Kevin McSherry hand painted and digital creative Illustration, Art and Storyboards

Since I upgraded my Mac last year, I've had to come up with an alternative to Photoshop and InDesign and believe me, there's not much choice out there.

I've been using a combination of Pixelmator (€29.99) for the image editing and iStudio Publisher (Just €20.99!) for creation of printed documents. Compare that with the €120 per year for ever of just Photoshop alone. PS is great but bloody hell.

The interface of both these substitutes are clunky (with Pixelmator being the slickest) but I'm getting used to them and I haven't found much functionality that I've missed - neither have anything like the sophistication of Adobe's products. But; they work perfectly well for most of anyone's needs. Scanning, image preparation, a small amount of digital illustration and putting together a perfectly good, professional catalogue.

So the above image is the result of that combination: The cover for my 16 page catalogue for my upcoming exhibition Flights of Fancy.

The Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan organisation have just launched their new financial report, designed by Toronto-based design studio, The Works. The studio art director's vision for the project used illustration to convey the central theme of this year's report which is 'balance'.
Although The Works had a clear idea of the principal image which is one of a high-wire unicyclist, they wished to use other characters throughout the design to focus on other activities of the OTPP.


Several rounds of sketches were made to present ideas for various aspects of the report. However, after consideration by the designers and the client, the concept was kept to one character.


You can see here, the development of the central character. The sketch at left was my first rough rendering which was changed according to the designers' comments. The final illustration kept close to this last drawing, save for the objects being juggled. A nice idea was to show the reverse of the unicy…

First, I'd just like to wish a very happy and peaceful Christmas to both my readers!

Apparently, 'tis the season to send badly designed Christmas cards to people that you don't know very well, in the hope of generating a bit of oul' business. For, as it was once told to me by a wizened old marketing professional -you can send all the flyers you want during the course of a year but people will only remember the Christmas card.

I agree -but only if the card is worth looking at. I just received one from the garage that sold me my second-hand car seven years ago [as I have done every year since]. Although it doesn't take the gong for worst card design, it comes eye-wateringly close. There is no excuse for sending abysmal cards unless you're a graphic designer in a corduroy jacket who could say with a knowing smile, 'This card is an ironic statement'.

Seems to me that all such cards generate is indifference, or worse; enmity. If the person to whom a card is sen…

So, purveyors of 'visual assets', Stockbyte have been sold to Getty in what must be the world's blandest and most passionless corporate deal. Just imagine what the celebrations were like: Off to the charity shop to buy an old grey suit and shiny tie. Then down to the local greasy spoon for a slap-up feed of reheated leftovers and cola from the slop-catcher!

$135m? Double Take wouldn't have given them yesterday's chip wrapper for it.

Just to celebrate the deal [but not so much that we draw attention to ourselves] Double Take illustrates this article with an appropriate image. A typically charmless image of a pathetically grateful-looking handshake. That must be Getty on the left.

Mmmm - While I think of it, I have a bag of used batteries here... Mr Getty!... Mr Getty!

Just a little observation about blandness. It struck me the other day that communications sent out from businesses should be like a haka. If ever there was a statement of intent, conviction, values and unity, it's in the haka. It's unequivocal and leaves no doubt about the serious drubbing you're going to get, once all the gods and ancients tool up and join the rest of the team in the field. 'You're not only playing us, you pathetic fools' it seems to say, 'you've got several volcano gods and all the tribal spirits to deal with'.

Well, when you see the drab uninspired stock photography that populates corporate literature all around, think of the haka. Only illustration that you commission, that you collaborate on will tell your company's story and call down your gods. Ko Kapa o Pango e ngunguru nei! The alternative? Taking the field with a reworked Westlife song [in other words a picture of two businessmen shaking hands -or any of thousands of ot…