I already had the pleasure of designing several original custom T-shirt designs for the U.S. wrestler John Hennigan (John Morrison / Johnny Impact / Johnny Nitro / Johnny Mundo)
Johnny contacted me a few weeks ago and asked me if I felt like doing a new one for him and I of course said “Hell, yeah!”. He gave me a rough outline of what he was looking for. As always it needed to be an 11 or more on the “badass scale” and I was very happy to oblige.
Custom Illustration for a personal invitation based on photographs provided by the client. The people needed to be recognizable and the drawing had to have a connection to surfing and also to wine.
During the past months there has been a lot going on on my drawing boards and I participated in various fun and inspiring projects. Here is a collection with some brief descriptions.
For Client Suzanne Ruf / Breaksru Gmbh design of a new logo and corporate identity and a custom tailored website with matching iconography and illustrations.
Artist / Designer: Ian David Marsden Client: Suzanne Ruf / Breaksru Gmbh http://breaksru.com
Media: Vector Art in Adobe Illustrator and digital paint in Adobe Photshop and Clip Studio Paint EX.
Design and Illustration of Aereal View Site Plan of the Parc Le Duc Residences, Restaurant, Bar and Swimming Pool as well as the various facilities and electrical and safety information. The plan needed to be very clear and yet remain visually interesting. Also it needed to feature all descriptions in three different languages.
Various icons needed to be created specifically for the POI (Points of Interest) on the plan.
Designer / Illustrator: Ian David Marsden Client: Parc le Duc Media: Vector Design in Adobe Illustrator 2019
Welcome to my latest Fall 2018 newsletter with a glimpse of what I am currently working on and recently completed projects.
Dear Reader,
It has been quite a while since my last newsletter. I have been so deeply involved in various projects that I simply did not get around to writing and putting one together for you. I always love to be very busy and active, but it is now really high time to give you a brief update on my recent artwork and activities, so it is with great pleasure that I present to you this October 2018 edition of the Ian Marsden Illustration Newsletter.
Below a selection of sample artwork and highlights from recent projects.
GOOGLE DOODLES
I was delighted and honored that I received a shoutout in the recent “Inside Google” Blog post celebrating 20 years of Google and the history of the Google Doodles. From 1999 to the end of 2000 I was the artist creating all Google Doodles. It is very nice to be remembered in this way.
Many thanks to Google and to Ryan Germick the Principal Doodle Design director.
Some really exciting news: I have signed a book deal with Schiffer Books for my first graphic novel and my first book in the U.S. market. It is for the graphic novel adaptation of “The Way I Was” the adult memoir of the late Broadway and Hollywood composer Marvin Hamlisch. The publication date for the graphic novel is spring 2020.
Many thanks for the excellent representation by my literary agent Anna Olswanger at Olswanger Literary
Article from Publisher’s Weekly 20/09/2018 below:
Here a world premiere sneak peek over my shoulder…
VIDEOS / EXPLAINER VIDEOS / WHITEBOARD VIDEOS
HAWLIK GESUNDHEITSPRODUKTE
I had the great pleasure of adapting a series of texts about the harvesting and production phases of their high-quality vital mushroom products for Hawlik Gesundheitsprodukte GmbH and transforming them into short videos with elegant watercolor illustrations and pleasing voice overs.
In a nutshell – Video production for Hawlik Gesundheitsprodukte GmbH
I was involved from the initial conceptual sketching phase and storyboard, then personally illustrated each scene and added light, unobtrusive animation and finally I produced a series of 6 different videos in 3 languages (English, German, French) for which I also supervised the recording of the voiceover in person in studios in Paris and Berlin.
The German voice was recorded in Berlin with the renowned actor Kaspar Eichel (German synchronization voice of Robert Redford, Richard Dreyfuss) at Livelive studio (in cooperation with the agency Sprecherdatei), the French voice was recorded in Paris with the Actor Daniel Beretta (French synchronization voice of Arnold Schwarzenegger and many others) in collaboration with Titrafilm, the English voiceover was provided by David A. Watson and the agency GreatBritishVoices.
You can see all 6 videos in all different languages on the official Hawlik Youtube ChannelHere:
Having these videos available as a marketing tool for their website but also for trade shows and for their sales department is an invaluable asset. Highly complex processes and details of the production can be relayed to clients and buyers quickly and in a pleasant format in various markets/languages 24/7.
It was a lot of fun working on this rather extensive project and I am delighted that the client was very happy with the result and customer reactions have been extremely positive.
I am delighted to announce that I am collaborating on an ongoing series of training videos for the Johner Institut GmbH in Konstanz, Germany for their e-learning platform. I myself am providing the English language voice and I am also the spokesperson. The collaboration has been highly stimulating and creative and it is a true pleasure to work with Prof. Dr. Christian Johner on his videos for the Johner Institute teaching platform. More details on this project perhaps in a future update.
Prof. Dr. Christian Johner and Ian David Marsden in the video studio.
BUSINESS ILLUSTRATION
As part of the usual illustration services I provide, it has been my great pleasure over the past months to work with various agencies and companies / corporations, many of which are regular clients, on their needs for high quality, clear and appealing business graphics and illustrations for their external or internal communication needs. Here a few recent examples.
WINE LABELS
I am continuing the relatively new avenue of my career of wine logo and wine label designer and artist. My most recent design is a fun logo and label illustration for ‘Domaine Les Tuileries’ Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. I like it a lot personally even though I dialed the “French” button up to 11, evidently.
I got a lovely mention in an article in the French press / Midi Libre. Thank you very much.
The local Mayor’s office in the village where I live asked me if I would design the Mayor’s New Year’s card. I was of course honored to come up with a personalized card and drawing for this purpose.
Thank you very much for taking the time to browse through my newsletter. Unless we speak directly beforehand, my next e-mail to you will be my traditional Holiday / End of the year greeting.
Vital Mushroom Video Series from Harvest to Production for Hawlik Gesundheitsprodukte GmbH
I had the great pleasure of adapting a series of texts for Hawlik Gesundheitsprodukte GmbH about the harvesting and production phases of their high-quality vital mushroom products and adapt them to short videos with elegant water color illustrations and pleasing voice overs.
Business illustration – clean, clear, appealing, professional
Artist Ian David Marsden with decades of international experience in the field can provide you with custom-made business illustrations in various styles. Clean, clear, appealing and highly professional illustrations in black and white, with a spot color or fully colored. Text and processes which may seem rather dry or technical can be livened up and rendered more enjoyable and interesting. The readers’ focus can be guided towards important details in a subtle and appealing way. These illustrations can also be used as chapter headers, icons or thumbnails on websites or presentations. There is also the option of having animation or drawing or sliding hand effects, music and voiceover added as well.
Please contact me for a free consultation and a comprehensive flat-fee estimate which will include transferral of usage rights.
I have just put together a collection of items in my Red Bubble shop featuring some of my artwork and drawings that people often ask me about.
(Like the baguette girl, the Fez Man etc.)
You can get all kinds of items from phone cases to framed prints, t-shirts, post cards, stickers, posters, throw pillows and even clocks and bedding.
I hope you enjoy the selection.
Send me a snapshot or tag me on instagram if you buy something, I would love to see what you got and where you placed it.
I will share some of the images in my blog and my social media as well.
Friar’s Club – Monk Character Design and Animated GIFs Champagne Juggling Monk
In 2012 I had the distinct honor of being asked by the legendary New York Friar’s Club, to create a cartoon character version of the club’s signature monk and a series of cartoons and animations for the official Friar’s Club website.
The briefing required animations and graphics featuring the monk in all kinds of different situations and poses to be placed on the homepage and also some special custom monks featuring caricatured faces of recognizable “brothers”.
Even the furniture such as the wooden bar and the pool table at which the Jackie Gleason monk is playing had to be recognizable.
As a previous member of the National Cartoonists Society, I had the pleasure of attending several Christmas brunches at the Los Angeles branch of the club, so it was a particular pleasure to be able to contribute to the Friar’s cause.
IMPORTANT! Some of these GIFs are showing weird boxy flashing animation on some displays which are NOT there in the original.
The original GIFs play nice and smoothly – you can see them by clicking on each image or by downloading them to your computer.
(This must be some kind of WordPress Bug. Sorry I can’t get rid of it here. If you know what settings I need to change, please contact me.)
It was on December 2nd, 1998 (almost 20 years ago!) that I started my first website “Marsdencartoons.com”.
It evolved over many iterations, and later for several years it also hosted the Marsdencartoons Cartoonist’s Directory which was a popular resource to find links to illustrators and cartoonists all over the world.
Since I don’t only draw cartoons but also create more “serious” illustrations and logos and character designs for various clients all over the world, I decided in 2014 to create my new homepage MARSDEN ILLUSTRATION, which you see before you and which embodies all the various facets of my work in my PORTFOLIO
For a few years it autoforwarded to my new domain, but a few months ago I let the old marsdencartoons.com domain name expire. A fresh new start.
It appears that another company has purchased the domain name marsdencartoons.com and is now putting up a website for Illustration and Graphics.
This is of course perfectly fine and quite normal I guess by Internet standards, although it would be interesting to know who the “Marsden” is who is featured in their domain name. Because one thing I can tell you is that it is NOT me.
For the record, I wanted to state categorically: that I, Ian David Marsden, am no longer the owner of the domain marsdencartoons.com, I am in no way involved in their enterprise, and am not affiliated anymore in any way with marsdencartoons.com. Any transactions with this domain will not include any involvement with me and you will not be purchasing artwork created by me.
If you wish to contact me (Ian David Marsden) regarding graphic design, illustrations or cartoons, then the only official website is this one: www.marsdenillustration.com
Thank you for your continued interest in my artwork and more from my studio very soon.
All the best,
Ian
PS: If you haven’t signed up yet for my personal newsletter, now is a good time because I am preparing the next one. (I send them out about 4 or 5 times a year with news and behind the scenes looks at some of the artwork I am currently working on)
Wacom: Drawing Tutorial Videos on official Wacom homepage
Various drawing tutorial videos demonstrating how I work with Wacom Cintiq 21UX and Cintiq27QHD pen displays in Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Autodesk Sketchbook Pro, Manga Studio and other design software. More videos for Wacom are in production.
