The stairs walked down into rushing water…

Hope you’re having a good summer.

Summer updates, plus a little about my background and approach to illustration & design

• Sales are up on my Creative Market shop - the Halloween set is doing especially well. It seems that organised creatives plan early as sales go up in the warmer months. It really is a great set, I’ve purposely made it super simple to use: each illustration can be dropped seamlessly into any design prog, including Adobe Express for some quick-smart marketing or merchandising.

• I’m currently working with a fiction author on merch and sub-branding around their new book (which will be published by one of the big publishing houses… ooh). Can’t share any details as yet but the client is v. happy and it’s super fulfilling for me, so I couldn’t ask for more!

Approach to illustration & design

I can share however that for the author’s project, I’m using my graphic design expertise as well as my illustration skills… meaning lots of creative thinking supported by the tech bank in my head. I’ve worked in so many areas of design: the first several years of my career was in advertising and design companies working on print campaigns, then for the next 10+ years I moved into museums/galleries where, along with regular print & merch, I work in exhibition design which requires all manner of technical jumping-through-hoops (part of the fun of course) and I’ve also worked on several books. These days I’m bringing my illustration front and centre, without foregoing the graphic design for now, as they really are close cousins.

My philosophy is that if you have good tech skills, you can pretty much realise any vision. The design principles remain the same across all, but the tech skills provide the solid foundation, allowing you to think in different dimensions quite literally.

Not sure if I’ve mentioned it elsewhere but I’ve also managed design teams doing art direction, systems management & project trafficking: most recently in a year-long interim role from 2023–2024 at the London Transport Museum. The remit was very wide: across marketing, guidebooks, retail packaging, exhibition design and education materials in both print & digital… I even managed to squeeze in some illustration and design work of my own. Oh, and I should mention that I also steered the team through applying a new brand! I loved it - particularly working with freelance designers (I worked with some amazing ones who I miss) but am always drawn back by the strong desire to both make work for myself and my clients, and to keep growing.

On that thought, the stairs loop above I made for my Substack page. I drew it in Illustrator first where I created a kind of ‘maquette’ loop then drew it again in Adobe Fresco using a trad painting approach to give it some life. I realise it isn’t very summery but it is current, so thought I’d share to show what I’m up to.

Enjoy the sun!

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Interested in commissioning or working with me? Get in touch via email at hello@tanyacornish.com

Follow me on Instagram for illustration and design

(or my practice page on instagram.com/tanya_akiko_cornish/ where I post sketches, life drawings, paintings, that kind of thing.)

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