Art Deco Style Train Poster - Scotland

I started this artwork quite a few months prior to publishing it and it had just been left dormant until I decided to continue work on the project. After the success of my last Art Deco style train poster (click here to view for more details on how my Art Deco posters are created), it gave me the motivation I needed to finish it.

Corrour station has always had a close place in my heart and I love to see pictures of the station given it is one of the most remote stations in the UK. It has no public road access and you would think there is very little actually located at the station, but in-fact there is an amazing old signal box - where the owners have renovated and you can now stay there - and a lovely restaurant/cafe. Also, it holds the title of being the highest station, above sea level, in Britain. So I thought it would be a lovely location to advertise on an Art Deco style poster.

A few points to consider:

• The first job was to find an appropriate reference photo on the Internet. I found a photo I was happy with, and then started to trace, with the pen tool, the key details.

• After I had traced some of the image to give the correct perspective/proportions, I added all the little details by hand.

• One of the sticking points on this project was getting the mountainous terrain to look correct. I went through countless drafts until I came up with the final design. I am quite pleased with how it came out.

• Another point was to try and take away enough detail to give the Art Deco feel without taking out too much that the train/location wasn't recognisable.

• I tried to include many straight and curved lines to help give the Art Deco style. Hence the path going through the lowland, the snow-like texture on the ground and the simplistic mountains.

• On some of the mountains I used the "Wrinkle Tool" in Illustrator to give the effect of their being trees/an undulating surface present.

• I used the same sky as my previous Art Deco style to keep a some consistent design features.

• Finally I got in contact with Managing Director of Scotland's Railway, Alex Hynes, to ask for any more inspiration of anything to add to the poster. I asked for something that was associated with Corrour. Alex suggested I added a stag, which was exactly the sort of thing I was looking to add.

• I found an image of a stag on the Internet and then traced it with the pen tool in Illustrator. I made a few final adjustments and then slotted it into the poster. I thought it looked like it fitted there and filled an empty space.

After I published the poster on Twitter it, once again, became one of my best performing Tweets with over 24,000 impressions, 200 likes, 10 comments and 17 retweets. People seemed to really like it and I was pleased with it too.

Train Themed Poster

This artwork was created after being in contact with a client who is unwell and I wanted to do something to hopefully cheer them up. The base outline of the train is the same as another piece of artwork I have done - see below. I added additional detail to the wheel set to make it more prototypical. I used reference images I found on the internet to be able to create the shapes I needed to re-vamp the under frame.

Some new parts to the design are the:

• The fictional nameplate, the base style of the plate are quite common place on Britain's railways, which features: the train companies logo, the clients nickname for the train and the train number.
• All the typography is in a free interpretation of the old British Rail font, the Rail Alphabet, as is prototypical for the nameplates of this type.
• As mentioned above the new under frame for the train. To do this I found lots of different reference photos of the wheels and pieced together all the different shapes I needed to create the desired effect. There are a lot of little details that could only be found after studying lots of different images.
  • I started using the 3D effect "Extrude and Bevel" along with a gradient to create the effect of rounded pipes. I still have a lot of learning to do around the 3D effects.
  • I created a spring by using the "Zig Zag" effect with smooth points. I was struggling to create the effect to start with as I forgot to reduce the line stroke thickness.
• A lot of care was taken when applying the livery (main design) to the train to try and make it as realistic as possible.

Railway Themed Christmas Card

I was asked by a client to create a Christmas card to a set brief. They wanted a card which showed their love of the railways. Given they are a railway signaller I combined their favourite train with their workplace - a signal box. I had already drawn both the train and signal box before, on separate projects, so it was just a case of combing both and then adding a snow texture, that I had created before as well.

The client was very pleased with the results.

What I considered:

• I chose to use Adobe Illustrator to produce the design as the pervious designs were created in Illustrator.
• I used the same snow texture as I used for the card underneath. See below for more details on how I made the texture.
• Sticking closely to the brief:
• Using the requested words
• Using the type of train they asked for
• Adding the holly and berries in the corner
• Using the type of train they asked for
• Adding the holly and berries in the corner
• I asked the client for a deadline so I could gauge how long/how much time I had to complete it in.

I spent about 3/4 hours on the project.

Other points:

• I asked the client for a font they liked so I could tailor the design to their liking.

Teens in Crisis+ Christmas Card

Teens in Crisis+ (TIC+) ran a Christmas card competition to design a card to put on their e-card system.

TIC+ is a Gloucestershire based mental health charity which provides support to young people and their families. I have been raising money for the charity over the past two years and thought this would be another way of donating to them - by donating my design.

The design consisted of:

• A previous design that the editor of the "RAIL" magazine had asked someone to produce. They wanted an art deco style train poster. So I took it upon myself to produce a design. See below for more details on the original design.
• A snow texture that I created in Photoshop. To do this I:
1. Started off with a black artboard
2. Added the "Noise" effect with the monochromatic setting checked
3. Added the "Motion Blur" effect to give the impression of snow falling
4. Removed the black background to make the background transparent with just the white snow texture left.
• It took a few attempts to get it looking just how I wanted it to.
5. Finally it was just a case of embedding the Photoshop file (PSD) into Illustrator. I had to keep re-linking the file, in the Links menu, every time I edited the original PSD file.
• A sleigh with reindeer and a Father Christmas. I chose this because the sleigh shows it is a Christmas card and also for younger people it may appeal more.
• The whole graphic has been drawn by me using photos of real and fictitious images of reindeers and sleighs.
• An art deco style font which reads "MERRY CHRISTMAS" to give the continued art deco style.
• The TIC+ logo at the bottom, which I re-drew as a vector to improve the resolution.
• Added a "Gaussian Blur" effect to a triangular white shape to give the effect of a train headlight in the snow.
• Finally, a black rectangle which covers the original design with its opacity set to c.15%. This is to give the feeling of darkness of the winter days and to soften the colours.

The design was picked as one of Teens in Crisis' Christmas e-cards. I have also repurposed the design for my school and I used it as my Christmas card for all the cards I sent out in 2021.

My drawing of a sleigh, Father Christmas and reindeers

Children in Need Timeline Poster

For a school project I was tasked with creating a Children in Need timeline to display in a classroom.

I initially started with a simple framework for the timeline in a Microsoft PowerPoint file to quickly get together the facts I needed. After that, I created an Illustrator file to add a bit more colour to the page. The steps I took were:

• I started off by finding an image of the Children in Need mascot (Pudsey) on the internet and traced it using by using the pen tool and different shapes.
• I wanted to draw it myself, rather than copying a SVG file, as it was good practise of the skills I have been learning.
• Next, I came up with a rough design in my head, which was to have the iconic bandana in one corner and Pudsey in the other corner with the timeline in the middle/bottom.
• I started to compose it by using the drawing of Pudsey, that I had already created, and putting in the top left corner and then copying the bandana off Pudsey and fitting it in the top right.
• To adjust the bandana I flipped it to make it look more natural in the corner and created a clipping mask to make sure it didn't overspill over the edge of the page. I then made the edge of the bandana smoother as when blown up it had some profound kinks. So, I added a "Round Corners" effect and also redrew part of the bandana to minimise the bumps.
• To draw the timeline, I started off with a solid black line and began adding the previously crafted text from PowerPoint.
• The next point I considered was what font to use for the body text and headings. I wanted something that had the children's softness to it - like the BBC's Children in Need font (Ursa Sans). After extensive research, I found out, that unfortunately, Ursa Sans seemed to be a font that the BBC commissioned so was not available in the public domain. I went to my usual font suppliers (Adobe & Google) and found a visually similar font, Atten Round New, so that's the font I decided to go with.
• Finally, I came up with the idea to add Pudsey Bear as the markers for the timeline. To add to this I thought it may add to the effect if I fade the colour of the bears from full monochrome to full RGB colour.
• To do this I exported just the bears from Illustrator as a PNG and imported the newly created image into Photoshop. Then, I added a black and white adjustment layer to the PNG file. After that, I created a black to white gradient which I applied on the adjustment layer. Finally, I imported the PSD file into Illustrator and resized it back into place.

Train Operator Welcome Poster

To welcome the newest train operator to Britain I decided to create a small poster showing the type of train they were receiving and a few lines of text. I needed to keep it simple as I had given myself very little time to work on it as the train operator was starting their service the next day. This was a mistake and I have learned from it and I will remember to give myself more time to work on projects. However I was very pleased with the end result, and other people were too.

The steps I took to create the poster were:

1. First, I decided to create a poster using just the front profile of the train to minimise time.
• Unfortunately, I had no appropriate reference photos to use so I had to look for a couple using sites like Flickr. I managed to find some pretty quickly. Sadly due to copy-write laws I can't embed the photos on Google Sites but they were simply a photo of this train dead straight on (or as close as possible).
2. Then, I "traced" half of the basic outline of the train to save me having to do it from eye. This is standard practice for me when doing prototypical train drawings. After finalising the outline, I copied the half that I had drawn and then flipped it as this train is pretty much symmetrical on the front. I do this to save me a huge amount of time as it would take much longer to try and adjust one side to look the same as the other.
• The little details are added by hand afterwards.
3. After that, I drew the pantograph (a part at the top of train which conveys an electrical current to a train from the overhead wires) and the wheel set. As I was short of time at this point I had to settle for something that was not quite up to my usual high standard.
• If I was to rework the train diagram for other uses I would be sure to adjust the imperfections.
4. Next, I added some colour to the graphic to make it "come to life" and look like how the real train looks like. To do this I:
1. Looked up the colour on the Train Operating Colour Wiki which gives Hex codes for every UK train operator past and present.
2. Used the code in Illustrator to replicate the colour and applied it to the main body of the train.
3. Added a gradient of different shades of the same colour, after some feedback, to simply create the 3D effect that was needed as the train in real life is curved.
• I am still working on how to make objects look 3D so haven't nailed down a process just yet.
4. Added a grid pattern to the lights to give the impression of an LED light pattern. To do this I created a 15x15 square grid which was just enough to give the effect without it being too small to see. I had to adjust the numbers until I reached the optimum pattern. I then filled the stroke as black to finish the effect.
5. Finally, I added the text to the poster. I used the "Montserrat" font as it seemed to be the font they used on their website (according to Font Picker). I couldn't use the actual Lumo logo due to it not being available as an SVG format so I created a similar version using the "Montserrat" font.

Art Deco Style Train Poster

Nigel, from the "RAIL" magazine, asked on Twitter if anyone could create an art deco train design similar to a design they had linked to below the Tweet. Someone tagged me in the post and I took this opportunity to have a go at designing something a little more unusual from my usual line of work at the time.

A few months prior to the Tweet, I had spent many hours drawing a realistic illustration, in Illustrator, of a train from a photo I had taken (see below). So, I thought it would make a good starting point to build up an art deco train poster around the previously drawn illustration.

I did a lot of research into what the art deco style consisted of, as I had never really come across the art style before. A few key points that my research concluded were that I needed to include the following:

• Appropriate typeface, which has the stretched out and bold lettering.
• Keeping the amount of colours used to a minimum - I found an art deco colour pallet on the internet and used and adapted the colours accordingly. However, I kept the prototypical colours of the trains so it would have more appeal to train enthusiasts - my target audience.
• The use of lines. I used defined lines on the platform, track and on the side of the train to give perspective.

The steps I took to complete the poster were:

1. First, I had to decide on which part of the original illustration I wanted to use for the art deco poster. I decided to use an enlarged version, with the train taking the centre of the page. During the research I previously mentioned, I discovered that the majority of the historic art deco rail posters were of the portrait orientation so I decided to keep to that style.
2. Then, I made some adjustments to the original illustration, which included: changing the livery (design of the main body) of the train, adding the cathedral and adjusting all the colours accordingly to match the art deco style. I also added a 3D effect to the windows by using a gradient of purple to white to purple.
• The cathedral was hand drawn by me from a photo. I wanted a simplistic version so didn't copy all the details into the drawing.
3. Next, I designed the sky. I wanted a simplistic yet powerful sky and I went for a dark turquoise for the main sky and a lighter tone for the rear part of the 3D cloud. The cloud was a simple case of drawing circles and then duplicating the main cloud behind the foreground to create a 3D effect and changing the colour.
4. Finally, I found an appropriate font, Poiret One, and came up with the tag line "The Cathedral City". Unfortunately, the font didn't come with a bold typeface so I had to create my own. To do this in Illustrator I:
1. Started with just the plain text in the Poiret One font.
2. Adjusted the tracking to space the letters out.
3. Used the "Create Outlines" tool which converts the text to paths.
4. Chose the newly created paths and used the "Offset Path" tool which expands the chosen paths.
5. Adjusted the colour of the text.

After sending the poster to the client, privately, they suggested I created a different version with a more modern train as it would contrast the art deco style nicely.

So, I started working on the modern train version. This proved quite challenging as I didn't have any reference material for the newer train. I tried and failed a few times before resorting to a local train enthusiast Facebook group and asked for a picture of the exact train on the correct platform. That worked and within a few hours I had mocked up a new version. There was something not quite right about the illustration put I couldn't quite place my finger on what the issue was. For that reason, I sent the unfinished version back to the client and asked for some advice. They quickly picked up on the issue and I rectified it. Now the poster was in a finished state to post publicly on Twitter.

Once I published it on Twitter, it quickly became one of my best preforming Tweets with over 21,500 impressions, 125 likes, 28 retweets and 17 comments. People seemed to really like it. The client, Nigel from the "RAIL" magazine, also was really pleased with the results.

A few days after posting the posters on Twitter, I got an email from somebody at GWR who wanted to print the posters and put them up at Gloucester Railway Station. He also offered to print me a copy as well. This was a real surprise as I have never had any of my work "published" before. Of course I agreed to my work being printed. I even managed to get hold of two copies of the poster for my school, from the very generous and kind employee of GWR.