Notebook: 7 January 2015 | ILLUSTRATION

If an editorial designer has great images to work with then sometimes it’s best if the finished layout is very simple so that the pictures (and words) do all the talking. Such is the case with these bold and vibrant illustrations by Nick Shepherd that were recently commissioned by Lynsey Irvine for The Observer newspaper’s Food Monthly magazine.

Nick is one of my current favourite illustrators and his fun and colourful style goes well with the feature The best thing I ate all year – a gastronomic ‘best of’ list by top chefs and food writers that appeared in the Food Monthly Christmas issue. Nick is from Yorkshire but currently works out of Lisbon. He specialises in conceptual pieces and is good at thinking up jaunty humorous visual metaphors for editorials.

Here’s a fun illustration that Nick produced for a feature about teamwork across a large organisation. It was commissioned by myself and designer Deb Murray for a business magazine for the global recruitment company Odgers Berndtson.

You can see more of Nick Shepherd’s work on his website here and here’s a link to the online version of the Observer’s Food Monthly feature.

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