Sam Gilbey Illustrates - new portfolio site now live!

I'm very pleased to announce that my new illustration portfolio site, Sam Gilbey Illustrates, is now finally live!

For a while there it really did seem like it would never be finished, so I'm glad to be able to share it with you now. As you might imagine, this means that gradually I'm phasing this site out, and that a design portfolio is also on the way. I'll no longer be updating this site, so please do add the new site to your bookmarks.

Naturally, any blogs, tweets, or coverage in general would be hugely appreciated. Thanks in advance for your support!

Christmas Card Available

I'm pleased to announce that my Christmas Card design for 2009 is available to buy as a greeting card through Imagekind. I can't set it up in their system automatically, but I pledge to give 10% of any sales of this card to charity. The image was inspired by a photo I took on a snowy day this year, although sadly it was last February, and not from a white Christmas!

If you'd like one/some, please click here. Thanks very much for your support - I really appreciate it.

Not long now

First of all, apologies for the lack of updates here. It's all because the new site/s are still getting done. But, the fact is, it won't be much longer now. I'm just trying to make them as awesome as I can and there are lots of details to get right.

Anyway, I really am on the final stretch now, so keep an eye out for the official launch soon...

Thanks for your patience, and of course in the meantime I'm still very much available for projects, both illustration and design related.

Changing Situation

Since last December I've been working as Senior Art Director at Preloaded, an experience which I've greatly enjoyed. I've had chance to work on a number of interesting projects, and got to work with a studio full of talented people. Not only that, they very generously permitted me some flexible hours in my contract, which has enabled me to continue pursuing personal projects.

That said, I recently made a very tough decision, and have decided to return to freelancing (and running my limited company) full time.

I love both illustration and design, and hope that I'll always get to do both, but that's the crux of the matter really. Even with the flexible time, I've always been at tipping point in terms of my broader schedule, and the company deserve someone who can be solely focused on the company for the long term. I get a buzz from working on a wide variety of things, and thinking about my next big (or small) idea. Some of the things I hope to do could no doubt have happened with Preloaded, but many of them are going to require my own steam to get underway.

I may well return to collaborate with the team again. In fact, I hope I get chance to. I have no doubt that Preloaded will continue to make awesome (not just nice) things.

Moving forward, I have not one, but two new websites on the way. This will probably be the last blog post here while I get my online 'presence' in order (my offline presence could do with a shakeup too, well a haircut at least), so keep an eye out. The changes will be made clear on this site soon. I am officially free from Monday 28th September, and whilst my schedule is already starting to fill up, as you can imagine, I'm on the lookout for new projects. So if you have something you think you can utilise me for, whether it's illustration, design and/or art direction, then please do get in touch.

Of course, if you follow me on Twitter, then you'll be able to get all the (amazingly exciting) news first!

Watch this space....

Manila Design Week Banner

For several years I've been chatting with Inksurge, and back in 2005 they did a piece for Pixelsurgeon's Semi Permanent talk at the Barbican. It was nice to be able to return the favour, when they invited me to contribute a large 3 foot by 6 foot piece to Manila Design Week.

The theme for the posters was to propose a solution for solving an environmental problem in cities. I got to thinking, if trees became fashionable to wear, then our cities would be fresher places. I'm not saying I've exactly planned all the details of how that would work (!), but I wanted to suggest this kind of hi-tech/natural back-pack which would help support the tree, feed it and so on. Plus of course they'd also work as sunshades and umbrellas, so it's a little bit of fashion, with a hint of sci-fi, and some positive thinking thrown in!

Will post photos of the banner as soon as I get some, but in the meantime you can see more about the event here

Other artists participating include Tado, Hanazuki, Losfokos, Zoorex, Hydro74 and Niko Stumpo.

Prints now available

Over the last few years I sometimes get asked if I sell copies of my work, to which that answer has always been "ummm...maybe I do - let me know what you like and perhaps I can get something sorted for you", i.e. vague at best.

With that in mind, I'm very pleased that I can now offer prints of my work for sale, via Imagekind. I've decided to try things out with them because they specialise in artwork preparation and high quality printing. Also, the site allows people to choose the size of the prints they want, as well as the type of paper or canvas, and also has numerous options for framing (including not having a frame at all!). I've seen other sites where all the options need to be set up by the artist, which limits the choice available, and doesn't take people's budgets into account.

To start with I've officially made some of my recent sketches and studies available, inspired by photos either myself or my fiancée have take of Hong Kong, Paris and Lisbon. That said, if there's something else from my portfolio which you're particularly interested in, let me know and I can now set something up for you very easily.

The following works are available for purchase so far, with more on the way in due course: