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Design Stories: Wanders of the World

hollyemurphy


This collection started out as a secret one. It was my other half's 40th birthday and I was on a mission to make him some special presents. As we've had our fair share of travels together, one idea I had was to create a postcard book of everywhere we'd ever been. Great, but that's a LOT of illustrations to create in secret. With an alibi sketchbook to throw over the top of the one I was working on, and an alibi tab in Adobe Illustrator of a totally different design that I could quickly switch to if he came in, I set to work. But he must have thought I was working on that other one for aaaaages...


(^^ as you can see the Kolner Dom didn't fit onto one page, so I had to draw it across several places and then piece it together. That is one detailed cathedral!)


I included a mix of the more famous landmarks we'd visited (ie, the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco) along with some more of the random, personal things. Like, did you know how many ducks there were in Prague?! A LOT. I find ducks pretty hilarious so the OH made sure we got a river spot right next to them all for my birthday dinner... it's the little things.

The colour palette for these prints aren't entirely my personal choice - this shade of blue is in there to suit him and I've had maybe desaturated the red a little more. But I love the overall pops you get from these colours working with and against each other.

We need to talk about the lettering - I imagined these in-your-face, papercut-like guys when I was trying to get to sleep one night. I love the way they juxtapose with the sketchy drawings - the antithesis of clean lines.

Anyway, when I was starting to put my shop together I thought - there's probably a chance some other people have been to Rome etc. Maybe they'd like one of these prints as a memento to their holiday. So they're all up for sale! Well actually - there's a few I didn't put up, because I thought they were a bit too random. Have you been to Hambleden, UK? If yes, I'll put it up in the shop.


Which ones have you been to and where should I illustrate next? I'll have to go there on a research trip, obvs.

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