Anthony

explorative illustration & Editorial Design

A children’s magazine feature created in response to a brief from Anorak Magazine, exploring fascinating facts about ants through playful, tactile illustration and accessible editorial design. Rather than creating the illustrations entirely digitally, I took a hands-on approach, sculpting a three-dimensional clay ant and constructing miniature anthills from decorated cardboard cut-outs. I photographed these handmade elements before bringing them together digitally, using layered textures, grain and bold colour blocking to create a playful, tactile world that felt both crafted and imaginative. The finished feature was selected by the editor of Anorak Magazine to appear in the magazine following my university showcase, giving the project the opportunity to move beyond a university brief and into a real editorial context. Following the project, I explored how the same visual approach could be adapted for a more premium editorial audience. By introducing a more restrained typographic system, generous white space and documentary-inspired layouts, I wanted to demonstrate how a tactile illustration style could shift in tone while still retaining its character. The project became an exploration of how handmade objects, collage and texture can be used across different editorial formats, from playful children’s publishing to a more mature audience.