The Unstoppable Adolfo

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!

Adolfo's Kowloon Walled City

This is a graphic Adolfo did for last week Saturday's edition of the South China Morning Post.

I hadn't heard about the walled city till I came to Hong Kong but was immediately fascinated with it - like most people I think - so I was really pleased when we saw there was an opportunity to do a major graphic on it .. and Adolfo was the man for the job!

It's had a HUGE response in the office, around Hong Kong and online. Apparently the Editor of the Washington Post said something like it was the best info-graphic he'd seen in years.

The amount of detail is incredible, the sort of graphic you can get lost in for hours .. and I'm guessing people did. 

He started by drawing the entire city then did a pull out section of it which allowed him to detail all the intricacies and aspects of the city.

Daily life and extra information

Of course being about the walled City it had to include some of the sketchier sides of the place ...

As well as some of the positives

This part is also really great. It shows the density of the city over time (and yes he drew all the extra cities). A great easter egg as they say.

But the best easter egg of the graphic is this ..

The figure on the roof is one of the girls in our department, Kaliz. 

During winter she wore a beanie that looked like Where's Wally's (apart form not being red and white) and we started calling her Wally's sister for a while. So when this came up, it had to be done. Class!

Melofeij Awards

Good news for the South China Morning Post art department from Melofeij in Pamplona. Simon Scarr has walked away with a GOLD award for his Picasso graphic where he plots every painting in Picasso's career. (Obviously that's an over simplification but will do for now. Simon will write more detail on his blog, http://graphics-info.blogspot.hk soon as will I)

Then he picked up a SILVER for his wiring of the city graphic ...

As well as an Award of Excellence for his portfolio which included the above plus ...

Then everbody's favourite majo won 2 Awards of Excellence for his wine tasting graphic plus the train on the roof of the world graphics ...

More later, but for now it's dinner and celebrations!

Melofeij Awards

Just landed in Pamplona with Simon Scarr and Adolfo Arranz for the Melofeij conference and awards this week.

We're all pretty wrecked after more than 24 hours in transit but looking forward to an awesome week. Hoping to meet a lot of talented graphic designers - other than the two I'm traveling with.

We're also wondering if we'll be the group that's travelled the longest distance to be here. I guess we'll find out later in the week.

SND results

Here's how the South China Morning Post art department went this year in the SND awards. The biggest prize was for Adolfo's wine tasting graphic where he bagged a silver.

Then these three for page design (what?). The first two from Adolfo 

The this one from Simon again for page design. Not graphics. Right.

Here's how we did in 2011 ... Simon cleaning up with 5 awards, three for graphics ...

One for portfolio which included the ones above plus the following three ..

Plus the Iraq's Bloody Toll won for page design.

More Adolfo

Adolfo is very handy with vector graphics but where he really comes into his own is with his illustrated graphics. His preferred program is Coral Drawer. It gives a very hand-drawn feel  to his work. 

As you can see he's never shy about including a little detail ...

The renovation of a Chinese medical centre, the different levels plus some treatments explained.

Layout of  Chinese opera house plus props and how to apply make up

Illustrated look at events in the original Olympic games. Done as a lead up to the London games.

All published as full page graphics in the South China Morning Post

Adolfo Arranz

Some great news yesterday. Adolfo found out he won a silver SND award for his wine tasting graphic. Great result and a very appropriate subject for him to claim a win with! 

For more of Adolfo's work visit his blog .. link is to the right of the page. (I'll be putting more of his work up later on too.)

Some photos of Adolfo celebrating with a fat cigar. Good onya Majo, well done!