Back page

This is what I wanted to do for today's back page. 

It was never going to sail. Had to pitch it though.

Edward Snowden exclusive

This has nothing to do with illustration or graphics but it was great to be at a paper when it broke a world exclusive story, or more to the point Lana Lam did.

Now the office is wondering who's going to play her in the upcoming Edward Snowden movie.

Threadless t-shirts

Have been entering some t-shirt designs to www.threadless.com

Some are general design but some are for specific competitions. Like this latest one. It's for a competition for the band The Flaming Lips and their new tune 'The Terror'. 

I was playing around with different ideas and thinking along the lines of terror but didn't want it to be hard-core .. twin towers, executions on the internet, things like that. Somehow I got onto Godzilla, then realised with that laser beam or fire breathing thing he does he would in fact have flaming lips! Actually one thing I definitely didn't want to do was go down the road of lips on fire, lips with fire texture etc etc. Godzilla seemed far enough away from that but with a nod to it, so i went ahead with it.

http://www.threadless.com/theflaminglips/the-terror-22/

Two other designs ...

*Need to read the fine print on this one.

And then the disqualified ones. These two Star Wars ones were panned because they thought they might run into copyright issues. Hmmr.

I've half a mind to make the Arrgh2d2 one up myself cos I'd like to wear it. 

This one was for an Iron Man competition. It got brushed because the rules said not to include characters from outside the Marvel universe. I figured Mike Tyson was a real person and not a character. Turns out I was wrong - and fair enough too. Tyson's both a real person and a character.

more SOPA

Good to see Adolfo's melon in the paper today. He's at the SOPA awards to represent the art department and I'm sure he did a fine job. He texted me saying "I'm looks Peter Sellers in 'The Party.'" Class.

Of course the article got it wrong saying Simon Scarr only won an Award of Excellence for his Wiring the City graphic. He also won Honorable Mention for his Arteries of the City.

Harry Harrison won Honorable Mention for Editorial Cartoon http://wp.sopawards.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/661-South-China-Morning-Post-The-Handover.pdf - (mind blowing!) and we didn't win anything for illustration because they don't have an illustration section!

If you're a journalist you have 11 opportunities to win a gong at SOPA, photography: 2, graphics: 1, multi-media: 1, design you also have one chance - but only if you work on a magazine - and illustration you don't get any opportunity at all because although it's quite definitely the most difficult of the disciplines, we're also quite definitely at the bottom of the food chain. Overlooked, forgotten, left in a dark corner, occasionally spat on until after design and photography have struggled with a page and unable to find a solution, it lands on our desk and, with minimum turnaround time, we crank out a page holding illustration. Don't tell anyone but some of us even get paid!

The article also says that the China desk was the big winner but if you look at it another way, and get the information right, the big winner was Simon since he won 100% of the graphic awards. Well done Simon ... I had no doubt!

SOPA Awards

Congratulations to Simon Scarr for cleaning up at this years SOPA Awards! 

First place for his Wiring the City graphic, a look at the amount of electricity used in Hong Kong, where it's used and who's using it.

Also see Simon's explainer on is blog:

http://graphics-info.blogspot.hk/2012/12/as-government-considers-revamp-of.html

Also second prize for Arteries of the City which shows the traffic usage of certain roads in HK plus the percentage change from the previous year

Again, Simon's blog: http://graphics-info.blogspot.hk/2013/01/arteries-of-city.html

Well done mate!