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.

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!

Dead Branches

'Dead branches' is a term for young single men with no prospects of marriage largely due to a disproportionate number of women to men in that society ... 'dead branches' because the family tree won't continue. 

The article bounced off the horrible rape and murder in India recently and the rising number of similar incidents that are occurring. It says an uneven ratio of men to women often leads to violent crime especially towards women and can also lead to violent uprisings against the system ie. revolution.

Bewilderingly it was suggested to take out the weapons. Wtf?

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.

Brian Wang

Also last year Brian Wang won an SND award for the following illustration. I was going to include it in the last post then figured rather than tack it on the end I'd make a separate post for it. It certainly deserves it. Class job.

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.

Simon Scarr

Of course Adolfo isn't the only one in our department to win a silver award. Simon won our first ever silver at Milofei last year with his 'Iraq's bloody toll' graphic. (amongst many other awards)

The graphic coincided with the US removing all troops from Iraq after almost 9 years. The dark red indicates coalition casualties while the lighter red indicates civilian deaths, it tells a story, yeh? 

In this copy from a pdf it looks streaky but in the real version the reds are huge, dominating blocks of colour. 

The red chart at the bottom of the page that looks like pools of blood indicates cause of deaths.

While the grey charts down the side show the number of US troops in Iraq, breakdown of coaltion deaths by country and comparison to Iraqi security forces and finally, a breakdown of coalition fatalities by areas in Iraq. 

The grey was a deliberate choice so as not to fight with the stark red statement.

This graphic appeared as a stand alone back page for the South China Morning Post. For more work by Simon, follow the link at the top right hand side of this page to his blog.

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!

Surrogate Mothers

I'm pretty happy with the execution of this. It's clean, simple and has a few things going on. The idea is what I'm happiest about most tho.

A bit of runaround text wld have surely helped the design tho.

Illustration for the Focus page for the South China Morning Post