaving thirty as it had been approaching it.”

The bumps in the road, recently, threaten the journeys of all illustrators and Brad has devoted substantial energy to fighting the changes to copyright which challenge ownership of intellectual property, undermining the fee structure for the entire profession.  This crusade seems a natural extension of the work of a man who has operated within a political arena and demonstrated the value of imagery to pack a punch.

Brad Holland was born in Michigan USA and has lived and worked in New York since 1967 He has won more awards presented by the New York Society of Illustrators than any other illustrator in its history. In 2005 he was elected to the NYSI Hall of Fame. He has been described as, “the most important illustrator in American today.”

Jo Davies is an illustrator and writer, co-author of Making Great Illustration A&C BLack, and Associate Professor of Illustration at Plymouth University

Observations on recent projects:

Illustrator and animator Kyle Bean was asked to create and animate the cover for Wallpaper* magazine’s Milan Preview issue.

What was the brief?

The Art Director of Wallpaper* approached me with a concept for the cover of their annual ‘Milan Preview’ issue of the magazine. Each year Wallpaper* have an extensive feature on Milan Design Week, often including specific events which they themselves are doing as part of the annual event. The concept for the cover was to show a warehouse scene, representing the fact that the magazine themselves had been given exclusive access to the work that will be on show at the Design festival.

Have you worked with this Art Director/Agency before? 

I have worked with Wallpaper* on a few occasions over the last year or two. Meirion Pritchard, the Art director actually commissioned me to create another cover for them last year which was for the 2011 Design Awards. I had made some bespoke paper trophies to represent each of the categories of the awards. Since then I have created some sets for them and also some portraits made from pencil shavings for the latest ‘Handmade Issue’. The portraits were particularly fun as I was given free reign to execute them how I wanted to. However, I do love the balance, and being given a tighter brief can also be very rewarding. The interesting challenge that I always face with my commissions for Wallpaper* is that I am always asked to film or animate the things that I make for them too. Ultimately, this is so that they have interesting and unique content that is suitable for the iPad version of the publication. So when I’m designing and making the objects and sets, I am also having to plan how it is going to move. It is a challenge which I very much enjoy and has often resulted in some interesting time-lapse footage and indeed stop-frame animation as in my latest piece for the magazine. I see this transition to film and animation becoming a much bigger part of illustrators and photographers work in the future. It seems to me that so many clients would like, and indeed sometimes require it now.

How did you arrive at the idea and what materials did you use? 

After some discussion around the concept of a warehouse setting, I thought it would be a nice idea to create it on a miniature scale, having a model sized fork-lift truck which interacts with small scale boxes. I made this decision partly due to my interest in crafting small scale sets, but also to add a level of humour and character to the whole image. Initially, I had reservations that having a warehouse might look a little too serious and dark for my taste, but by making the truck out of wood and crafting and finishing it myself, it had a natural warmth to it, whilst still looking dramatic and graphic especially with the lighting. I worked with a brilliant photographer called Sam Hofman who I have worked with on a few projects. I looked at many images of warehouses as part of my warehouse research, but fairly early on in the design process the decision was made to keep the colour palette related to the Italian flag, rather than the realistic brown/beige depiction of cardboard boxes and pallets in a warehouse.

Drafts? Any challenges, rethinking in the execution?

There were a few stages in the design. The first stage was working out a good composition. We also had to consider that we had to include models of some of the furniture in the cover. We decided that a good solution would be to have the furniture stacked on and around the boxes, so the boxes act as kind of plinths. The real challenge was in re-creating the furniture on a miniature scale. It was important for this project that the furniture looked just like the real full-scale version, only that they were a scaled down version made of different materials. I used a range of materials to get the right shapes including wood, milk bottles, string, paper, fimo and wire. One of the other challenges we had when it came to the shoot is that we had to also animate the cover. For this we switched cameras from a Hassleblad to a Canon 5D. We did this so that we could use the animation software to help us with the stop-frame. There were a few complications by doing this, and keeping both the still and video version looking similar enough to each other, but generally I am really pleased with the outcome.

What is the one thing you are happiest about in the work?

On reflection, I’m particularly pleased with the lengths we went to get the animation looking really special. It is only a short animation, but for me it really shows the work that went into making the piece. Sam and I had some great help from an animator and a specialist in After Effects and it was lovely to collaborate with people who were really passionate about animation. It was so satisfying for us to see this image that we had been developing suddenly come to life.

View more of Kyle’s work here.

View more of Sam Hofman’s work here.

Observations on recent projects:

Simon Spilsbury (right) and Tim Vyner (left) were asked to illustrate the Bath Half Marathon in March 2012, using iPads and live animations.

What was the brief?

Simon. I was initially briefed by design agency Northbank to create a series of line and colour drawings to accompany their brand redesign on all printed advertising collateral. These had to cover the whole demographic gamut of runners from elite to fun run in a clean, modern style that reflected the momentum of the event.

Tim. My brief was ‘draw live and capture the Half Marathon’.

Simon Spilsbury

Who generated the idea of the live animation?

Simon. The live draw was something I planted in the organiser’s heads. I’ve been doing a lot of it recently in various forms and making timelapse or animated films of the events which helped to sway them. Also, with the BBC screens already present it provided an easy platform to entertain the crowd by invading the normally repetitive footage.

Tim. Simon Spilsbury created the ‘look’ of the 2012 Bath Half. He asked me to take part in a day of drawing while the event took place.

Tim Vyner

Have you worked with this Art Director/Agency before?

Simon. I work out of Bath in the West Country as do Northbank, so it made sense to go local.

Tim. I have worked with Simon on a couple of ‘live draw’ events now: Illuminate Bath and .XML at the Assembly Rooms. Both presented us with an opportunity to project our drawings all over the walls of Bath’s historic buildings.

Have you worked with the iPad before?

Simon. We’ve done a couple, but the Brushes program is proving irresistible, and very useful and effective at this kind of event which means we’ll be doing a lot more. We’ve just completed another event for X Media Lab at the Bath Conference where we wi-fi’d instant imagery onto the interior of one of Bath’s finest buildings – The Assembly Rooms – throughout the day’s proceedings, giving a creative spark to what would otherwise have been very screen-based.

Tim. I have worked as a reportage illustrator for many years and always resisted the temptation to imitate what I do on paper on a screen. I am fiercely protective of the authenticity of pen or paint on paper. However, the iPad is simply the ultimate sketchbook. It also provides the opportunity to publish drawings almost as they are drawn.

Was it nerve racking drawing in front of a large crowd?

Simon. The performance side of drawing is not something that affects me in a negative way, I see it as the perfect platform to present your drawing. You get to create your work and punters get to watch.

Tim. I have worked in front of crowds before. It does provide an adrenalin rush, but you have to control your emotions. Strangely, drawing in public with an iPad makes you appear more invisible that with pen and paper. (I think most people think you are checking emails from work).

Live Draw – Bath Half from Simon Spilsbury on Vimeo.

What is the one thing you are happiest about in the work?

Simon. The fact that Brushes records every state and allows you to animate the layers in situ makes for an experimental and exciting show. After I’d completed each drawing the kids present were shouting at me to ‘make it move’.

Tim. Immediacy and the ability to play back the ‘actions’ of the drawing as a stop frame animation. Projectors mean your drawings are displayed on a large scale ’live’ as you make them to an audience who are participating in the event as it happens.

View more of Simon’s work here.

View more of Tim’s work here.

Observations on recent projects:

Emma Houlston was commissioned by fashion brand Mulberry to create a hairy monster character which ended up all over their London Fashion Week catwalk show for Autumn 2012.

What was the brief?

To create a furry bunch of illustrated monsters for Mulberry as part of their theme for Autumn/ Winter 2012 (which have featured some shaggy coats and animal prints as part of their collection on the catwalk at London Fashion Week).

Have you worked with this orgnisation before?
I’d already done some smaller, internal illustrations for Mulberry. This time around they had initially commissioned me to do an illustration for their London Fashion Week tote bag, but whilst in the midst of starting that project, the designer I was working with saw some illustrated monsters on my website (some personal work) and subsequently threw me in the mix to pitch for the whole seasons illustrations.

It was wonderful to win the job and get the chance to be involved in such a great body of work with a great English brand like Mulberry.

How did you arrive at the idea and what materials did you use?

When we initially sat down to discuss the job in Mulberry HQ, the team explained how the illustrations would be the starting point of a whole magical process, with the monsters appearing in all sorts of contexts; becoming giant models for fashion week, appearing on bags, cushions, labels and all sorts of wonderful things. I had to bear this all in mind when creating the illustrations and we all felt that they should be very hairy but not too scary.

I usually draw in pen (this occasion being no exception) and I have a very hand rendered style which suited the look for this job.

The Mulberry season of bags and clothes was inspired by Maurice Sendak’s Where The Wild Thing Are and to get myself absorbed into the mood of the season, I revisited the book, watched the film by Spike Jonze and dived back into some of other classic British children’s books of the same era with a similar theme such as David McGee’s Not Now Bernard and Judith Kerr’s The Tiger Who Came To Tea. I’ve also got a nice collection of nature books at hand and I think all of the monsters are quite possibly the distant cousins of a yak.

Drafts or challenges?

As always, with the illustration jobs I tend to do, there was a challenge with a tight deadline at each stage of the project. Due to the variety of applications and formats in which the illustrations appear, I had the added challenge of converting all the hand rendering into vectors too.

What is the one thing you are happiest about in the work?

I love working in a collaborative sense and I had the pleasure of seeing Mulberry take the illustrations I’d created and run with them in an awesome variety of applications and scale. At their London Fashion Week show at Claridges I was blown away to see it all in one space and I can’t wait till the monsters hit the shops in the Autumn this year!

See more of Emma’s work here

Emma with her carved creation. Photograph by Carlo Draisci

Varoom 16 extract

Jimmy Turrell is a London-based illustrator. He combines collage, drawing, digital work, screenprinting and painting. His clients to date include Nike, Channel 4, MTV, The Guardian, The New York Times, and Colette.

What was your brief?

To create the artwork and video for the band Yellowire. The general concept was based around the themes of introspection and the power of unity and family.

This project involved different components, print and animation?

Yes. We wanted to make a music video where every single frame had been silkscreened or lasercut onto new and found materials including acetate, hardback book covers and vintage maps and then rostrum photographed, like a traditional cartoon.

How did you adapt your style to this new work?

Jimmy Turrell: This was a real departure for me and the first bit of stop frame I’ve worked on. As an illustrator I’m used to working alone so to work as part of a team for once was really great. I worked with video director Marcus Lyall on the project and he really helped me adapt. He basically directed the mechanics of the project and I art directed it.

How much material did you have to source for this extensive work? 

Quite a lot really – I bought a job lot of 1000 books from eBay (six palettes turned up outside my house – much to my girlfriends disdain) and then I started to cherry pick the best imagery from them and used most of the other pages of text to print the video on top of. Everything from 1930s gardening books, vintage cross stitch books, and personal scrapbooks of the Swedish Royal Family went into the mix for the cover and the video. Plus I finally got to print onto lot of material that I’d stored up in the studio for ages. The whole process was very cathartic.

Varoom 16 cover artwork by George Hardie Purchase here

DIGITAL ANIMATION

It turns out that all those hours spent with a HB pencil was the perfect training for our all-singing and dancing digital media. Liz Farrelly talks to Fred Deakin and Miles Donovan, and discovers why clients love down and dirty animation.

WALKABOUT

With clients such as The Guardian and Nike, Mimi Leung is a successful illustrator. She is currently a Sexual Assault Worker working for an Aboriginal-owned NGO. She reflects on her experience and reveals how her creative skills have helped her in her new role.

THE CLOTH

Beyond design and illustration aficionados, 1980s design group The Cloth are little known. Yet they featured on some of the best-selling record sleeves and fashions of all time. Ian Massey and Andrew Dineley get the inside story on the band who improvised a way of working across fashion, textiles, painting, illustration and graphic design.

THE ART OF THE SPEECH BALLOON

The speech and thought balloon is more than a visual convention. Artist Lizzie Ridout looks at the history of the speech balloon and at some of the masters of the form.

UP FRONT 

Paul Davis continues his regular column A Life In Illustration where he tells a story of his thought-provoking bus journey to see a potential client. Marian Bantjes presents a map of an Isle of Knowledge, with all the ups and downs of a terrain all illustrators are familiar with.

Contributing Editors:

Derek BRAZELL: Reportage

Martin COLYER: Cartoons – Martin selects work from catoonists such as Steve Way’s visual journal The Loneliness Of The Long Distance Cartoonist, and Tom Gauld’s weekly cartoons for the letters of the Saturday Guardian Review. 

David DOWNTON: Fashion

Liz FARRELLY: Personal work

Nat HUNTER: Digital

Jeremy LESLIE: magazines

John LOWE: Graphic novels

Martin SALISBURY: Children’s Books

Cover illustration created for Varoom by Christoph Niemann Purchase here

FEATURED IN THIS ISSUE:

LACKING VISION

As illustration and design departments in England prepare for an unprecedented withdrawal of government funding, Des McCannon uncovers the deep-rooted cultural prejudices shaping education, and asks whether traditional text-based educational practices are relevant for an image-based culture.

HOW TO DO HOW TO FILMS

Over a decade of design AIRSIDE has become known for its unique and playful illustrations and animations for major brands, and they are now ready to share a guide on How To Make a How To Film.

“WHERE’S THE WOOKIE?” LESSONS FROM ANGOULÊME

A comics festival with no one dressed as Chewbacca? A report from the comics convention that has transformed a small French town into a commercial hub for professional illustrators and comic book artists.

THE OUTSIDERS

Digital illustration is fast changing how illustration is curated, analysed and distributed. Three pioneers comment on illustration’s new body of knowledge.

BARDFIELD BEACON

Some immensely talented female artists and illustrators are underappreciated and often seem to slip through the gaps of the canon of illustration. Martin Salisbury looks at the life and work of Sheila Robinson, a woman whose work includes book illustration, advertising, design, printmaking, mural painting and even the design of pleasure beach amusements.

FINDING THE FRAME

The frame isn’t just the line the illustrator draws to define the edge of the picture. Two recent shows by Norman Rockwell and John Stezaker reveal what happens when the frame becomes part of the picture.

URBAN LEGENDS

From age-old fairy tales to contemporary maps that tell stories, illustration has always captured a deeper sense of place. Derek Bainton explores how various illustrators have depicted issues such as civilization, pleasure and homelessness in modern urban living.

UP FRONT

Paul Davis continues his regular column A Life In Illustration where he tells a story of his thought-provoking bus journey to see a potential client. Marian Bantjes presents a map of an Isle of Knowledge, with all the ups and downs of a terrain all illustrators are familiar with.

Nicholas Blincoe explores the challenge taken on by design agency Pentagram and the illustrators they commissioned to create a set of covers for Vladimir Nabokov’s books. John O’Reilly, in A Tale of 3 Cities, overviews three very different books by Jon McNaught, Christian Montenegro and William Goldsmith to discover the tools illustrators are using to create imaginary worlds.

VaroomLab was established to provide an international platform for exchange and discussion of ideas around the broad subject of illustration.

Current University partners partners:

Birmingham Institute of Art and Design

Manchester School of Art

Plymouth University

SCAD

Swansea Metropolitan University

Varoom 14 cover artwork by Andrio Abero

FEATURED IN THIS ISSUE:

THE SIGNIFICANT OTHER Five illustrators respond to the idea of the Significant Other, visualising a piece of work that has knowingly of unknowingly shaped their illustration. David Foldvari, Anna Higgie, Mick Wiggins, Edwina White and Daniel Pudles take part.

A FINE ROMANCE In a genre not known for subtlety, Romance fiction has inspired extraordinary illustration. Barbara Cartland’s not-so-hidden-love was the work of great fashion illustrator Francis Marshall. Hannah Rollings, whose work plays with the codes of Romance, also contributes.

THE SCRIBBLER, THE PHOTOGRAPHER & THE CELTIC PUNK Illustrator W. John Hewitt reflects on his time on the road with photographer Steve Pyke, documenting legendary folk-punk group The Pogues. How did it go?

THE BIBLIOPHILE Audrey Niffenegger is not only the best-selling author of a novel turned major Hollywood film, The Time Travelers Wife. She’s an illustrator and maker of artist’s books with roots in Chicago’s rich heritage of artist bookmakers.

THE AESTHETICS OF A RELATIONSHIP Great illustration comes out of the relationship between art director and illustrator, but what are the pitfalls and what makes it work? Adrian Shaugnessy investigates.

MARIAN BANTJES AND PAUL DAVIS Varoom’s two columnists reflect on relationships.

MASH Is the cover for Mark Ronson’s new album a Camel or a Robert Altman movie?

ILLUMINATIONS Allen Ginsburg’s definitive 1950s beat poem Howl has been adapted for the cinema, with illustrator Eric Drooker creating the animations. He talks about Ginsburg, the metropolis, and the challenge of visualising a ‘stream of consciousness’

THINKING WITH PICTURES Lectures, presentations, briefings have all fallen under the curse of Powerpoint and bullet-point thinking. Chris Hatherill looks at two institutions using illustration to connect ideas in very different ways.

WORDS AS IMAGE AND OBJECT Sam Winston uses words and data as materials for his work. Esther Dudley reflects on a recent lecture by Winston.

UNCHARTED OCEANS OF THE FUTURE Scientists use illustrators to provide images, graphs and data visualisations of research conclusions. But, argues Tom Barwick, what if Scientists and Illustrators collaborated earlier in the research process?

LIKENESS In the age of camera phones, social networking and image sharing sites, our visual landscape is flush with images, likenesses of ourselves and others. John O’Reilly explores the art of likeness with Lola Dupre and John-Paul Thurlow.

MOTHERHOOD Becoming a mother creates a new relationship, not only with a child, but with a woman’s old sense of self. Victoria Squire’s work explores this journey of the self

FIVE 21st CENTURY LESSONS IN PUNKS RELATIONSHIP TO DESIGN AND PRINT Paul Burgess visits the Lo ud Flash: Punk on Paper exhibition and extracts five important lessons for any aspiring punk

I WISH I’D DONE THIS Babette Cole proposes the need for more ‘madness’ in children’s books

PLUS Graduate work from the Varoom Lab college members