A Logo for Maine.

My new logo for the US state of Maine has begun to roll out in the last few weeks, and it's a thrill to see it.

It began in early January 2023 with an email from creative Jordan and VP Neal at Miles Partnership, asking if I'd like to have a stab at updating the logo for the state of Maine. 

Now all I know about Maine can be summed up in three points: 1. Our friend, the poet Andrea Gibson was born there. 2. It's huge and beautiful, and 3. Stephen King!!! 

I said yes and within a couple of weeks was hashing out some proposals. The Miles team had made my job easier by carrying out acres of research with the inhabitants of the state itself. They'd got a stack of feedback on what they liked about the original logo, what they didn't; what living in Maine meant to them, what they thought of when they pictured their home state, and hundreds more answers to in-depth and nuanced, thoughtful questions.

The existing Maine logo looked like this:

The core feedback was that the logo felt "outdated, bland and uninspiring, particularly among Maine visitors". When asked what the new logo should be, the answer that came back most often was "bold" - but with the near-unanimous caveat that it should nod to the traditional nature of Maine.

The findings came to me in an extremely thorough 45-page document which formed the backbone of my thinking. 'Organic, craft, charm, outdoors, nature, wood, trees, breathtaking, rustic, authenticity and sustainability' were other pivotal words which came out of the research.

And that was plenty for me to go on! I had the final logo in mind almost immediately, but presented lots of different looks to the team. After all, sometimes it's just as useful for the client to see what they DON'T want as it is for them to see what they do. All but a couple were analogue, made with ink, crayons, pens and pencil on paper, I was keen to communicate movement with solidness and history; contemporary energy with tradition. 

A still from one of the WIP videos I made while working on the logo.

While wax crayon, used to make a resist version.

Here are a few of those initial suggestions - there were a LOT. I do this because, at this stage, the client could spot ANYTHING in an idea which triggers the final outcome - so I tend to leave very little out; I guess you could call this a brainstorming of sorts:

Preferred options were 'put to research', and after a few weeks a trio was isolated for further tinkering. And by tinkering, I mean the start of the fine-tuning process - without knowing which the final choice might be. This is things like examining the weight of letters, kerning, trying different options on 'e's and capitals, whether on a single line or a little bumpier, like this exploration:

Often at this point the client's curious to see how my very analogue work will look when transformed into vector art (presuming we're working with art that wasn't created digitally to begin with).

This isn't a 'click the button' or 'apply that filter' step - rather, I do this via a series of processes which sensitively and carefully change the format of the piece (from pixel to vector) without changing its nature, preserving its human warmth, detail and idiosyncrasy. Without blowing any of my hand-sketched  trumpets, it's often why people come to me for logos; in a sea of Canva-generated/off-the-shelf/plastic-looking logos they want something very obviously crafted by human hands, but which functions in every format, at every size, and performs in any technical, screen or print environment. I've been doing that a long time, and it's surprising how that need has remained consistent.

Here you can see a close-up of a very carefully vectorised version of this inky option:

This option from the second round of ideas was chosen to get through the third round. Made with simple, freely-drawn capitals in ink on paper, it worked as well in colour as it did greyscale and vector:

And as a partner suggestion to this I made a version created separately with ink and pencil to hint at cut wood, wood and trees being things that emerged as strongly connected to Maine and eliciting affectionate responses in their research group. Here's the raw art before any refinements:

Watch some of the process here:

At this point, I got The Tingles - when you know underneath you've cracked it, and you desperately want the client to agree with you...but you daren't hope too hard, because your experience tells you it can go completely in another direction! But those Tingles came when I played with these layered and coloured versions. Suddenly, I could see this on all the signs, the site, the products, the T shirts...

The team liked it. But there was one more thing. I was aware from the start that when I said the word 'Maine' in my mind, it was actually 'Maine.' - with the full stop. I couldn't stop seeing it this way. I felt it communicated a confidence and pride in this single-syllable name, and suggested that the state was everything you could need - the full stop made it both a name and a statement. 

"Where you from?" 

"Maine."

And so it was added to the next round. Would they go for this punctuatively unusual choice?

The answer was YES. And so, over the course of six months, our logo was born, and final artwork was prepared in myriad formats and al the colours of the new Maine branding guidelines. In its final iteration, the logo is currently working its way over the next few months onto hundreds of products, signs, printed materials and online platforms, but you can see it right away on the visitMaine website, and on these satisfying examples.

To my delight, as well as embracing my 'thing' for the full stop, they're using both the flat-colour version and the textured version together, deploying them in different environments, and that in itself is unusual. I applaud their boldness!

If you live in Maine and you see it about, please take a snapshot and send it to me! "Out in the wild" has become a cliché, but only because the thrill of seeing one's work out doing the job it was created for never gets boring. 

Not for me, anyway.

Thank you to the brilliant team at Miles Partnership in Denver for bringing me on to do this prestigious project, especially VP Neal and Jordan, and thanks to my agency BAreps for their patient, professional cheerleading!

In Spite Of It All, Life Is Beautiful.

For 2022's Christmas project I decided, in a break from 20+ years of massive annual mailings, that I wouldn't post anything - Autumn's Royal Mail overwhelm, the cost of postage, workload and the strikes led me to that decision. Instead, I decided to make an animation instead, and make a very small print run for only those people I could physically hand a card to.

As you may know if you've already seen my posts in December, I chose to illustrate this excellent line by the band Idles; it comes toward the end of their track 'The End', from their album Crawler. The end of the year, with its political, social, economic and emotional landscape almost begging to be served a reminder of this line's sentiment, was the opportunity to deploy the words we've loved since hearing them hurled out from singer Joe Talbot's passionate jaws for the first time.

They were printed in a single colour using one of my tiny Japanese Gocco printers, which use a system that's halfway between a screen print and a rubber stamp. The Gocco can be notoriously difficult to get a good outcome from, but this one came out right first time and was the perfect printing machine for this style of work.

I've been using Goccos for almost 20 years now, and have made myriad projects with them.

A relative of the Riso (it's actually made by Riso) the Gocco is a 1980s toy made for children, also used by adults and now something of a cult item, and is a gnarly, unpredictable and joyful little beast which uses small screens that are exposed with old-fashioned flash bulbs, similar to the kind you'd get with a separate flash unit on a 35mm camera. Battery-operated, the flash bulbs are single-use, as are the screws, so this is robustly not a great environmental choice - but it is obsolete, with consumables hard to find (I collect them!) that would otherwise simply be landfilled - but I've already got an alternative screen solution lined up for when that day comes.

A to-size original is printed by laser printer into white paper, which has to have a nice and deep, even toner application - this can alternatively be created to-scale using the carbon-based Gocco pens you can still find from time to time. A new screen slid into the holder, then placed under the plastic window where pressure is applied to the lid - this houses the batteries - and the popping flash bulbs expose the screen. 

The ink's then applied to the screen one colour at a time and built up once each colour dries.

Those are the basics, anyway. There's quite a bit more to it than that, but I'm going to save the detail for a video I'm making to accompany the still-sealed Gocco I have coming up for sale, if anyone is interested! I already have four...five is getting carried away...

I Gocco'd some envelopes too, and realised with horror that about 10 of our best chums were too far away to deliver by hand (I obviously didn't think it through all the way!) so did post a handful using these brilliant google-eyed fruit and veg stamps I'd saved for a rainy day - they must be 15 years old at least! But not the 1000 or so I would have posted in previous (aka 'pre-Covid') years.

I loved how these turned out, and although I adore Christmas and every speck of glitter associated with it, I sent them to people with myriad religious views and attitudes to the season of Santa, so I made them gently non-Christmassy. For that reason I also printed a heap of extras, to put in the shop, as they carry a simple message of affirmation, without the tyranny of the toxic positivity trotted out from so many memes and home decorations. You can find them at shop.inkymole.com while stocks last.

The Lady Who Paints Legs

Amy Shane is a book reviewer and special events editor for the Independent Voice Newspaper in Missouri, USA, and first came to my attention on Instagram when she recreated one of my book covers...on her own body!

I'm used to seeing my artwork pop up on people's skin via the tattooist's gun - always an unexpected thrill which fills me with admiration and curiosity for the brave human who's done it - but this was different. This was a full-on, body-paint recreation of the cover in all its detail, on a difficult and unusual surface.

Amy's recreated more of my covers since, and as someone will happily talk in public or in front of an audience but doesn't exactly embrace selfie culture let alone photographing anything from the neck down, I wanted to ask her about what she does and why. This blog's normally about what I'm doing, so I thought I would probe someone else about their strange and fascinating hobby!

We, of course have the common ground of the printed book, so I think Amy and I will be in touch for a long time to come.

 She can be found on Instagram as amy_fortheloveofbooks

Please explain what your ‘real-life’ job is, and how you came to be the amazing Amy Who Paints On Her Legs?

My “real-life” job is also book related and why I ended up with an Instagram account in the first place. I am a Professional Book Reviewer, and have a newspaper column called 'For the Love of Books'. I'm nearing on eight years now, so I guess you could say I am always surrounded by books. I started on Instagram because the publishers wanted to see an online presence; honestly, I went in kicking and screaming, afraid I would never figure how it all works. 

After about eight months and totally lost on how to find my own presence, I started thinking about what books really meant to me - when you read an amazing book it’s as if you become part of it, you fall into the story, and well that’s where the idea began. I then thought about making myself part of the story and started researching paints. To be honest, I have never painted before or have taken an art class. I just doodle when I am bored. So, I bought some body paints and started playing, and the rest is history. 

 

My ‘Forest Queen’ was one of the first ‘leg’ paintings that you posted on Instagram. The legs seem an odd choice at first but they’re the natural resting place for a book when reading. Have you painted anywhere else? With or without success?

I originally started on my arm and hand, then my chest. I enjoyed painting on my chest (and matching lipstick to the paint colors) however, I have to paint completely backwards, which at times can be a bit complicated, especially when dealing with words. It took me awhile to realize I could just paint on my legs. My legs also give me space to get in more detail and aren’t a flat surface, which is easier for me to paint on. I still can’t paint on canvas or flat paper, it doesn’t make sense to me either, lol.

Some technicals:

What do you paint with? Do you use both hands?  

I only use Mehron Paradise AQ body paints. After a lot of research, I really value the company and the ingredients they use in their paints. They include:  aloe, cocoa butter, avocado oil, lemon grass, cucumber extract, and vitamin E so they smell and feel wonderful.  

They have also been around for over 90 years, so they have to be doing something right! I also use NYX brand spray primer (Just to get a smooth surface and prep the skin) and matte sealer just as an added protection when I am done.  I just paint with one hand. When it’s nice outside I love painting on my back porch, overlooking the cornfields (where I take pictures for  my stories). My neighbors must truly think I am nuts!

How long do they take you - from x hours to…? 

An average paint takes anywhere from 2 ½ hours to 4 hours, depending on how much detail there is, or how particular I get with myself. And yes, if any of you are wondering: I have gotten so frustrated that I have scraped the whole paint and washed it of before I changed my mind.

How do you wash it off? 

Just plain water. The whole paint washes off in about 10 seconds. Which is why I have to be super careful, and why I add the sealing spray. And yes, I have spilt water on my legs and lost the whole paint. 

What’s the criteria for choosing a book cover to reproduce? 

The cover art is really the first thing I look at, and if it is it something I can attempt to replicate. I can’t do photos, or people. Parts of faces yes, whole people – no way lol. I will also choose a book if I read the book and loved it, or by the author or publisher reaching out. Sometimes I go in themes. Really there is no rhyme or reason to my brain - lol!

Is there one you haven’t done yet that you really want to do? 

There are so many that I want to do, my list grows everyday. One older title I would love to do is 'Splintered' by AG Howard. I loved the series and the cover art. 

Do you have aspirations to create covers yourself? You’re clearly creative, with dexterous skills! 

I honestly never thought about it.  

And how many books do you have lined up to paint at the moment?  

At the present moment I have a list of 13 that are lined up with upcoming release dates,  and 3 already painted ready to be posted.

~ Thanks to Amy for answering my mildly predictable but nosy questions! ~

 

 

A Cautionary Tale...from myself, almost 20 years ago!

I've done a fair bit of digital archiving and backing up recently, and I found this article I wrote for the AOI in 2003. The incident it refers to happened a year or so before, even so; the fee will make your eyes water!

I've posted it here as it made me laugh - at my belligerent, horrified self - but it was a reminder that I still think illustrators need to be bloody careful. This could have happened today - companies will still royally try it on, more often than not these days in the form of a 'competition' in exchange for 'exposure' or those special shiny social media coins - you know, the ones you can't spend in shops! At least I was offered fifty quid! (oof).

I also chuckled at the mention of a faxed brief - I loved my fax machine. Getting one, in 1996, meant I was finally 'on the radar.'

Finally I was tempted to name Company X. But the professional in me still says no. I might be tempted to yield, however, if enough people ask...

Enjoy.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

A cautionary tale to warn the unwary illustrator: Sarah Coleman reveals how even an experienced illustrator can strike a bad deal.

This is the tale of a momentary lapse of reason, a failure to apply the Golden Rules of Illustrating and the burning cheeks that followed.

I'd worked for Company X before, a creative and enthusiastic team with an approach to briefing that wasn't my usual:

      "Here's the theme, do what you like, no real rush, ideas finished or half-developed, invoice us for whatever you think is appropriate when you send the work in. We may or may not pick out bits we want to use and if we do, we'll pay you again to publish it."

With an almost entirely editorial/design background, I was used to a faxed brief (sometimes, if I'm lucky, treated to an art director's 'helpful' sketch at the bottom), a pretty tight spec and a quick deadline. So this was bliss.

I knew that the fee for any use of the work was bad - £50, to be exact. I also knew that this was a company with a turnover of millions. But somehow, the client filtering software in my head had managed to overlook these things. Now don't get me wrong. I knew what I was doing. This was the same Sarah who

was neck-deep in a fierce court battle involving hundreds of thousands of pounds and winning. This was the Sarah who threatened to turn down years of work with a major magazine group unless they deleted the copyright section of their contract: they deleted it. The one who refused a fabulous wrap-around book cover because they just weren't paying enough. But my enthusiasm, and my belief that the exposure would give my portfolio a turbo-injection meant I was able to start work, fully aware that we'd signed no contract. I can even say I was probably a bit flattered by their requests for so much work. (Oh! The shame!)

Now a lot of the work, though well received, was never used. But I wasn't prepared for that which was to show up in every branch up and down the country, flying off the shelves before my very eyes as I went shopping. 

It turned up on my own Christmas presents, wrapped by an unsuspecting friend. 

My students told me they'd seen their mums stockpiling my 'Best Wishes' paper. 

At a quid a sheet, I began to get miffed about imaginary royalties, and much time was spent gently kicking my own shins that I had failed to negotiate some modest royalty or at least a worthy publication fee. I soothed myself with thoughts of how nice it looked in my folio and of how a momentary lapse of reason wouldn't confuse my business head again.

So by the time sample copies of a brand new gift wrap dropped through the door almost a year and a half later, I had long decided I wouldn't work for the company again. The note accompanying the samples asked me to submit 'my invoice for the £50 publication fee.' The horror of what I'd done - or not

done - rendered me incapable of acting on the invoice for several weeks. I almost wrote it off, fearing that my foolishness in not doing things properly would be best kept unacknowledged by both me and the company concerned.

But a quick check in the middle of the night confirmed what I had thought: no contract, no fee agreed, so still open for negotiation - right? Five minutes on the phone to the AOI and I was sufficiently galvanised. They might have stuck it on the shelves already, but there wasn't a thing to say what I could expect to be paid for it.

I was surprisingly anxious about calling the company, but wasn't surprised to learn that the girl I'd worked with was only too aware of how bad the publication fee was.

The designer was helpful but ultimately handcuffed by a fee structure clearly never influenced by anyone involved in the creative side of things.Royalties were completely out of the question. The four-figure sum I quoted as a second-best option was equally hopeless. Eventually, the fee paid for the original A3 board of ideas was doubled retrospectively with the £50 publication fee on top. I explained that although I had loved the organic and relaxed way I had been asked to work, their publication payment was appallingly low. 

In response the designer explained that Company X did appreciate that after a while 'developing illustrators' became 'priced out of their market and moved on to bigger and better things' - which burned a little, having spent the best part of a decade earning a living as an illustrator - but I understood the sub-text: you might be too posh for us now, but there are many more who'll think this is a great deal.

The invoice was re-submitted with a prominently-positioned reminder that the copyright stayed mine and any secondary or future uses were subject to separate and further negotiation. Meanwhile, the burning face is subsiding. You, Company X and I are the only people who know about this, and I'm using home-made paper to wrap my presents this year. 

You of course can get a nice sheet of funky gift wrap from any branch of Company X for a pound. Don't buy it. The real cost to illustrators could be far higher.

~ This article first appeared in the Association of Illustrators Magazine in 2003. ~

Time Capsule

Today we buried a Time Capsule.

The new pond (replacing the knackered old pond) is having its foundations put in, and I had an old, inaccessible hard drive to dispose of. Since we’re doing this job in the most unusual of times, I thought it was a good time to dispose of the HD and write a letter to the future owners of the land at no. 71.

So I wrote a letter to whoever finds it, added a photo of us, packaged it all up and in it went, under the concrete.

When the place is razed in 100 years’ time to make way for a car park (if electric hover-cars will even need a place to park), they’ll find three grinning, slightly tired and bewildered tea-drinking faces staring up at them, plus a hard drive full of pictures by the little business that operated from this exact spot for a few decades, and lived through a historic, epic pandemic.

I’m not sure whether to be chuckling at my own sentimentality or feeling emotional, but right now it’s a mix of the two, and it feels like a soothing thing to do.

It’s impossible for me to visualise anyone else living here but us, but someone will, one day. I hope they have a chuckle at us, too!

(We found some little treasures in the ground too, along with a coal seam from when the coal shed sat above the spot - the house was built in 1893, so there are bound to more treasures as yet uncovered!)

Illustrating 'You Will Be Found', by Benj Pasek & Justin Paul

This was a massive job.

Hence, this is a fairly massive blog.

If you want to read the lot - get the kettle on! And settle in.

~ † ~

When I was first contacted about this job by Sasha at Little, Brown,  I knew nothing about the musical 'Dear Evan Hansen', nor its story; I was ignorant of its success and didn't know anything about its songwriters, Benj Pasek and Justin Paul (though I later found out I knew a lot about their songs!)

I'm not generally a musical fan, and as such, this was totally off my radar.

Unusually for me, I didn't immediately set-to with an hours-long Duck Duck Go search of the musical, its characters or its writers. Knowing only that this was to be a 'the book of the song' - the most famous and well-loved song of this extremely successful Broadway musical - all I was eager to find were as many renditions as possible of it, learn its words, understand its rhythm and cadence. Which I found, and listened to, and watched, over and over.

I had a Wiki-read of the plot, knowing that its themes were large and heavy, and with a seriously hectic timescale in mind, got to work. In a very over-simplified summary, and without issuing spoilers (I've since been to see the musical) Dear Evan Hansen tells the story of a struggling, lonely lad who happens upon a way to put himself in an unexpected position of both power and likability, but only via his genuine desire to soothe the pain of others, and bring comfort. En route he becomes distinctly less likeable as we watch his own needs begin to obscure his original aims in his painfully human search to belong, and a series of well-meant but ill-judged decisions turn good intentions into a slowly-building, inevitable implosion. And it's all played out on the howling screens of social media against the backdrop of high school politics. 

What I did know at the very beginning was that suicide, isolation, loneliness, dishonesty and grief are handled with a steady but surprisingly deft touch in this story, and the song, adopted by people around the globe, appeared to have become something of an anthem; a go-to in the vein of 'Let it Go' or 'Greatest Showman's 'This Is Me' from 'The Greatest Showman', which Benj and Justin wrote (along with all its other songs - and they also wrote them for 'La La Land', and 'Trolls', which I love).

30-something illustrations plus cover were all to be delivered to a crazy schedule. Over 100 pieces of individual artwork were made for this book, and this blog is a summary of the processes I went through to develop the look and narrative for it.

What had brought Little, Brown to me were the illustrations I'd done a couple of years previously for Andrea Gibson's 'Take Me With You', tiny, all-ink pieces created in response to individual lines taken from Andrea's huge poetry archive. This was the one that really caught Benj and Justin's attention:

Maybe it was the fact that it was a piano that drew them in; maybe the sadness of the dead plant with the tuning fork stuffed in it. But it gave me something to start with.

As I started to make suggested pieces for the book in order to establish its vibe and voice, I began to feel like they should be a little more expressive, and loose. This wasn't just me inventing an excuse to throw ink around for the next five months (although, that's exactly what I did end up doing!), more a question of following where my nose took me, if you know what I mean.

These early offerings were met positively, created in black and grey, with the colour scheme to be dictated by the strong Dear Evan Hansen (hereafter referred to as DEH) branding. We tried to work out the cover at the same time as the first few spreads, the cover always being the most urgently needed - with all the art created with inks on A2 and A3 paper, using brushes, dip pens, monoprinting, bleach, pencil and fineliner.

This very early spread eventually evolved into its final version, though quite changed:

A little collage came really naturally to these early illustrations, tearing through paper, cutting holes for absence and missing people:

At the same time as establishing a look for the inside, we had to move fast on the cover. It needed to be strong and simple, and I made many versions - we knew the figure was important, we knew the sky was important (Evan is very lost at the start), and we knew the title had to take centre stage.

We *also* suspected there might be gold...well, I did, and thus made sure the roughs said so (in the end, it was an emboss and a spot varnish - not bad, not bad!)

Evan's isolation was key, so the figure became a repeated motif throughout - sometimes alone, sometimes with company. Note the early spellings of Benj's name, before I'd got to grips with it!

The tree for the cover, which also ended up appearing many times inside, was made with four shades of blue ink, and a few shapes were auditioned:

And here's the final cover. This is the paper wraparound, with the addition of a healthy sprinkle of ink blots.

While the cover was being sorted, I had to crack on with the first few spreads (the whole thing was a creative juggling act!) Collage came very naturally, as it allowed for layering and organic experimentation, as in the early spread for this line of the song, our little person pondering whether they can overcome that challenging thing ahead of them, the enormity of the mountain making them feel tiny.

The notion of loneliness is pivotal to the musical, and runs through the pages of the book. There were many ways I wanted to show it. This spread wasn't used, but it speaks to the idea that you can be surrounded by people, but still feel totally alone - or indeed that you want all those well meaning people to go away.

I really wanted all these little all-inclusive faces to stay - they weren't used, but they did come back to the final pages in a different form:

I wanted these faces to be suggestive of thumb prints, for their obvious power to symbolise individuality; expressions are mixed, some somewhat unsure, some quietly comfortable, some sad:

Solving the problem of the 'disappearing' lines was tricky. It was terribly easy to go literal on these lines. So my process tends to be exactly that - if there's an obvious or literal solution, I do it; execute those ideas, get them 'exorcised' and onto the paper. Having got them out of my system I can then move on from them - or, as often happens, end up wandering back to them, realising that they aren't actually as visually literal as perhaps I thought they were.

This person has cut themselves from the background; a maelstrom of swirling dark ink strokes and rain:

This is how it looks in the book (less of an 'Alien life form'!)

Disappearance could as easily have been communicated through lettering; here the dyes in the ink decrease with increased watering-down. The footsteps were maybe a touch too 'signposty', so they were removed.

Other spreads were subject to the same kind of see-sawing between literal and pictorial. In this rough sketch our little figure - no particular gender, no particular age - is directing the rain away from them. Let it pour! I've got my (virtual) brolly!

That spread must have had five or six iterations before it eventually became this - a huge surprise, as I didn't think for a minute the chaps would go for it. But they loved its writhing movement and chaos!

I'm happy about that of course, because I was having the time of my life quite literally hurling ink at paper, and working in the most free and abstract way a lot of the time. 

Some spreads took a lot of working out and were subject to much e-wrangling - with one in particular taking us right past deadline and into hours before print cut-off. This one saw many sketches - one of my favourite rejects, the windows in this old and tired but welcoming house encourage our little person up the steep, charcoal hill to where the light is:

This version put them on a gnarly sea:

And this one is fairly close to the version that went into the book; the fragile growth of a tiny plant.

Since the song was in my head for the whole of the five months I worked on this, I could (and still can) recite every line in my sleep. This pair of lines was subject to exactly the 'go literal then work outwards' method; starting with a person in the self-preserving foetal position, broken into pieces courtesy of ink scored though with bleach lines (though the character itself is too alien-like):

Again I played with a type-based treatment for this too - slicing the word through with scalpelled, inked paper:

This is very close to the final book version. Large brushed letters eat into the solid background, with bleach ink blots cutting further into it:

I loved that this one utilised one of my big-galaxy drawings, a huge moon behind the little person holding up 'U' (you...)

This is a first-week sketch vs the final book version:

I could honestly go on talking about the process; it was enormously satisfying and a serious challenge at times, both in terms of time pressure and ticking all the delicately-balanced boxes that illustrating these lyrics and their themes demanded. But I can't; this blog would just go on and on.

By the time we'd finished the job though, I'd generated a pile of over 100 pieces of individual art, with backgrounds, washes, textures, experiments on top. In the end the only way to really see this book is to buy the book! With over 30 spreads and myriad pieces of artwork hidden elsewhere inside, it really is too much to blog here. And I like to leave some surprises. But here are some of my favourite details, and some of the 'inkounters' I had on the way.

This is the hardback cover which sits beneath the paper wrap:

These endpapers were a total triumph - INK!

I love the drama in this one. I kept being encouraged to go more minimal - which was a strange dilemma for someone who naturally likes to fill a page with detail, but also feels completely at home with the simplicity of a single brush-stroked letter. I think there's a feeling that when I'm 'on the clock', I need to be giving "value for money" by totally filling an image - something which I said to Sasha, Little, Brown's art director on this book, who promptly laughed at the notion!

And finally: to celebrate the release of 'You Will Be Found', I had my nails painted with Evan's shirt stripes, a starry sky from the book, and of course: that now-legendary line.

Thank you to Benj, Justin, Sasha and Farrin, and to Leigh from whom I was regularly quarantined at my desk for months on end, my hands a blur of blue ink, sheets of paper, emails and mess piling up.