She always wears black, yet she has the most colourful mind.

Heather Cox. Graphic Designer and Illustrator based in Essex, UK. Welcome to my blog dedicated to my passion for art and design. Have a project or a design you want me to create? Let's have a chat! Send me a message or email me: [email protected]

[heather-cox-design]

The R.E.A.D and Perform project for my local school. It encourages children to explore reading in a new and exciting way: retrieve, explain, analyse, deduce and infer and possibly through performance.

[heather-cox-design]

Christmas card designs for the Marine Conservation Society

[heather-cox-design]

Here is my final product. All in all, my book is a charming and individual picture book in sketch-style that recounts the personal experiences of what it’s like to grow up in Stebbing - a hidden village in the countryside and all the interesting things, places and buildings that can be seen here. It’s an illustrated homage to my beloved village which brings humour and tenderness to a diverse collection of history, characteristic houses, interviews with the residents and my personal recollections of growing up here and wanting to stay here forever. It has a balanced feature between past and present Stebbing celebrating its devotion to its roots, but also shows how it will be affected in the near future with a foreboding mention of the village’s unwelcomed development and loss of origin at the very end of the book leaving a reader saddened by society. It’s a 48 page hardcover book, slightly smaller than A4. I had many more ideas and drawings I would loved to have included, but with the time constraints, was limited, but I think it does still show three months worth of solid work. Although I would like to create more versions of this book myself after the project hand-in, the hardback version I created with Blurb was definitely the right decision for the end piece. I would, however, like to create slightly smaller versions with soft covers for a cheaper alternative or even prints of stand-alone buildings, but that’s for later consideration. To end, it came out exactly as I had imagined and I am extremely pleased with my journey and the end results.

[heather-cox-design]

[heather-cox-design]

Inside page photography of my FMP

[heather-cox-design]

[heather-cox-design]

Final photography of my FMP

[heather-cox-design]

Hardback book binding exploration trialling paper stock and weights.

[zettaikareshi-blog]

I’ve finally graduated with a first in Graphic Design!! So happy :D

If anyone is interested in my work you can view it here :D

prints-charming-design

[heather-cox-design]

[heather-cox-design]

[heather-cox-design]

The Village

[heather-cox-design]

Photos around Stebbing for my FMP

[heather-cox-design]

Final Major Project

I see my work as whimsical and I am heavily influenced by nature, collage, textiles, maps and old children books. I love architecture, structures and drawing what’s around me in various media and style and I enjoy creating realistic and loose line drawings of buildings. My linear drawing style, love for pattern and fondness for limited colour palettes has given me a cute and quirky style which I hope I can keep developing. My passion lies within pattern design with illustrative design being my best working process, but I do have an interest and capability within other areas. It is, however, an area of design which doesn’t always hold a lot of meaning within the work. It can simply be just a decorative piece of work or design, however, I hope to create a greater context within the future work I create to give everything I do more significance and value rather than just being ‘pretty'.

FMP Proposal -

I have lived in the tiny village of Stebbing in Essex all my life and know all the places and people very well. However, it is a forgotten area and even the town next door hardly know we exist. It’s my home, where I was educated and is a big part of my creative journey and because of this, I’d like to base my FMP on my village. I want to record, collate, draw, print, photograph and make work based on the people, buildings, landscapes, objects and the conversations had in this small and hidden area.

Using a diary or journal approach, I plan to create a sketch-style illustrated book that recounts my personal experiences on what it’s like to grow up and live in Stebbing. I’ll include the interesting things and places in the village, the history, the houses, the landscapes, the changes etc. and I also want to include personal touches from the people who live there – collated from interviews and questionnaires – documenting the important things about Stebbing.

I plan to write the book in first person view and the drawings will be created using loose lines and colours – using both hand-drawn and digital – with the accompanying text being a handwritten typeface of my own handwriting, to give it the rustic and personal touch, and a typewriter font being used for the lesser personal parts. 

Ultimately, I want to show the hidden gems of Stebbing. Books about cities have been done, so I have deliberately chosen to do a project about somewhere very secluded to portray the charming and wonderful things that can happen when living somewhere hidden. A lot goes on underneath the surface of a little village. I want to create a book for the people who live here which is where I hope to include and push my passion for surface design, pattern and illustration.

[heather-cox-design]

[heather-cox-design]

Promotional display for 'Oishii Sushi' restaurant.

[heather-cox-design]

Freebie badges for the restaurant: 'Oishii Sushi'