This month sees Imagistic’s 7th business birthday – 7 years of helping lovely people engage and inspire their staff, clients and stakeholders with fun, colourful and unique hand drawn visuals.
I found a client list from my early years and it inspired me to create this post to share and celebrate some of the amazing projects I’ve been involved in, plus I’ve chosen one project to highlight each year.
So let’s go back… way back…
2016
Imagistic launched in March when I helped a gang of graphic recorders organise a UK Meet Up in Cambridge. It was a great experience as we didn’t know each other, and didn’t meet until we arrived on the day. I remember being too scared to draw on the board during the event so I stuck to what I did best at the time and hosted and managed the event – watching in awe at all the drawing going on around me. I’m pleased to say that many of the people I met at that time are now great friends and business colleagues – we continue to share ideas, knowledge and get to work together on occasion.
I practiced, practiced and practiced that year, attending friends events, volunteering at others until I started to pick up paid work. Early clients included Ordnance Survey, JP Morgan and SSE but the one I remember most was for Dorset Food. I couldn’t afford to buy my graphic wall yet so my husband helped me make my own easel and I created the graphic at the event and colourised it digitally back at home.
2017
Highlights of 2017 included being invited to work alongside Fran O’Hara, one of the graphic recorders I’d met in Cambridge the previous year. I learnt so much over that couple of days and am forever grateful for the opportunity to learn from one of the best in the business.
I was honoured to work with Ordnance Survey over a series of workshops as they relaunched their values and to work with 3 more graphic recording friends at an event for Methodist Youth in Southport – it was fascinating to see how we all visualised the same content in slightly different ways. I also began a long relationship with Stop Domestic Abuse, facilitating their User Consultation events, something I am still doing today.
I also started offering digital illustration this year, working on an iPad mini to start with before rapidly moving up to a full size iPad and then an iPad Pro as soon as I could. To say it changed my life wouldn’t be an understatement! One of my favourite early pieces of work was to draw a map for Willmott Dixon so they could drop pins to show their current and past projects. I updated this for them last year and it was great to know that it was still being used. Here’s the updated version…
2018
By now I was becoming established and the work began to flow in. I dipped my toe in digital graphic recording, partnered with Hampshire Chamber of Commerce, and took on my biggest challenge – capturing 100 business tips in one day for Ian Dickson. My illustration work was also going well, commissions included a vision picture for LGC Genomics, an explainer picture for Bournemouth University, and a visual showing the library of the future for Worthing Library. That summer I joined visual practitioners from around the world at the IFVP conference in Copenhagen and took away bucket loads of inspiration and rather a lot of new pens…
The demand for graphic recording was also growing with events for Winchester University, Dorset Growth Hub, Kingfisher, The National Trust and more. So for this year I’m choosing a piece of work created for the University of Portsmouth at an event designed to showcase their support for businesses. I love it because it all worked out just according to plan!
2019
2019 was a super busy year for both graphic recording and illustration, with many fab projects and events, but it was most memorable as the year I began working with Dr Karen Treisman of Safe Hands, Thinking Minds. Karen found me via Twitter and asked me to create some learning resources for her. And so began a wonderful working relationship with one of the most caring, clever and creative women I’ve ever known. Karen introduced me to Barnardos and I’m proud to say I’m still working with both Karen and Barnardos today (I’ve just had a quick count and I’ve produced over 100 pieces of work for Karen – including presentation materials, posters and worksheets – wow!). Here is another story about my work with Karen.
So of course this year I’m choosing just one of the 100. This was actually produced during lockdown in 2020 but it’s one that Karen shares publicly so here it is…
2020
The year started well with a wonderful week spent with lettering guru Heather Martinez. I helped Heather bring her lettering course and retreat to the UK and spent a week under her tutelage alongside some of the best graphic recorders in the business. Heather joined us mid February – just weeks before the world locked down – and then I watched my diary empty overnight…
With time on my hands I joined friends and business colleagues online, chatting about our lives and working out how we could continue working online.
Two things came out of this that saved my business in 2020. Firstly I drew a graphic to inspire friends and remind them that ‘this won’t be forever’ and secondly I launched an online graphic recording services. The graphic went a viral and I spent a couple of weeks answering messages from around the world asking if they could use the poster, I said yes to everyone who asked and subsequently heard that the poster had been printed for NHS wobble rooms, sent out as a postcard to a to whole school of children, printed on goody bags being delivered to the elderly and so much more. You can see the poster here. And off the back of that I was approached my several new illustration clients and was able to bring in work to keep me going through the year.
Online graphic recording was slow to get going as everyone had so many other things to think about, but as people settled into this new way of working many found that having their meeting illustrated helped keep people’s attention on the meeting and they were able to send the graphic within hours of the meeting as a visual reminder.
And my share for this year is one of my favourite pieces of work – created for Whitley Abbey Primary School. I was asked to bring their vision to life as a visual and create an animal for each of their values. What a lovely project!
2021
Another year affected by Covid but thankfully work continued, with several new clients for online graphic recording and a variety of illustration projects. My first face to face event came in April but it wasn’t until the autumn that events really started up again.
This was the year that I began a great working relationship with NHS Wales, capturing the key learning points from their online training programme for Nyth/Nest, a relationship that continues to this day. My work with Barnardo’s also continued with projects for Barnardo’s Education Community. Set up in response to the pandemic the aim is to improve the mental health of children and young people by providing staff working in education with knowledge, understanding and tools to support them. I loved creating these resources including Fill Yourself up with Nature and Summer Power Up. These resources and many more are freely available for download.
My favourite project of the year has to be TEDx Southampton, I worked closely with Annelise James of 22 Midnight in the organisation of the event and loved capturing the golden nuggets from each of the amazing presentations on the day. We chose to draw on 30cm square white boxes instead of posters – stacked up they made a great talking point amongst the audience and a really fab take away and thank you gift for the presenters.
2022
There were so many fantastic projects in 2022 that I don’t know where to start. The summer saw Imagistic on the road as I toured the UK drawing at events in Wales (for Cardiff Council) in Derby (for Barnardo’s National Counter Trafficking Service) and Liverpool (for the Girls School Day Trust). My hubby came with me and we travelled in our motor home, holidaying between events – it was an excellent way to see some new parts of the UK 🙂
Illustration projects were varied and included vision and values posters for Chilworth Construction and a Dorset School, website images for Forces Children Scotland, a set of colouring in postcards for the Cultural Heritage Trust here in Gosport, some presentation materials for Yum Brands (owner of KFC and Pizza Hut) and a detailed street view for the University of Surrey to share ideas around the future of travel.
My favourite project of the year has to be these signage boards for the woodland walk at Aldingbourne Trust in West Sussex. The trust supports people with learning disabilities and/or autism, it’s an amazing facility providing work and raising funds through their cafe, shop, meeting rooms and open farm. Why not pop in next time you’re on the A27 between Chichester and Fontwell – they are open 7 days a week 10 – 4pm and I can vouch for the excellent cafe!
2023
2023 has started well and thanks to a business grant from Get Set Grow I’ve been able to invest in new tech to start offering moving graphics! – I’m at the very early experimentation stage but hope to offer this as an additional service very soon – so watch this space!
Finally I’d just like to say a huge thanks to every single person and organisation who has put their trust in me and my pens over the years.
