new to Behance December 2023

i come from a design background with my passion for all things graphic and having qualified in Graphic Design at a College of Arts & Technology in Hastings i was able to jump head first into the slippery world of employment

my first employment was with a military contractor and then moved into self-employment as a designer/contractor later leaving a professional print team in London in a desk top publishing position some years later with stress related illness, i mostly assisted leisure companies with their time share holiday brochures and other marketing materials

since then i have always found different lines of work including a voluntary role in a museum where i joined with an engineering team to look after various retired airframes, with some maintenance and refreshing of paintwork etc, this lead to in-depth research either online or technical manuals to recreate actual stencils used on the airframes exterior panelling, much had been painted over after many years of oversight as aging staff members don't have the skills to reinstate such graphics

i could easily transfer my illustration skills and knowledge, such as seen here producing posters for customers owning various airframes, some becoming static display pieces and others in private hands across the globe

the posters are a simple combination of Photoshop and Illustrator files, line drawings either from reference or my own, using layers the illustration can be altered to accommodate various colour schemes depending on the customers wishes, from the stencils i had drawn up in Illustrator (to output to stencil cutting), i could copy across to Photoshop, position correctly to scale to produce a fairly accurate illustration of the aircraft, create a file to place into Illustrator, add copy and create a final poster design

some of the posters shown are in a finished state, as they are made for customers, others are only of airframes that i have illustrated but have no poster information yet

i was inspired by posters produced by another company, but i wanted to add something a little more, in some ways i quite like a little clutter, a busy poster with a lot of information, statistics and service history as some aircraft have a colourful life, perhaps involved in various activities, accidents, or operations abroad and with this i could add some personal information, a pilots anecdote for example which i think makes the poster and the aircraft depicted much more interesting and personal