A Poem for Valentines Day

A special client commissioned me to hand ink this poem for his loved one on Valentines Day. The poem, hand written with a dipping pen and italian calligraphy pigment is so touching, I wanted to share it with you:

I could happily waste a day
in Paperchase
searching for the card
that perfectly captures in paper hearts
how it feels to look upon your rollercoaster grin
when I am within you.
There is no perfume
that smells exactly
completely
absolutely and entirely
of your particular shade of blonde,
the sweet and secret taste of your skin
cannot be found
in any multicoloured flavour combination
of Jelly Bean,
and as far as I can tell
there doesn’t yet grow the rose
whose name
roughly translated from latin
describes the dumb rush of blood to my heart
when you first walked towards me again.
And so
yet again
calendar-trapped and lacking the exact cliché
I depend upon this final redundancy –
my words,
awkward, graceless,
but all that I have to tell is what you already know.
I love you.

Anonymous

Valentines warm up

As you know, V.day is tomorrow so to get you in the mood, here is a little preview of my illustration for our LOVELY mailer from my agency, The Artworks.

Oh la la!

US publishing house Harlequin commissioned me to design some typography for this saucy novel.

Waterstones Prize Winner

I have some really exciting news to share with you today...Artichoke Hearts by first time author Sita Brahmachari has been awarded first prize in Waterstone's Children's Book Awards 2011. This beautiful novel, aimed at 11-14 year olds, explores some delicate and sensitive subjects about life and death as well as culture, friendship and identity. I was also lucky enough to have illustrated the cover and the drawings throughout. So it is an attractive package and a thoroughly good read- whatever your age!

Sometimes it's good to get away from the screen and make. I have a new found respect for screen-printers - it's really hard manual labour! These are my first samples but next week I will be rolling out a batch of these prints - white ink silk-screen on beige-grey A2 with hand painted red hearts. Only a very limited number will be available so if you want to get your hands on one, drop me a line here.

Screen printing

I have just finished designing this poster to screen print on Sunday. Then maybe it will be for sale...

Moonstruck design awards!

I just received an email from my friends at Sandstrom Design, telling me some exciting news from the US. Above is the latest addition to the Moonstruck/Kate Forrester chocolate collection - purple foil, soft touch coated metallic silver ink and embossed high glass white ink. I'm so pleased with the result. Not only that, we have been chosen to win a Rosey Award (Advertising and Design Award Show) for best packaging design of the year in Portland and also have been awarded number 28 in The Dieline's top 100 Package designs of 2010! For those who don't know it, The Dieline is an international packaging design website, showcasing the best packaging design from across the globe. Here are a few of my favourite winning entries from the list:

Cocoa Jars for Moonstruck

Here is some more of my work for Moonstruck Chocolate - yummy!

Tiffany Holiday Lettering

Happy New Year! I want to start this year with a very exciting project I have been working on for Tiffany. Their New York design department asked me to create some hand drawn lettering for the window displays and signage in Japan and London, as well as the flagship store in NYC. Here are just a few pieces from the range, cut from paper and vinyl and even one painted on a sandwich board for their London 'tuck shop!'

Design: Lucy-Ann Bouwman/Sightgeist Design, Inc.
Photography courtesy of: ©2010 Chris Akelian/Pax Whitfield

Have yourself a merry little Christmas!

I am really feeling in the Christmas spirit now after completing another delightful festive job. London based design studio fivefootsix asked me to create some illustrative, hand drawn lettering for a very special poster to send out to their clients this Christmas.