Hopkins Medicine Magazine contacted me to produce a full page illustration to accompany a story about new "stroke goggles" that are being used on patients to help differentiate between dangerous strokes and benign dizziness, based on eye movements.
My initial sketch featured the goggles too heavily so pulled right back to show the whole figure with a bright red highlighting the movements of the eye. The second sketch was approved with the proviso that the figure clearly be an older man.
Rice University's Rice Magazine wanted a cover and interior image to represent the work of David Eagleman, a neuroscientist whose areas of research include time perception, vision, the senses and synesthesia. He is also a Rice alumnus who had a new six-part PBS TV series and book called "The Brain".
While being thought-provoking in their own right, it was requested that the images could sit side by side together by using similar graphic elements and colour palette.
As the major themes include the brain and human senses I came up with the cover idea of taking what could be seen as a conventional head and shoulders portrait and then disrupting it so the viewer would have to look a little closer to ascertain exactly what they were looking at - almost like questioning one's own senses. I felt that was a nice way to reflect the subject matter and one that provided scope for the second illustration. I usually like to keep colour schemes minimal and here we're basically looking at a two colour palette.
The above right sketch was my first thought which then led to the more considered sketch below which was sent for client approval.
These are two initial pencil designs for the interior illustration. Rice preferred the sketch on the left which was then taken to artwork. I continued with the head and shoulders theme, taking the profile view and re-arranging the elements.
The background colour and texture was extended across the spread to accommodate the text introduction to the article.
