You may know, that for the last decade (even before Tiny Grey existed), I’ve been working as the Creative Director for a marketing agency called Sprint Media. Alongside working for some wonderful people there, I‘ve been fortunate to lead the super-talented team of designers and illustrators. Daily, we’d work on visual campaigns for clients big and small, from the BBC and Paul McCartney, to The University of the Arts and my absolute dream, the Tate Modern. But, it was the small projects that really excited me… working with people at the start of their careers, full of new ideas and a ..read more

She'd probably call me a "Bum face" (But, she always had a bit of an attitude) If I could talk back, I'd tell her to follow her heart, be a go-karting engineer (if she really wants to), but first, listen to Debbie Millman... At seven years old, I remember my older brothers building go-karts, dressing up in army clothes, climbing trees, and on Sunday evenings, during The Clothes Show, secretly wrestling on the fold-out double bed in my Dad's office (why a carpet fitter needed a home office, I still wonder). Many brothers would have shaken their little sister off for 'cramping their ..read more

​The brief (x9 multi-paged Word docs) dropped into my Messenger account on the 28th Dec. Firstly, I'm blown away by the organisational skills of my client. She's kindly laid out every person with their name, photo and connection to the other 70+ people and pets that were to be depicted in time for a big birthday reveal mid-Feb. ​Ordinarily, I ask for 4-6 weeks to work on a portrait, and it's at this point I'm slightly panicked that the timescales are going to be too tight. After all, my 14 month old son lovingly likes to remind me (with a hair pull or nostril poke) that he is now my t ..read more

Ever looked at your walls and thought, they could do with some personality? After moving house a few years ago, I thought the very same thing! Looking around at the cheap, generic prints I bought as 'space-fillers' a few months ago I decided it was time to get rid of them and inject a little 'me' into the mortar. ​ ​This gave me the idea to create these giant hand-painted portraits of my family (me, my wife and our son). The giant stretched canvasses (60cm x 80cm) now sit proudly in our kitchen and highlight a few of our favourite hobbies - see if you can guess t ..read more

Day to day I get to find out about new people and illustrate their quirks and hobbies, my latest commission was no exception - this pair are such characters! The super-trendy couple from Shoreditch consist of Babs and Bobby. Babs describes herself as a "geeky fashionista" who loves her oversized pink specs, her partner Bobby is a self confessed "bearded extravert". In this special, extended blog post I take you through everything I did to create this bespoke portrait, from start to finish! The Brief As with all of my commissions, I requested the brief from the couple via email. Their reply ..read more

For those of you who aren't familiar with my work, you may not know that I started out creating designs for ceramics (mugs and coasters to be precise). ​Well, this week I've had some incredible news. My mug designs are now soon to be stocked in a real life art gallery: The National Gallery of Ireland for that matter! ​Not too shabby ..read more

Last month I received a lovely email from a blogging website called Feedspot. To my surprise my humble Tiny Grey illustration blog has made it into their Top 100 Illustration Blogs list! I'm honoured to be mentioned alongside some of my idols and some of the industry's greatest illustrators, such as, Lisa Congdon's 'Today is going to be awesome', Andy J. Pizza's 'Creative Pep Talk' and the wonderfully inspiring 'Illustration Age', which is a resource for professional illustrators. ​Here's my lovely entry ..read more

​Illustrating ten Tiny characters in one composition is no easy task: space is the real issue. Firstly, Tinies look much better when they are displayed on a grand scale (the colour really pops). Secondly, the thick black outlines that are synonymous with Tiny Grey illustrations, along with the (sometimes) detailed possessions of each character, can look a little crowded if there are too many elements on the page. ​Having said that, I'm not one to shy away from a challenge; when a lovely chap, from across the border in Scotland, contacted me to commission a special extended family portrait o ..read more

​You may think my Tiny Grey illustrations are limited to creating prints for the home. Well, although I ABSOLUTELY love creating wonderful family portraits (and won't be stopping), on a weekly basis, a good portion of my time is spent as the Head of Design at a digital creative agency, where I help transform brands' visual identities, through design and illustration, to help set them apart from their competitors. Over the years, as Head of Design, and Chief Illustrator at Tiny Grey, I've created thousands of bespoke logos, business cards, letterheads, icons, digital graphics, and even super ..read more

​From time to time I get asked how I illustrate my prints. Well, I create them in a number of different ways, but in this short video below, I demonstrate my sketching and inking steps on an analogue illustration. *Apologies the pencil section of the video is a bit faint (this is intentional as leaning hard on the paper can make it tricky to rub out the pencil markings once the ink has been added). I've upped the contrast of these bits to make it a little easier for you to see (but you may still have to squint). Hopefully the sneaky shots of my dogs will make up for it... After this proc ..read more