Cover design for Wingate University (USA) Alumni Magazine. The brief was to represent how students from the university excel despite sometimes coming from challenging circumstances or families without a previous academic history. A project that was a joy to work on and which resonated with my own experiences in Higher Education.

Cover and interior illustrations for Luckbox Feb/March issue on Big Pharma. The cover image deals with a new method of supplying prescription drugs to patients at cheaper prices by disrupting the current supply chain. This was devised by Mark Cuban, an American billionaire entrepreneur, television personality, and media proprietor who also owns the Dallas Mavericks Basketball Team, and who features on the cover. Also included below these images you can see the original photograph of Mark Cuban that I distressed to use on the cover design and a few images of my nerdy archive of Old Paper.

A little poster of some of the things I love.

Editorial illustration in response to food article. Cover and interior image.

Image inspired by tin toys of the 1950s and their packaging.

Album cover for Iconoclast 2, film and TV soundtrack music.

Cover and interior illustration for Luckbox Auto petrol vs electric edition.

Interior full-page and cover illustrations for Luckbox magazine. A prediction machine for 2024, featuring a look forward into A.I. , Predictive Health, US Election and Wall Street performance.

Been re-reading a bit of Camus, first time since I was nineteen. What struck me apart from how well written it was. Was the emphasis on absurdity which I’d kind of missed first time round. I think back then I’d focused on the apparent futility of life (how teenage of me ) but now looking back I can see the humour and absurdity and how all we can do is make sense of the world in our own terms.

Cover and interior imagery for Ben Lauren’s latest project, Hold Me Down.

Another LP cover for Evolving Sounds. This time for piano driven themes and trailer music for film and TV.

One of a series of pylon based images for greeting cards on my shop. Here I'm exploring photographic and graphic elements in combination. Vera-Ellan was an actress and dancer who often out danced her male co-stars in musicals of the 40s and 50s. But the reclusive star was cast aside by Hollywood when musical became unpopular.

The last two images in my exploration of collage with pylon based imagery. All of the pylon images can be purchased as a set of A5 postcards from my shop.

Cover and interior images for Luckbox Magazine. This issue was about Youtube and Streaming.

May 27, 1990 in Widnes, Cheshire, England. I was 24 and back home in Liverpool after finishing art college in London, me and a group of friends, some a little 'worse for wear', made our way over a tiny footbridge to a small flat island in a post industrial landscape surrounded by the River Mersey and the Runcorn Canal. It all felt a bit out of control, there was a lot of people, most drunk, some out of their minds on a cocktail of substances and a few 'security staff' who seemed more interesting in confiscating drink and drugs off the unwary. The sound was awful but no-one seemed to mind and when after a long wait 'The Roses' came on the place kicked off.  It was the arse end of the Second Summer of Love and thankfully the beginning of the end for Thatcher. It was a grand day out !

The FBI they began to investigate Albert Camus during the late 1940s, John Edgar Hoover, director of the FBI, wrote a letter to agents in the New York office, drawing his attention to one ALBERT CANUS. Hoover gave orders “to conduct a preliminary investigation to ascertain his background, activities and affiliations in this country.” One of Hoover’s underlings had to correct the director that “the subject’s true name is ALBERT CAMUS, not ALBERT CANUS” (diplomatically hypothesizing that “Canus” was probably an alias he had cunningly adopted).

Roaming through the edge lands, brambles and wild raspberries pull at your feet, the hum of the pylons assails the ears.

A homage to Berlin. The bear emblem is a pun on the city’s name. ‘Little bear’ in German is Bärlein, which sounds like Berlin. It is unclear why Berliners chose a bear for their coat of arms in place of an eagle, but they may have taken inspiration from Albert the Bear (Albert I), the first Margrave of Brandenburg (c.1100-1170).

This new book from data storyteller Sam Knowles explains how to ask smarter questions – questions that, by design, stimulate more useful answers. This is the shortcut to better productivity, fast-tracked innovation, and organisational success – for businesses, universities, charities, and governments.

Another cover for Evolving Sound. Beetle based spaceship inspired by tin toys and 1950s space looks. Various close up/details and a rough sketch too.

Image in response to Cal Flyns superb book Islands of Abandonment. In which she explores natures capacity for reclamation in post industrial and post apocalyptic environments.

Editorial piece and how a companies ethical profile can affect their share price.

In an age when computers and the Internet rule communications, it could be that old-fashioned radios are the true tools of the New World Order.

Since World War II, so-called numbers stations have been transmitting coded messages via shortwave radio antennas. These transmissions are eerie and weird to casual listeners, nonsensical and puzzling to cryptographers ... and to the right set of ears, may contain information that changes the course of history.

A number station is a shortwave radio station characterised by broadcasts of formatted numbers, which are believed to be addressed to intelligence officers operating in foreign countries.

Most identified stations use speech synthesis to vocalize numbers, although digital modes such as phase-shift keying and frequency-shift keying, as well as Morse code transmissions, are not uncommon.

Most stations have set time schedules, or schedule patterns; however, other stations appear to have no discernible pattern and broadcast at random times. Stations may or may not have set frequencies in the high frequency band.

Numbers stations were most prolific during the Cold War era, yet many continue to broadcast and some long-time stations may have been taken over by different operators.

One well-known numbers station was the E03 "Lincolnshire Poacher", which is thought to have been run by the British Secret Intelligence Service. It was first broadcast from Bletchley Park in the mid-1970s but later was broadcast from RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus. It ceased broadcasting in 2008.

Russian numbers stations include UVB-76 "The Buzzer" and "The Pip" with origins in the Soviet era, as well as "Squeaky Wheel" since 2000.

Bored Youth with wide trousers and dog (and green & pink splodges) Fashion illustration.

The Oxford Artisan Distillery has launched a new whisky sub-brand this summer, focusing on its Master Distiller’s experimentation with different heritage grains and the distilling and maturation processes.

Each expression will have its own name, beginning with HAPPY ACCIDENT CORN WHISKY in summer 2021.

This Corn Whisky as the name suggests came about as a result of the finely controlled process going wrong after a sudden downpour just before harvest. This resulted in the grains becoming damp when they should have been dry. The Master Distiller decided to experiment with a small batch of the crop before destroying it, but soon discovered that the Happy Accident had actually taken the flavour of the Whisky in a whole new unexpected and delightful direction.

Ian Murray was commissioned for the label and packaging as his working process echoed that of the whisky production. Precise and thoughtful design is combined with carefree mark making and unpredictable ageing / weathering processes. Photography, technical drawings and diagrams, mark making and graphic symbols combine to delivery packaging as unique as the product it contains.

Clients words:

The artwork for our first ever Grain Stories expression was created by Ian Murray, a world class illustrator based in Stockport, Cheshire.

Ian has a very particular way of working; writing down key words, interpreting the words into drawn images and then working on combining and manipulating the images until an idea (or ideas) form. For our artwork, he solicited his friends’ handwriting for the annotated notes used in the background (telling the story of this expression in the words of our Master Distiller) and printed the image of our Head of Grain on aged paper he found in his father’s workshop years ago and had subsequently buried in the garden to age. As Ian says, ‘I thought it quite fitting that it came from the soil to be used on your project’. A dream to work with, Ian took the very unique story of our corn whisky and brought it to life more beautifully than we could have imagined.

For the eagle-eyed amongst you, there is a lot to search out in this label, from the rain that fell on our 2017 harvest to the temperature the spirit was distilled at and the cask number of our Heritage Corn Whisky. Perhaps, one day, we’ll tell all.

Experimental collages using old postcards exploring nostalgia for a past that never existed.

An on going series of experiments using collage, ink, old paper and mono printing. Fun, but serious. Seriously fun ?

Response to an article about racing pigeon breeders using supplements and exercise to build up their birds strength.

Fun Fact: In his youth, Mike Tyson, the boxer got into a fight with a bully when they provoked him by picking up one of his pigeons and killing it with his bare hands. "The guy ripped the head off my pigeon. This was the first thing I ever loved in my life, the pigeon," Tyson explained.

After claiming the shutdowns of the coal mines in the 1980s gave the UK a "big early start" in fighting climate change Boris Johnson said he recognises the "huge impact and pain" of closures, but did not offer an apology.

Johnson said: "Thanks to Margaret Thatcher, who closed so many coal mines across the country, we had a big early start and we're now moving rapidly away from coal altogether."

Grahame Morris, Labour MP for the former County Durham mining community of Easington, said: "Pushing Thatcher as some sort of eco-warrior for closing coal mines is a rewriting of history."

"Closing coal mines had nothing to do with saving the environment," he added.

"It was an assault on a way of life, on trade unions and on communities that did not fit with Thatcher's free market brand of conservatism."

Class war plain and simple, always was, always is from the Conservatives. My Grandma, a shop worker, and my Grandpa, a docker, always argued about who to vote for. My Grandpa always said why would I vote for them I’ve got nothing to conserve.

The singularity is the point at the centre of a black hole, a no man's land: a place where matter is compressed down to an infinitely tiny point, and all conceptions of time and space completely break down. The white horse is a metaphor for light trying to escape being swallowed up by the event horizon.

The bon viveur, the good time boy. The Sommelier. I prefer a lager.

Graphic interpretation of motorway junctions inspired by the book Traffic by Tom Vanderbilt which explores why we drive the way we do and what this says about us. It even has a section on those annoying people that race to the front of the queen in the outside lane when the traffic is narrowing to one lane, it may change your option on them.

Whilst thinking about gas & electricity direct debits and tax returns my mind somehow wandered back to rainy Sunday afternoons building cranes from Meccano, simpler days.

E Gary Gygax was one of the creators of D&D, he was sometimes wrongly accused, especially in the Sates, of undermining children’s minds with notions of devil worship and the occult. But to me, he opened up hours of imagination and friendship.

I know you shouldn’t do this, but sometimes I go for a drive with the cat in the car, he likes looking out of the window. I don’t let him drive though, even when he asks.

My love of these Brutalist concrete structures started in childhood and still continues. Reinforced (if you’ll pardon the pun) by reading the excellent books of Gareth E Rees such as ‘Unofficial Britain’.

Flâneur is a French term meaning ‘stroller’ or ‘loafer’ used by nineteenth-century French poet Charles Baudelaire to identify an observer of modern urban life. The flâneur carried a set of rich associations: the man of leisure, the idler, the urban explorer, the connoisseur of the street. Some modern flaneurs are Sophie Calle, Will Self, Laura Oldfield Ford and Iain Sinclair.

Powered by Marmite Crisps, tea and sea air , I created this trio of collages during a recent stay in Whitby, on the North Yorkshire Coast of the UK. Its grim up north, well its isn't but that's what we tell the southerners to keep them out.

Album cover artwork inspired by the art of Jim Flora's RCA albums of the 40s and 50s; designed with shapes, colours and a tight composition. The album consists of backing tracks and trailer music for film and TV with a 50s/60s mambo, jazz vibe, fitting neatly with the art's vintage tone

I try to meditate as often as I can, just because it’s the only thing I've found that actually calms my mind and lifts my mood. Here’s an interesting article, on a similar theme, especially for these mad times we live in. https://tricycle.org/trikedaily/how-to-stay-calm/

A cover design for an album of dark, moody piano music for arthouse films.

The idea was arrived at by using the interior structure of a grand piano, the sound board, frame and bridge to provide a graphic structure. Then turning the piano itself into a quasi-architectural structure to reflect the title of Pianoscapes. Finally elements suggesting a noir mystery or romance narrative were added to create a darkly magical cityscape.

I was commissioned by XPRIZE to respond to a short story by Ken Liu entitled 'UMA' , this work forms part of an anthology exploring how Avatar technology can positively impact the future, whilst examining the notion that the technology enables full-sensory, meaningful human connections. Read the full story here: http://www.avatars.inc/future_ideas/2054

XPRIZE is a non-profit organization that designs and manages public competitions intended to encourage technological development that could benefit humanity. Their Board of Trustees include James Cameron, Larry Page, Arianna Huffington, and Ratan Tata among others.

An image to try and capture both the comedy and fear I feel when ever I see Trump.

An image inspired by a recent visit to the Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto http://batashoemuseum.ca

An exhibition of 1000s of shoes covering the history of footwear it even has Elton Johns platforms and the Ruby Slippers !

Who doesn’t love a good pylon right ? Available soon as a print in my shop.

Image in response to an editorial piece on the use of biometric technology in the classroom, thumbprints, retina scans etc. How this data is used and stored and the implications for pupils.

An image in response to the book UFO Drawings From the National Archives by David Clarke. The UFOs featured are inspired by the accounts and drawings from sightings around the UK. Many in Macclesfield only a few miles from my home. Much of the material was released by the government after 1994.

Response to an article about electric cars. Enjoyed exploring various scanned textures in this one. Even managed to get a subtle reference to design hero Isidro Ferrer in there if you can spot it - answers on a postcard.

If more time was spent deciding if we should have Earl Grey or Lapsang Souchong rather than ICBMs or F15s we might be in a better place. 

Print available at my shop page above.

As 40% of the food on our plates comes from the global market, do we really know where our food originates from and are we importing nutritional deficits along with the food. Editorial DPS.

Book cover illustration for Narrative by Numbers. As jobs become increasingly similar, there are two skills that everyone needs if they’re going to thrive. These are the ability to interrogate and make sense of data, and the ability to use insights extracted from data to persuade others to act. Analytics + storytelling = influence.

There are some simple and effective rules of data-driven storytelling that help everyone tell more compelling, evidence-based stories, whoever they need to convince.

Health services are increasingly being delivered on line, this is a series of illustrations in response to an article on A.I . in the health service.

Shortlisted entry for the has been shortlisted for The Northern Illustration Prize. 

http://festivalofillustration.com/shortlist-announced/

https://www.instagram.com/festivalofillustration/

https://twitter.com/foil_hartlepool

https://www.facebook.com/festivalofillustration/

The monkey character is shown in a classic Napoleon pose and uniform as a kind of bust on a plinth. ‘Ceci n'est pas un singe’ (this is not a monkey) is scrawled underneath making reference to the famous Magritte painting The Treachery of Images and the idea that the victim of the lynching my well have been a young boy, a ‘powder monkey’, not a primate. Hence the visual references to the ship, cannon and keg of gun powder. French Spy is written underneath this as the people who tried the monkey thought he has spying on them for the French government. 

I couldn't help but make some connections between the story and our countries current relations with Europe and the animosity some of us still have towards Europeans and our fear of the other. The figures in the guided box representing the voting patterns on the Brexit referendum and the minus star symbols showing that there will be one less country in the EU soon.

The three wise monkeys symbolising "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil"

are there to invite us not the look the other way when an injustice is done and maybe to learn from our mistakes. The football showing that the legend of the Hartlepool Monkey lives on in sports such as rugby and soccer.

#illustration  #pylon #pylons #illustrator #mrmurray #illustrationgram #sketchbook #doitfortheprocess #adrawingaday #iwip #studiolife #illustratorslife

#printisntdead #printspotters #dailydrawing  #vector  #adobeillustrator #adobe #designer #illustration #graphicdesign #graphicartist #pinlover #artist #stickers

The joys of cycling for couples.

An image in response to the book UFO Drawings From the National Archives by David Clarke. The UFOs featured are inspired by the accounts and drawings from sightings around the UK. Many in Macclesfield only a few miles from my home. Much of the material was released by the government after 1994.

Further explorations of characters.

Editorial about Nootropics; smart drugs or cognitive enhancers—which are supplements, or other substances that improve cognitive function, particularly executive functions, memory, creativity, or motivation, in healthy individuals.

Simply a collection of character designs I have been working on.

Response to an article about the innovations which may impact on the future of the NHS, such as cloud data storage, on-line appointments, on-line consultations, robotic surgery and smart tracking and monitoring devices.

Editorial image for US magazine Focus on the Family, about how teenagers can get led astray by falsehoods and lies especially on line.

Magazine cover for Royal Over Sea League about the future of the commonwealth. Attempted to encapsulate it's rich history and future in a 'melting pot' concept. 

Response to an article on jobs that are deemed ' Robot Proof '

Image inspired by the film Oldboy the 2003 South Korean noir thriller directed by Pak Chan-wook.

A visual autobiography.

Work inspired by the beauty of urban wastelands and the interaction of nature and edge-lands. 

Had some fun with shape, colour and texture on this A6 notebook cover. 

A response to the 'Pushing The Envelope' exhibition at House of Illustration, London, to commemorate the 175th anniversary of the Penny Black stamp. My 'Mail Art' was screen printed by John Powell-Jones on A3 card envelopes and posted to the exhibition venue. 

The image recalls the attempt by Tony Benn (then Post Master General) and illustrator David Gentleman to remove the Queen’s head from the design of postage stamps, as they felt that its inclusion often caused problems for designers in terms of space for their work. This also appealed to Benn’s socialist leanings and he encouraged Gentleman to submit his designs without the monarch. 

Both Benn and Gentleman fought hard for this radical change to stamp design suggesting that the Queen’s head be replaced with the words “Great Britain” or “U.K. Postage” However by the end of 1965 the Queen, having initially entertained the idea, decided in no uncertain terms that she wanted her head to remain on stamps.

A visual response to Paul Farley and Micheal Symmons Roberts book "Edgelands - Journeys into Englands True Wilderness" 

A visual exploration of the many structures and form s of Carbon. Personal work. This image is also available as a greeting card in my shop. 

A series of Christmas images which aim to avoid the obvious cliches and still fill you with festive glee. These images are available as cards from my shop. 

A series of Christmas images which aim to avoid the obvious cliches and still fill you with festive glee. These images are available as cards from my shop. 

Why don;t men listen ?  They do apparently, but they reorder information when processing it, capturing some of the information and misinterpreting or reframing other pieces of the message. Bless them, their only simple creatures !  For Focus on Family magazine. 

Image in response to a story of one family, how they fell in love and the everyday trials and tribulations of homework pets and work life balance. 

Info graphic/ illustration in response to an article on the process of diamond production.

A series of Christmas images which aim to avoid the obvious cliches and still fill you with festive glee. These images are available as cards from my shop. 

An image for Aircraft Owners & Pilots Association Magazine exploring the issue of insurance if your lucky enough to your own aeroplane.