Edinburgh Festival cover, The Skinny

What I did: editorial illustration

My part of the project

I worked closely with The Skinny’s Art Director, Rachael Hood, to create an artwork which expresses The Skinny’s themes and contents for this year’s Festival issue. As the patterns created by the arms were to be a vital aspect of the cover, I created sketches that would allow us to discuss the rough shapes. After this, I focused on generating movements and personalities for the arms that would bring them to life. Once the sketch was signed off, I began the editorial illustration. As this was a highly detailed artwork, with a large amount of inking and colouring, good communication was key in meeting the tight deadline.

What the client needed

The Skinny Magazine required a fun and diverse illustration that depicts Edinburgh during the Fringe Festival. The 2019 Fringe festival laid particular emphasis on environmental issues and inclusivity which should be welcoming to all. The print run was increased for this issue to 46k. to accommodate the extra readership during the Fringe and Edinburgh Book Festival.

“This bespoke cover had to communicate multiple ideas simultaneously – facing out to new readers, telling them what we stand for in terms of cross cultural writing, diversity, inclusion, platforming emergent artists; keeping loyal readers across Scotland on board with an acknowledgement of some of their concerns about pervasive festivalisation; communicating some of the issue’s content (of course); and standing out with high quality design and illustration.” – The Skinny

Edinburgh Festival cover, The Skinny

My part of the project

What the client needed

Nominated for Scottish PPA Cover of the Year 2019 award