CIA Blog

Central Illustration on Cool Hunting!

CH Contributor Gavin Lucas writes::

Reaching the ripe old age of 30 this year, London-based illustration agency Central Illustration is reaching out to American clients with two limited edition screen prints and a brand new US-focused website to represent a host of its illustration talent stateside.

Busy New York art buyers are notoriously difficult to track down. To get their attention, Ben Cox sent out teaser screen prints designed by London-based Telegramme Studio to a carefully filtered list of art buyers. The charming print combines the quintessentially British cup of tea with a New York-style manhole emitting steam. “We sent out the teaser prints to the people we wanted to meet and followed up with phone calls,” says Cox of the old-school, internet-free approach. He's now got got a busy schedule of New York meetings and believes the city holds the key to increasing American interest in the illustrators his agency supports.

He hopes building face-to-face relationships with US-based clients will establish confidence in the agency's accessibility and ability to provide the level of service one might expect from a local agency.

What the various creative folk who have agreed to meet Cox this week don't know (yet) is that he will leave them with another cute screen print (again by Telegramme) numbered in an edition of 50. In this print, a classic Manhattan is decorated not with a cocktail umbrella, but a good ol' English brolly. Cheers!

http://www.coolhunting.com/design/central-illustration.php

Bar Shorts are Back!

Bar Shorts aka 12Foot6 & Chris Shepherd are back in London for the brand new international showcase of some of the best shorts on the planet at the brilliant The Book Club in London's EC2.

Bringing together some of the best in short film and animation, award-winning directors will include Julia Pott, Will Anderson, Jordan Bruner, Chintis Lundgren, Perrie Murphy, Dog Judo, 12Foot6, Sergi Sanchez a.k.a OMBREBUENO, Duncan Cowles, Monika Forsberg, Lucy Izzard & Laura Coates, Run Wrake, David Shrigley and Will Sweeney.

With funny man Phil O'Shea on hand to keep you amused mid-screenings (we break the screenings into three parts) this Bar Shorts is not to be missed!

Tuesday 21st May in The Book Club basement 19:00-22:00pm, 100-106 Leonard St, London EC2A 4RH

 FREE but register here!

Darren Hopes impresses again!

Fans of the prolific Darren Hopes might be aware that he is a keen writer as well as fantastic illustrator. Indeed our Popshot and New Scientist contributor has just the right sort of weird and wonderful imagination ideally suited to short stories, flash fiction and haunting poetry. Here are two stunning examples of accompanying illustrations to his latest written projects. We saw them, we loved them, we wanted to boast about them. Now we're a bit jealous of him.

Gifted fellow isn't he? Bah humbug, some people get all the talent....

Seeing Red

Dream jobs come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, for some artists it's painting the Sistine shape while for others, like our Tobatron, it's illustrating a Manchester united short film. That's because our master of info-graphics is M.A.D about football, Mancunian football in particular.

Toby has travelled the lands to see his team play and couldn't wait to get stuck into designing the signage in this homage to the boys, directed by film maker Sam Blair.
If you like the colour red and balls click on the sport below and enjoy, if not please avoid and turn on the TV for lunchtime's loose women.

Football!!

Manchester United is more than just a football club. It's a drug, an obsession and for some it's bigger than God. Subscribe to Copa90: http://bit.ly/SPnPcY

Sometimes it's hard being a mom.

Parenting, it's a tricky business, what do you do when your darlings refuse to eat their shredded wheat, replace homework with boyfriends and stroppy behaviour becomes way of life not just for Christmas?

Easy! You turn to Essence Magazine where Julene Harrison has illustrated 'Black Moms Handbook'  -  a guide on dealing with such tricky matters. Clever Julene kept mom in profile and surrounded her with a  jumble of teenage gadgets and bothersome gizmos, we wonder if she feels a headache coming on..?

MH takes on the Iron lady!

Strong women work at CIA and even stronger women illustrate for us. Take MH Jeeves for example, she's been using the bank holiday weekend to pump iron, ponder and paint! We love this resulting illustration and paid MH a penny to hear her thoughts:

"Perhaps the recent funeral of Margaret Thatcher had something to do with the above. The catalogue from which I borrowed these handbags couldn't rise to much in the way of fancy names- no 'Kelly' or 'Birkin' here. Instead, these come under such headings as 'Useful' or 'Capacious', with the odd 'Dainty' and 'Smart' thrown in. Those were the days." (MH).  Well said!

Listen up sleepy heads!

Right you lot, bank holiday is over and it's back to work! Specifically the drawing board! For inspiration look no futher than CIA founder and illustration legend Brian Grimwood, recently intervieweed by AOI's Varoom magazine. Brian discusses illustration then and now with editor John O'Reilly, hoover up some pearls by clicking on the link below! :

https://soundcloud.com/search?q=Brian%20Grimwood

Warning: Sunglasses needed!

Hot off the press! The latest ipad sketches from (annoyingly talented)  Paul Oakley. Yet again he whips up gloriously graphic portraits throughs simple silhouettes, layers of candy coloured slices and fauvist fragments. Surely this spectacled Hoxton Hipster must be chuffed with his poptastic portrait? 

Who's got new shoes? We've got new shoes!

'SHOES ARE BORING : WEAR SNEAKERS!' ...so say those kids at Converse  and we think they're right, there's nothing like a brand new rubber sole to put a spring in your step! And with the nineties back in fashion you can flaunt your grungiest pair all through the summer festival season - hooray!

CIA's Shotopop are also big fans of the cult label so got seriously scissor happy when creative agency Anomaly asked them to dream up a new version of their All Star logo. Here's one version in all it's Hip Hop glory -  good innit'?