2022 Wrap Up

2022 was an amazing year.

Apart from getting married, I got to work on some really great projects. The Google Doodle was the icing on the cake of course, but I’ve also included some other accomplishments this year.

1. The 230’ x 15’ mural at C3 Centre in Trinidad was my biggest display of art to date. It was a huge job and rounded out the year!

2. It’s always been a bucket list item of mine to design the packaging for a rum. I got to do that this year with Ferdi’s Rum…a limited edition rum.

3. I got to work on an epic Johnnie Walker mural that I drive past every week.

4. I was accepted as an artist to SuperRare… another bucket list item

5. The Google Doodle! My career highlight so far

6. I sold a piece on Foundation for 1.5 ETH, my all time high for a piece

7. I exhibited at Miami Art Week at the Let There Be Reggae exhibition.

8. I created more artwork for Kes The Band including Liki Tiki!

9. My work was exhibited in London at the Adidas flagship store for the Creative Debuts show.

Thanks for following along on this creative journey of mine! Here’s to a great and productive 2023! 🇹🇹

Portraits of Paradise IP announcement

Portraits of Paradise is an NFT collection that I released in January 2022. It is a collection of 1/1 illustrations inspired by some of my favourite landscapes of Trinidad and Tobago. These pieces were all illustrated over a period of time spent in Tobago at the start of 2022. Now that the collection of 36 pieces is sold out, I am going to be giving full IP rights to holders of each piece. NFTs and Web3 allow for a lot of experimentation in the creative space, and this is a way for me to both experiment and to give back to the early supporters of my work.

With the IP rights, holders can use their NFT in any way they please. You can print the design on t-shirts and sell them in a store; or give away to friends. You can use the artwork for album art if you are a musician; or use it for your movie poster if you are a film maker. You can also feel free to license the artwork to anyone who wants to use it for their own purposes. The Portraits of Paradise holders are now in complete control over the usage of the NFT and corresponding artwork.

Here are some ideas as to how you can use your Portrait of Paradise NFTs:
• T-shirt print
• Album art for music
• Art for posters
• Podcast artwork
• Stickers
• Postcards

There is an infinite number of ways with which you can use this artwork. I would love to see what you create with your NFTs, so feel free to tag my twitter or my Instagram when you are sharing how you’ve used the artwork. I look forward to seeing these pieces out in the world!

Nick.

Google Doodle - Steel Pan

About two years ago I received a message on Instagram from an Art Director at Google requesting my email address. The following day I received an email with an NDA and then the brief for the project. The Doodle was to be “a celebration of the Steel Pan”, the national instrument of Trinidad & Tobago which was invented right here in T&T. When I was first approached to tackle such a culturally significant topic for this Doodle I was a bit nervous because I wanted the story being told to be one that Trinbagonians worldwide would be proud of. I was also very excited because I love creating art that showcases Trinidad & Tobago and this Doodle will allow my country to be showcased on one of the biggest online stages

The Steel Pan is the national instrument of Trinidad & Tobago and was actually invented here. It is an instrument that was born from resistance and rebellion and is truly emblematic of the people of T&T. At the time, African percussion was banned among other things, and the steel pan developed out of that. The fact that such a sweet tune can be extracted from industrial oil drums is something that should be cherished. The steel pan is also closely associated with our national Carnival celebrations, and therefore is a great source of national pride.

The initial brief was for a static illustration, but after some more conversations it was decided that the essence of the pan, and the music should be showcased. It was decided to postpone the initial launch date in 2020 to work on a full length animation with original music. Mick Seegobin (motion design), Etienne Charles (composer, arranger, producer) and the living legend Lennox “Boogsie” Sharpe (composer) were brought on to the project.

Once the decision was made to do the Doodle as an animation, the next step was to do a storyboard and create sketches that could direct the flow of the storyline. The truck was used to tie together the different scenes and to be a motif used throughout the animation. The initial sketches were done really rough simply to show the idea behind the piece. Below, you can see some of the initial sketches.

Before animating anything, we created an animatic that showed the basic timing of each scene and gave an idea of what the final flow of the animation would be. The animatic also gave the music team an idea of what was needed as far as the length of the piece of music that had to be composed. It was also decided that we would create one long tracking shot of the truck which meant that I had to illustrate a panoramic scene that the truck could drive through. This scene turned out to be one of my favourites in the entire animation.

The final step for the animation was to refine each scene illustration as well as to refine the actual animated movements throughout the video. Once this was done, the music team of Etienne Charles and Boogsie Sharpe were then able to make sure that the music and sound effects matched perfectly with the visuals.

Overall, this was a great project to be a part of, and hopefully the end product is something that Trinbagonians and Steel Pan lovers everywhere can be proud of. I hope that people can take away the sense of the industriousness and creativity of the people of Trinidad & Tobago. We are a small country on the global stage but the fact that we have given the world such a beautiful instrument is something to be held in the highest regard.

And of course a special big up to the team that worked with me on this:
Mick Seegobin : Motion Design
Etienne Charles : Composer, Musician
Lennox “Boogsie” Sharpe : Steel Pan Soloist

See the final piece below -

Head of House NFT Process

Last year, I was introduced to NFTs through a couple friends and decided to jump right in. A popular trend in NFTs is the Profile Picture NFT aka PFPs. There is a really good article that explains PFPs in a nutshell that you can read here. PFPs are basically avatars that are digitally generated from a certain number of traits to make a collection of thousands of characters, the two most famous PFP collections are CryptoPunks and Bored Ape Yacht Club. I wanted to create my own PFP collection, but I wanted to do it differently. Instead of thousands of randomly generated characters all pulling from the same pool of traits, I chose to hand-draw each and every NFT.

The concept I chose to develop was called Head of House. Taking inspiration from some unused sketches (see below) that I did for the Kes’ We Home album art, I thought it would be a fun idea to pair up architecture with the PFP concept. That meant that I would be personifying these buildings and giving them personality. Some of the earlier versions had eyes and a little more human-like traits, but I decided to keep it simple. The only one where you can see remnants of that is the Miami Head of House in the image above where I thought it would be fun to keep the sunglasses.

With the nature of the collection, being all hand drawn…it was impossible to release a mass amount of pieces into the collection in one go, so I decided it would be best to drop 10 pieces to start with and then work on more drops as the first 10 sold. The first 10 were dropped December 16th, 2021, and by the end of 2021, I had minted 21 pieces.

Since the start of 2022, and at the time of writing this article, I have created a further 15 pieces including a mini-series of the Magnificent 7 buildings in Trinidad. The Magnificent 7 are 7 of the most stunning examples of architecture in the Caribbean, and also some of the most artistically rendered buildings in Trinidad & Tobago. They are also all on one street around the Queen’s Park Savannah. These pieces all sold out on the day of their release, with the penultimate piece, Queen’s Royal College (QRC) selling at auction for 1.3 ETH (at the time of the sale, it was my all time highest art sale.)

Once all the Magnificent 7 pieces were sold, I did an airdrop to all holders of a Twitter Banner with a landscape including all Magnificent 7 illustrations. There are currently two of these banners available on the secondary market which you can see by clicking here. These pieces were my most ambitious Head of House illustrations, and some of them took as long as 15 hours to illustrate. A true difference to regular PFP projects where algorithms create pieces using pre-created elements.

After the release of the Magnificent 7 pieces, I started work on the next drop. These 4 new pieces were a mix of concepts…one is the diner from Seinfeld and another is the Chrysler building in NYC…these 2 were done to pay homage for my first NFT NYC visit. The other two pieces rounding up the new drop were the Boissierre House aka The Gingerbread House (timelapse above) and Knowsley House…two famous architectural examples from Trinidad and Tobago.

Head of House has truly been a labour of love so far. It is one of the very first collections to be released from Trinidad & Tobago (and the wider Caribbean), it is also unique because each piece is individually hand-drawn making them all true one-of-ones. My goal for this collection is for it to have historic value later down the line because of these reasons. As a creator, one of my greatest muses is my home country of Trinidad & Tobago, and this collection definitely speaks to that as almost 2/3 of the pieces are based on architecture from T&T.

McDonald's Illustrations : The Process

What do you do when you’re on holiday and McDonald’s asks you to work on 3 illustrations for them to celebrate their 10th anniversary in Trinidad & Tobago?

You say yes and thank your lucky stars that you cleared your week in advance.

The brief for the job was simple, to create 3 custom illustrations which are patriotic, family-friendly, and feature local landscapes/ topics. Sounds easy enough…but how do you capture the essence of a place like Trinidad & Tobago in just 3 illustrations, there are literally hundreds of things that you can do to represent T&T.

As with all jobs, the first thing I did was to start brainstorming ideas. I also decided to ask my Instagram followers for some help by asking them what they think of when they think of Trinidad & Tobago. I definitely got some good answers that helped me get a gauge on what were the most frequent answers (example: Carnival.) I’ve included below a selection of the answers that I receieved.

Once I narrowed down some of the ideas, the next step was to start sketching. At this point I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted to do so the sketches would be super rough just to try to figure out the actual composition of the concept. If you look at the sketches below, you can see how the final designs originated in these thumbnails.

The sketches above aren’t shared with the client during the process, however what I typically do is send across refined pencil sketches for the client’s approval before I move on to adding any colour. This way, the layout can be approved and there are no surprises for the client at the end; and of course if there are any changes to the layout, all I have to do is change a pencil sketch and not redo an entire section of a fully formed illustration.

The concepts that I chose covered a lot of bases of T&T culture and life.

Design 1 showed a hummingbird in the hills; the original Amerindian name for Trinidad is Ieri or the Land of the Hummingbirds so I felt it a fitting tribute to have a hummingbird as the focal point in the illustration.

Design 2 was of course an ode to Carnival. I tried to capture the energy of Carnival showcasing masqueraders at the Queen’s Park Savannah in full revelry.

Design 3 was meant to showcase the melting pot that is Trinidad & Tobago using many elements of what makes us who we are in one design.

Once the sketches are approved, I usually work on a colour-study which is a more refined sketch that includes some colour so that the client can get an idea as to what the palette will be.

This job however, had a pretty tight deadline, so I included a small segment of colour in the initial sketch presentation so that the client can both see the layout and palette in one shot. There were a few minor changes after this stage of the process but nothing major.

Next up was to create the final illustration!

For the final pieces, I had a pretty good idea of the style and vibe I was going for. The three designs were done on the iPad Pro using the Procreate app. Procreate is an extremely versatile program that I really enjoy using. If you want to know more about my Procreate work flow, click here to check out a video I made. Once I wrapped up the finished illustrations, I worked on some mockups so that the client can best see what the final product would look like.

Overall this was a really fun project to work on and I am extremely happy with the final result. If you scroll down you will see the promo video as well as the television interview for the launch of the illustrations. I hope you enjoyed this insight into the process, and if you have any questions make sure to leave them as a comment.

Nick

Creating a Portfolio to Get Hired

A designer’s portfolio is basically the “proof in the pudding” that both clients and agencies look at before deciding if to hire you or not. You can have a good resumé or a degree from a top art school, but if your portfolio falls flat you will most likely miss out on a lot of jobs. It is the visual representation of what you have done and achieved in your design career.

I get a lot of questions from designers looking for advice or tips on how to put together the perfect portfolio to get hired (either by agencies or by potential clients.) Creating a good portfolio can pose a challenge to designers of all levels and figuring out what you should and shouldn’t include can be a painstaking process. Here are some questions that I have received in the past about portfolios:

What should I even include?
This is one of the more common questions that I see being asked. The simple answer is to only include work that you want to be hired to do. That is the base level. If you want to be hired to create brand identities, then you need to show in your portfolio that you can create brand identities. The billboard that you designed, no matter how great of a billboard it is, will not add credence to your quest in becoming a brand identity designer. If your dream is to create album art for clients, you need to show a portfolio that has album cover designs (or at the very least, work that shows that you have the capabilities to design album covers.)

I want to design (insert any design niche here) but I don’t have any experience, so have no examples to include in my portfolio.
The most typical follow up to the first question is that, “yes I want to do brand identities (or whatever other design niche) but I’ve never done any work in that niche so I have nothing to show.” Simple solution…go do it. Then add the work to your portfolio. If no one is willing to pay you to do the work - find a friend that needs design work; find a client with no budget that might be willing to do a service/goods exchange; get an internship or a junior position; do some work for a charitable organization. Point is, there are a lot of ways to get actual, produced work to show in your portfolio. You just need to do the work and get it done.

I have a lot of work to put in my portfolio, should I add all?
No. Add what you think is the best representation of your abilities as a designer. This should be evolving and changing as time goes by. I personally cull jobs from my portfolio every few months as I add new work that I think better represents me as a designer. I’ve hired designers already, so I’ve seen my fair share of portfolios. If I receive a portfolio with 15 projects, and 8 are amazing but 7 range between OK and not that good, I would overlook that designer for a candidate that shows 5 projects and all 5 projects are amazing. Quality over quantity every time.

Can I use my Social Media pages, like Instagram, as a portfolio?
I think that when you are marketing yourself as a designer, social media is simply a part of the story. Things like Instagram or Twitter show a depth of work as well as an evolution over time. It also adds to context to what you are interested in, or any creative endeavors that you have experimented with. Having a blog is also a really good part of telling your story as a designer as it shows that you can speak about design and that you are a good writer. I was told after my interview at an advertising agency in 2014 that one of the reasons I was hired was because of a specific blog post that I had recently written. You have to expect that all candidates are going to have a degree, or a certain amount of experience, and a good portfolio. How will you set yourself apart?

How should I send my portfolio in for an agency job?
Having gone through the hiring process, I will say what I think worked best and what was most efficient for me and my team. The most effective submissions came like this:

1. An email with an outline as to why you think you’d be a good fit and any other information that speaks to the fact that you are a good candidate.

2. An attached PDF that has the Resumé/CV as the first page of content, with the portfolio pieces after that. Having your CV included in your portfolio PDF makes it easier to save your information and to share it internally during the review process. It’s one file instead of 2 or more. Make sure that the PDF is titled with your name and the word Portfolio so that it can be easily searched. (Note: if a job specifically asks for an online portfolio or your CV in a separate file, then do what is asked of you.)

3. Please, please, please, do not submit individual images. Compile all your work into one PDF.

4. Follow the submission instructions! If a call for submissions go out on Facebook and it says to email your info, DO NOT then send the Facebook page a message. This shows that you can’t/don’t follow instructions.

5. I always look at the actual design of the portfolio and not just the content. If you are graphic designer, I think having a well design portfolio is key. Don’t worry too much on your a personal logo, having your name in a nice elegant font is enough.

Should I add anything else to my portfolio?
Something that I think will add a lot to a portfolio is a small bit of information alongside each project. What was the brief? What design challenges did you face? How did you find solutions in your process? This adds so much to the overall story of you as a designer, and it also shows that you think about design and aren’t just interested in making something that looks good.

What’s the best way to show off my work in the portfolio?
The best way to show off you work will always be good photography. In lieu of good photography, which can be expensive, then mock ups work as well. The mock up should ideally be as realistic as possible, and I usually recommend purchasing the mock up rather than using a free one. The free ones have been used and abused by thousands of designers, so chances are they’ve already been “seen” by other creatives already. Photography is always best though! Maybe work with a photography student/friend who is also looking for portfolio pieces and collaborate with them on your own portfolio photos.

If there is anything else you’d like to know about creating an amazing portfolio, either leave a comment or click here to send me an email. Thanks for reading!

N.

PS. Here is a YouTube video I made in 2017 showing off my University Portfolio:

PAZ coffee: The Design Process

In 2019 PAZ Coffee & Kitchen launched in Trinidad & Tobago with their first product - Cold Brew Coffee. PAZ was founded by three sisters who shared a passion for good coffee and wanted to enter the burgeoning craft coffee scene in Trinidad. They had originally approached my design company, Backyard Design, to create their branding back in 2017 when the ideas was still in its infancy. It wasn’t until a year later in 2018 that they approached BD to put the branding to use and to design the packaging for their line of Cold Brew coffees. This would be their first product to market so it was important that the communication and launch was spot on.

The brand name was originally PAX (meaning “Peace” in Latin) but because of reasons outside their control, had to rebrand to PAZ (meaning “Peace” in Spanish.) I mention this only because some of the visuals that I will be sharing of my initial work will have “PAX,” even though all the final work will have the correct branding of “PAZ.”

The client brief for the packaging was to create a visual on the label that was both indicative of the word “Cold” because it is cold brew, while still maintaining a somewhat Caribbean aesthetic. Now, if you’ve never been to the Caribbean, I can assure you that the temperature can in no way be described as “cold.” This was going to be a challenge. As with most jobs that I take on, I was tasked with creating 3 options for the client to choose from. Because the brand identity was already completed and approved before, it was simply a matter of applying the brand identity to the label.

The first idea that I had to represent both “Caribbean” and “cold” was the image of the lolly man. A typical sight on Maracas Bay in Trinidad, the lolly man brings cold treats to everyone on your typically warm day. My second idea was to show a lady leaning out of a window with the cool breeze blowing through her hair while enjoying a sip of cold brew. For both of these concepts I tried to put myself in these situations, my imagination had me leaning out of a window on a cool December day (maybe at a beach house), first thing in the morning. Both the cool breeze and the cold brew would serve as a pick me up. This concept resonated with me the most and (fingers crossed) I hoped it would be the one that resonated most with the client.

Normally I try to present very different stylistic options, but in this case the branding was already completed so we knew pretty much what the client expected in terms of style application and aesthetic. The main challenge was coming up with a concept that would ring true to the brief. At this stage, we didn’t have the additional information for the back of the label as the client was working on getting that while we were working on the design. That meant that we presented only the front while keeping in mind that more info would have to fit on the sides and back of the label. Once we had the options to present to the client, I put together a presentation and met with the PAZ team to present the ideas and options. They were most excited about my favourite option with the open window and the breeze and they bought in to the concept.

Creating that option was a lot of fun. I started off by doing some quick sketches in Procreate on my iPad…they were super quick and not that good, but I just needed to get a good layout that I can work with.

Once I felt that it would work, it was time to refine the sketches to something that would be usable. The one thing I knew had to be changed was the scale of the woman in the window…she had to be bigger to have more of an impact on the design. I had Alex, my fiancé, pose in the exact position I needed and then found an image on shutterstock with hair blowing in the wind that I was able to combine in the refined version.

From there, I put together a few versions of how the front of the label can look. They were all very similar, but developing these iterations helped a lot with the process and gave the client some options to choose from when it came to deciding on what the rest of the label would look like. The size of the window was different in the options and just that small tweak gave the label a different feel. In the end they went with the top right option where there’s a lot of focus on the woman in the window…and I liked it the most because the logo sat nicely on top of the flat top of the illustration.

This proved to be a really fun project despite the slightly challenging creative brief, and it was a success in terms of the client chose an option directly from the presentation with very few changes. This design went on to win a silver Addy Award for packaging design in 2020 which was really cool for Backyard Design and for our client, PAZ coffee. I hope you enjoyed reading about the process of this project, and if you are interested in working with me on any branding or packaging design projects feel free to reach out through my contact form, or check out Backyard Design on Instagram.

This project has been featured on:
The Dieline
Packaging of the World

Enjoy the photos of the final product below:

A Day in the life of a Graphic Designer

When I was starting out as a designer I always wondered how other designers spent their time. This video above showcases a some-what average day for me. Obviously everyday is different depending on what I’m working on or what deadlines I have, but I wanted to show a more or less average day.

Here is my day:

5:30am: Wake up

6am: Get out of bed and get ready to workout

6:30-7:30am: Work out (Either gym or walk)

8:30am: Breakfast

9am: Check emails and do other admin related tasks (make payments, follow up on invoices etc)

10am: Start designing and working on any projects that I have going on

12pm: Lunch

12:30pm: Back to work, usually go through emails, check in with the team and then start back designing

3pm: Take a break

5pm: Back to work, usually on personal projects such as the vendor illustration project I’m working on now. Or I might listen to podcast/skillshare tutorials

7pm: Done for the day, I’ll usually have dinner then read or watch netflix to relax before bed

9:30/10pm: SLEEP

Let me know if you enjoyed looking at a day in my life, and leave a comment if you want me to make a video on something else.

Mural Painting with Sissons Paint

I was recently commissioned by Sissons Paint to design and paint a 22.5 x 10 foot wall at their flagship shop in Trinidad. Murals always pose a challenge, and this was no different, so I want to share some behind the scene as to what exactly goes into creating something like this.

The sketch

Like most things that I do, this mural started its life as a sketch. The brief from Sissons asked that I use 4 specific colours of theirs to create the painting, but I added in a darker shade of each colour as well to add some contrast…8 colours in total. Conceptually, I wanted a design that showcased the flora and fauna of the country in an abstract way. The inspiration from this came from the names of the Sissons Colours that I used; “Caribbean Blue,” “Poui Yellow,” “Young Parrot,” and “Candy Pink.”

Mural Mock up to show client what it would look like.

Once I finished the sketch, I started adding in the colours along with their contrasting counterparts. When I was happy with how it was coming along I mocked up the design on to a photo of the wall. By doing this, I was able to help the client visualize exactly what the wall was going to look like when it was painted. After a few back and forth changes to get it just right, it was time to paint.

Getting the wall ready to paint

I printed out the design many times on a grid so that I could easily (or so I thought) transfer the design on to the wall. The image below shows the image that I printed out to use as a guideline for the drawing with each red square representing a 1’x1’ area on the wall. This initial process of drawing the design took about 2 hours of us transferring what was on the paper onto the wall in chalk, and this was before we could even start painting. The next time I’ll be using a projector!

The print out for the drawing

For this project I worked with a team of 2 other people; Chevonne who is my account director at Backyard Design, and Aaliah, one of our super talented Junior Designers. Once the drawing was complete, we spent the rest of the day putting down the first coat of paint. The first coat took the three of us 8 hours to finish, but that included the time it took us to draw the design. All in all, day 1 was a lot of fun to see the mural come to life over the time we were there. Being up close, then being able to step back and admire the progress was definitely the highlight of the day.

On day 2, we spent our time doing a second coat of paint. This was the “unglamorous” part…but it made a huge difference in how vivid the mural looked. The painting was more or less complete, it was just to go over everything with that second coat and to make sure that all our lines were straight and that any spilled paint, or points of error were cleaned up.

Overall this was a great experience, and thanks to the help of Chevonne and Aaliah, we were able to pull off creating this key part of the Sissons Paint Colour Shop. Also, a big thanks to Sissons Paints for reaching out to me with this amazing opportunity and for trusting my vision!

The Final Mural!

4 Years of being self-employed

I recently came across a blog post I wrote about my first week as Freelancer and it blew my mind seeing that it had been almost 4 years to the day! So much has happened in these 4 years and it’s good every now and then to reflect on these things.

So this post will be a follow up to that original blog…what has happened in the last 4 years, how much has changed since that first week as a freelancer (and how much has stayed the same.)

For background on my journey to being self employed, I’ll give a little history. I graduated from the Savannah College of Art & Design (SCAD) in July 2013 with a BFA in Graphic Design, and upon returning home I got a job as the in-house designer for Restaurant Holdings Ltd. (Burger King & Popeye’s franchise holders in the Caribbean) where I worked from September 2013 to September 2014. It was a good initiation into being a working designer, and because of the relatively slow schedule I was able to practice illustration and work on freelance clients in my down-time at work to further build my portfolio.

I was designing stuff like this for Burger King

In 2014 I started working at McCann Port-of-Spain as a senior art director. The job listing asked for 5 plus years of experience in advertising, and I considered not bothering to apply because in my mind I was completely under qualified. I applied anyway and after 2 rounds of interviews I got the job. There was no time in between these 2 jobs; I left work at RHL on Friday afternoon, and the next Monday I was going to work at McCann. The world of advertising was a different beast to what I was accustomed to. It was really a baptism by fire and I would go home every night looking at tutorials to try to figure out how to do certain things in Photoshop that was required for making ads. I had pretty limited experience with Photoshop, and I quickly realised that that needed to change. Luckily I had the help of the other more experienced art directors there who always helped and before long I had settled in to my new position.

Jolly Saint Nick?

Two and a half years later, and having worked on some of the biggest brands in the Caribbean (bmobile, Angostura, Nestle, RBC to name a few) on a wide range of award winning campaigns, I decided that it was time to do my own thing. By then my freelance work was eating into all my free time…weekends, early mornings, late nights, holidays…and my income from these freelance jobs was starting to overtake my monthly salary. I felt that if I had more time to work on building my own business that I could at least match my salary every month, and after a month or so of restless nights and trying to decide if to do it or not…I quit my job at McCann.

I was part of the team at McCann that worked on one of the biggest rebrands at the time… bMobile

In my first full month of freelancing (April 2017) I worked on Constance Estate Infused coconut oils for CGA, a brochure, a couple logos and couple illustrations. The bulk of my work at that point was branding and packaging design and that’s when I decided that I can niche down and focus mostly on those two areas. That being said, I still wanted to get a monthly retainer client that could secure some sort of guaranteed monthly income to ease my mind. By July I had 2 monthly clients that I was creating social media content for, one of whom I still work with 4 years later.

Constance Estate Oils…the very first job I did as a Freelancer

After year one of being self-employed, I had worked with over 45 different clients on many jobs from branding & packaging, to social media, to murals, to illustrations, and more. The next year was much of the same, and I was seeing a steady growth of my business. I worked with a multitude of other freelancers on projects and it was at the end of 2018 that I decided to start operating under the umbrella of my own creative collective, and that was the birth of Backyard Design Co.

With the formation of Backyard Design, I made my first hire - Chevonne, an account director/project manager who would deal with the client service side of things as well as act as liaison to the group of creatives that I work with. It was also an investment that allowed for me to have more time to focus on design and less on the more administrative side of running a design business. At the end of the day, a design business takes a lot more than simply making cool stuff for clients; it’s meetings, contracts, quotations, invoices, ideation, accounting, project management…and above all else…making sure your clients are happy and well taken care of. Hiring Chevonne has helped Backyard Design to scale our business while maintaining all these touch points.

Here’s a photo of me & Chevonne at our favourite Cafe! Full Bloom.

Another big thing was hiring two junior designers in September 2020. This allowed me to offer my clients a wider range of perspectives in our work. It also meant that we can now handle more design work without compromising the level of quality that our clients have come to expect. I also recently started working with a business coach to make sure that I am making most efficient use of resources and help keep me focused on what’s next for the business.

Of course, over the years there have also been a lot of other very cool achievements. Winning our first Addy Award in our first year of business for the work we did for Ortinola Chocolates was a big highlight. Winning our second, third, and fourth addy was also as good as the first! The opportunity to work alongside Kes The Band on their album was definitely a career highlight, and the fact that it won a gold Addy Award made it even sweeter. We have been fortunate to be able to work alongside some really great clients and to collaborate with some amazingly talented individuals, and that has to be one of the best parts of the job.

It’s not all glamorous obviously…as an entrepreneur, I’ve worked harder in the last 4 years than I ever have or even ever thought that I can. Trying to balance work, social life, gym, eating healthy, learning new skills, and everything else that life throws at you has been the hardest part. Being able to travel a lot (pre-covid) has been one of the best things about working for yourself; but of course you can never really fully turn off as your business relies on you everyday. It’s a path that I definitely recommend but also understand that it’s not for everyone as so many things have to fall into place perfectly for it to work. I’m lucky that it has for me, and if it’s a journey that you are considering, just know that it is HARD WORK.

I hope you enjoyed this little insight into my last 4 years, if you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment and I promise I’ll reply!

Nick

A day out drawing at the Botanic Gardens

I recently started drawing lessons with the renowned artist Edward Bowen. Every week we meet up and go somewhere to do some drawing from observation. This week we went to the Royal Botanic Gardens, and I made this video which shows a couple time-lapses of the drawings that I completed. I hope you enjoy.

The Making of: Kes The Band's We Home album art

Personal Branding for Designers

I recently spoke to a University of the West Indies (UWI) design class and the topic of personal branding came up in the Q&A. One of the students was working on their personal branding and wanted to know my thoughts on logos for designers. I think a lot of young designers place a lot of emphasis on what their logo looks like but when agencies are looking at portfolios, the most important thing is…the work in the portfolio. A simple sans serif font with the designer’s name may be all that’s needed to effectively communicate to a creative director that you possess good design sensibilities.

Recently, when hiring a junior designer, I spent more time looking at the layout of the candidates’ CVs than on their personal logos. Obviously a well considered and thoughtfully designed personal logo will add value to any portfolio, but you shouldn’t let not-having-a-logo affect your drive to submit your portfolios to agencies or to share your work online.

On the other hand, a bad logo could negatively affect a good portfolio, so if you are including a logo on your portfolio make sure that it is well done and not a case of “the shoemakers children.” Always keep in mind that a brand is much more than a logo, and as a designer what you speak about or work on, can do more for your brand than the most amazing logo. Trini web developer and typographer Agyei Archer has no “logo” on his website, but all of his communications speaks to his “brand.” By spending 2 minutes on his Instagram page, or listening to his TedTalk, or even speaking with him, you get a good idea of what his “brand” is without the need for a logo.

The same can be said for Ayrïd Chandler of Ayrïd by Design. While yes, she does have a very well designed logo, her brand can be found in what she talks about and who she chooses to work with. If you follow Ayrïd on Instragram you will see that she speaks a lot about mental health, women’s rights, and through her “Tip Tuesday” segment on Stories, she also serves as a design educator. All of these things make her attractive to potential clients who may have similar interests, and even potential clients who simply respect what she talks about. This is your brand!

From a personal point of view, my “Nicholas Huggins” logo has evolved over the years to suit my brand and its evolution. The very first iteration of my logo was a silhouette of my head made up of the words “Nicholas Huggins Design,” but I have since dropped the word “design” from my brand as I didn’t think it fully encapsulated what I do. After some brainstorming and brand development, I landed on the word “creative” which is now used in my Instagram handle, with my website having simply my name. This small adjustment gives me the freedom to post all creative projects and not just design work and helps me to better communicate what I do, while keeping my “design” work under the umbrella of my design company, Backyard Design.

Hopefully this was helpful to any design who may be considering a rebrand. Just remember that your brand is much more than a logo, and this should go for your clients as well!

NH

Back Home

100 marchers by Colin Gill

After 8 long months in the UK we are finally back home! The closure of the Trinidad & Tobago borders meant that our 2 week trip turned into 8 months of lockdown trying to get back.

It’s nice to be back in my own space and to have all my belongings at my fingertips after being stranded in a foreign country for so long (with only a carry-on.) In the first 4 days back I went to 3 different art exhibitions, a trend I hope to keep up. As a creative person, I find it very important to see what other creatives are working on and to see how this work is presented.

The 3 exhibitions I visited were A Shot to the Ego, 100 Marchers by Colin Gill, and Hinkson at Arnim’s by Jackie Hinkson. At the Hinkson exhibit, I was able to speak with the artist, and he told me that every single day he does some sort of art. Whether it’s sketching, painting, digital art, whatever…he is constantly working. It is a habit that is enviable.

In the next few months, with the words of Jackie Hinkson in my mind, I plan to be very productive in my own craft and to make sure that I am working on something everyday. “Nulla dies sines linea”…not a day without a line.

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5 Accounts to Follow (September Edition)

Here is the second edition of “5 accounts to follow,” if you haven’t seen the first installment make sure to check it out. Let’s get right into it, these are 5 accounts that I think are worth following!

1. @studiomuti - This is a creative studio based in South Africa that create some really enviable work! Check them out if you are looking for a wide variety of visual awesomeness.

Great having @letourdefrance back in full swing! Here's our maillot jaune illustration from 2016 #TBT

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2. @ju._lu - I came across this profile because they recently painted the inside of my friend Charlie’s van (pictured below)… check this profile out if you love bright colours and floral patterns!

She done she done 🔥

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3. @CSAdesign - A wide range of visual inspiration from a variety of illustrators. Check out this profile if you want to be bombarded with super cool imagery!

CSA Images - Braided Beauty #csaimages #braids #art #illustration #print

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4. @frauenfelder_miniatures - Trinidadian artist that creates some really cool miniature models of old Caribbean homes. Check this out if you like seeing very intricate art with process photos along the way.

Work in progress.... #oldhouse #miniaturehouse

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5. @studiochristophniemann - One of my favourite illustrators! Check out this account if you like visual puns on any sort of visual humour!

Drawing from the book "100% EVIL" co-authored with @nblechman

How I Created the Kes "We Home" Cover

Kes’ new live-album just came out, and I’ve been getting a lot of questions recently about the process of creating this album art. Here, I will outline what was done from the start of this project through to completion.

To give some history to how this project even came to life, it all started in February of this year. A couple weeks before Carnival I posted an illustration of Kes on to Instagram. From there, I got a DM from Kes saying that he wanted to work together in the future. A few months after that, in June, Kes sent me a WhatsApp asking to jump on a call to discuss this album and the artwork.

From there, Chevonne (Backyard Design’s Account Director) and I worked with Kes’ management team to solidify deliverables, job expectations and all that not-so-fun admin stuff that’s super important in running a design business. The deliverables calendar looked like this:

• Step 1 - Work on sketches and concepts for a week. At the end of that Week I presented 7 refined sketches for them to approve their favorite, but Kes and team really liked 2 of them which takes us to step 2.

• Step 2 - This phase consisted of creating colour sketches of the 2 initial sketches that the team liked. Based on a brainstorming session with Kes, I already knew what kind of colour palette to use, so it was just a matter of adding some life to the black and white sketches.

• Step 3 - After presentation of the colour sketches, the team was able to choose which direction they liked more. That means that I then had to create the final composition from the initial sketches and studies.

• Step 4 - I presented the finished art work and all mock ups. Based on some client feedback there were a few small changes to make until we finally landed on the final piece.

This whole process took about 3 weeks, and below I will show some more behind the scenes images as well as some technical information as to how I created the artwork.

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As with any project, this one started in my sketchbook. I like the dotted paper for thumbnails, it’s a nice medium between sketch book and note book. In between sketching I like to make a lot of notes so that when I look back on the sketches I can remember what I was thinking at the time. These sketches aren’t meant to be anything great, they are simply to work out my ideas quickly in a way that I can understand later on when refining the ideas. After filling up a load of pages with quick notes & concepts, I then chose some directions to further refine to show to the client. Note: The client won’t see these early sketches, these are solely for the purpose of note taking and idea generating. They will see the refined sketches.

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The above 7 sketches are the first thing that Kes and his team would’ve seen. Based on my initial ideation in my sketchbook, I chose some concepts that I thought would work best for the project and refined them. At this stage, I want to show the client some options that fulfill the creative brief while also making sure that if they choose any of the options that it’s something I can be proud of once the job is done. This means not presenting “filler” options simply to meet a quota of “I was asked to present 3 options, 2 are good, but 1 isn’t great.” It’s important to make sure that all options are good! All of these sketches were done in the app Procreate using the iPad Pro & Apple Pencil.

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Based on the initial sketches, the team liked these 2 options and asked me to flesh them out further. These colour options were done, and the option with the house on his head was chosen to be used as the main artwork for the album. Luckily the option that wasn’t chosen still saw life as the cover art for the single “Hello” off the album.

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Now the fun begins! Once the colour sketches were approved I needed to create the final rendering of the album cover. To do this I used both Procreate on the iPad Pro and Photoshop on my Mac. I created each element in its own Procreate file so that I can use the maximum amount of layers for a large artboard. Each element was done on a 40” x 40” artboard which only allows up to 10 layers in procreate, however by creating each individual element in its own Procreate file I was able to have all elements nice and big while still utilising the layers. Once I was done creating all elements in Procreate, I exported to Photoshop & combined all elements where there’s no limit on layers.

In this screenshot, you can see that each 40x40” Procreate artboard has only one element from the main design. Each element was created at the largest size possible and treated as its own artwork.

Once I was done creating the final rendering of the artwork, I put together a few mockups to present to the client. Mockups are a nice way to “sell” your artwork as it allows for the client to envision what their artwork will look like in the real world.

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Apart from the main album art, I also created the artwork for the 4 singles that were released before the full album was released. This was a lot of fun as it allowed me to expand this illustrated world a bit more, almost like a story book. I kept the same colour scheme, and utilized some of my initial sketches and ideas in these to be time efficient.

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All in all, this project was really rewarding, especially seeing all the positive feedback online. It’s really cool to do work for someone that has so many eyes on them, both regionally and internationally. As always it’s a really great feeling to be trusted to do my thing by my clients, especially a client like Kes who’s creative work is so widely regarded as being great.

To wrap up, if you have any questions on this project, feel free to leave a comment. If I get enough questions I may do a follow up posts addressing them. I know I didn’t get into the technical aspects of designing this very much in this post, but if you think it would be worth doing an entire post on some more designer-y elements of this, let me know.

Actual photo of me and Kes

5 Instagram accounts worth following (August 2020 edition)

Once a month I will share a few Instagram accounts that I think are worth following. I love coming across new content (and sharing is of course caring), so hopefully you will enjoy these accounts and this content as much as I am.

1: @zideahub : Very cool illustration style. She also shares a lot of her own inspiration on her IG stories which is hugely value adding unto itself!

something about this piece is calming 🧘🏽‍♀️🌱 too many of us grew a love for plants in this pandemic 😁😅 #DigitalArt #Black #Art #DigitalIlustration #plants #plantbabies #Illustration #BlackArt #ZIdeaHub

2: @lukeadamhawker : When it comes to pen and ink drawings, there’s no one coming close to this guy. Crazy skills that he shows off in his timelapse drawings on his page.

Camped at Loch Lomond, before heading north to Glencoe. - Sketchbook - Japanese Moleskine Pen - 0.05 Copic Multiliner Duration - 2hrs Camper - VWT25/T3 (Brian) Campsite - @campingintheforest

3: @itsgabymarie : My friend Gaby recently started sharing her photography on Instragram. I like that she just took the plunge on this photography journey, it’s inspiring to anyone out there contemplating starting a thing.

LUSH

4: @piratebwoy : Follow for some truly incredible paintings! The piece below really caught my eye, it’s Mark Rothko meets the Caribbean.

"Possession make you rich? I don't have that type of richness. My richness is life forever " - Title : "Generational Wealth" #PirateBwoy #swimgood

5: bymakingdesign : This piece really caught our eye. Developed for Nudge Caribbean, it is so inherently Caribbean. This is really great design!

PALLET V3 - A New Kind Of Market Stall. . For Nudge: We live in strange times. @nudgecaribbean, however, anticipated this - developing a platform to showcase small businesses even before the pandemic, and persevering through it. Working with @anyaayoungchee and @julieavey - SVP People and Culture, Massy Group of Companies, we designed and developed this display in conjunction with the identity and visual strategy by @praktisdsgn Support mindfully made products, now available in 8 @massystorestt locations! . . Photography: @kibwebrathwaite . #DelightInDesign #NudgeCaribbean #MindfullyMade #FortheLoveofLocal #MicroisMighty

Take aways from drawing everyday for 100 days

Check out the difference in the hand drawing on day 1 compared to day 100

April 7th 2020 to July 15th 2020.

Exactly 100 days.

I set myself the goal of drawing every single day for this timeframe. The only rules were that I had to fill one page in my sketch book, and it had to be a drawing from life, no doodling. “Draw what you see” as Mr Reyes, my art teacher used to say.

I’ve always drawn, sketched, painted for as long as I can remember but in the time since I left university where drawing classes were required, I found that I haven’t been drawing as much. Like most artists who suffer from fear of failure, I used to look at other people’s drawings and think to myself, ‘why even bother…just stick to design and more digital based stuff’. But I always knew that becoming more proficient in drawing would help all aspects of what I do creatively.

Let me start by giving my expectations of this 100 day challenge. Firstly, I wanted to become better at drawing. You can look at my first few days and see that my drawings weren’t particularly good…drawing is like a muscle that you need to train and I think that my work had actually regressed from my university days. Secondly, I wanted to get more comfortable with drawing things from memory so that I can do illustration work without the need for reference photos. And lastly, I love the idea of having a visual journal/sketchbook that I can always keep and look back on and make records of places that I’ve visited.

I can’t say I was super proud of the first few days of drawing, and I didn’t particularly enjoy doing it, however after a couple weeks I was getting more confident and I think it reflected in my drawing. One thing that I consistently drew during the 100 days were hands, which is great because I can now look back on all the hands and see the progress.

Swipe through the carousel of images below to see some of the sketches (post continued below images):

Here’s what I actually learned from these 100 days of drawing:

1. Practice is the mother of skill. When you look at the first week compared to the last week of drawing it is night and day to see the difference in my skill level.

2. Staying consistent is hard! A lot of days I really didn’t feel to draw, or some days I forgot and had to get out of bed at 11:30pm to run downstairs and scribble that day’s drawing. However, staying consistent gives you the discipline to get better.

3. If you want to get good at something, just start doing it…and do it a lot. I really wanted to increase my skill level in drawing and it took at least a month before I was happy with what I was producing. (Granted, I have a lot of experience in visual arts, so was already starting with a solid base. If you are starting something from scratch, it will take much longer.)

4. I also decided to do 100 days of hand drawn typography, which after sixty-something days I decided I didn’t want to continue as it was super monotonous and I really wasn’t enjoying it. So, that served as a learning experience; if you really aren’t getting joy out of something, it’s ok to stop…even if you have invested a shit-ton of time doing it.

5. It really helped to immerse myself in content from other people that draw everyday. Some of the content creators that I loved learning from during this time were: Teoh Yi Chie, Alphonso Dunn, Luke Adam Hawker, Phil Dean and of course the Urban Sketchers Community.

6. Something really cool that came from this is that I was asked to do a drawing of a building in Trinidad for the Blog of an Architectural Firm in Trinidad. Before the 100 days of drawing, I would not have felt comfortable doing that!

The 100 day Project - Day 10 update

10 days ago I was sent a link to the 100 Day Project’s landing page and was immediately drawn in (no pun intended.) The only problem was that I couldn’t decide if to do 100 days of hand lettering or 100 days of sketching. Hand lettering was a skill that I am interested in learning more about and improving on; however, I really wanted to start sketching again. So I decided, you know what, I’ll do both. The rule I set for myself for the project was that I had to do at least 1 page of my sketch book for each.

I write this on the morning of Day 11 as an update on the first ten days. So far it has been pretty good with the exception of a couple days where it felt more tedious than fun, however on the average day it is enjoyable. For the sketching, I realised I enjoyed it more when I chose different areas of the house to sketch from. That seems obvious, but when you are at your desk working, it feels like a task to go find somewhere else to draw from.

See below to see the 2 galleries of images from my first ten days of the 100 day project. If you want to follow along, I am sharing this project on my Instagram stories everyday, and I have a story highlight where you can see everyone!

Also, just a reminder that if you want to support my work, please consider becoming a patron over at Patreon by clicking the button below.

Buju Banton Stage Graphics

Gargamel bussin’ some dance moves in front of the graphics I designed

A year ago Buju Banton performed for the first time after a 10 year incarceration with a huge concert in Kingston, Jamaica for the start of his Long Walk to Freedom Tour. I was contacted by North Eleven who were tasked with creating the concert visuals. They were collaborating with several Caribbean based teams of creatives and I was asked to come up with some visual treatments that would be animated for display during the concerts.

I’m a huge Buju Banton fan and have created a lot fan art for my Instagram page so this was a huge honour to play even a small part in this historic moment.

Here are some of the illustrations that I’v created over the years as fan art of Buju, and make sure to follow my Instagram page to keep updated!