After more than two years working on the Memories book project, we’ve finally launched the publication. The event took place last night at the impressive, award-winning Maggie’s Centre at Charing Cross Hospital in London. What a fantastic evening it was too with a whole host of artists and designers there to enjoy Freedom Organic Lager supplied by our drinks sponsor as well as wine, soft-drinks and nibbles.

It was a great feeling for all of us to meet and mingle with so many people who have contributed to the project. We’re really pleased to have launched the book in time for Christmas because it’s going to make the perfect gift for anybody inspired by beautiful and meaningful artwork and text.

The finished product is 182 pages, with a wonderful cover illustration sporting some stunning foiling and spot varnish effects, and all the awesome, heart-felt imagery inside. We’re selling them for just £10 each and 100 per cent of that money will go to Maggie’s Cancer Care Centres.

Bernie Byrne, the head of the Maggie’s Centre in London, was on hand to accept a cheque for £1000 – money we’ve raised through pre-orders of the book. She highlighted the parallels between the Memories book and the aims of Maggie’s, which builds wonderfully-designed modern centres where people can get follow-up support, information and counselling if they have a cancer diagnosis.

After reading Memories and reviewing the artwork, she said: “It’s a quality piece of work on all levels, it really values those people’s stories and their lives and the memories that they’ve given. So thank-you hugely; thank-you so much. Without this we couldn’t function, we couldn’t do the work that we do.”

It moved us to hear that. Johann Chan, an artist who illustrated Antony Kitson’s story about his father Brian, also got up to say a few words. “After reading Antony’s story, and seeing the intimacy between the father and son, I didn’t feel like I could do the story justice with the artwork because it was obviously something so loaded with emotions. It was a privilege to work on it with all these great artists,” he said.

We wouldn’t have been able to produce such a high quality book without the help of our print sponsors Taylor Bloxham, and the paper company Robert Horne Group. We have great respect for them and want to express our immense gratitude for helping us make Memories possible.

It was such a great evening. Thank-you to everyone who came, to Taylor Bloxham and Robert Horne Group, and to Maggie’s Cancer Care Centres for hosting the event.

Please order your copy of Memories by clicking here, and encourage others to support us too!

See the full set of photos on Flickr

We are pleased to announce Memories has a feature in December’s Computer Arts magazine issue #195.

The article features a great write up about our collaboration, the work behind the brief, some of the artists involved and how we got the book printed. Here are a few snaps of the magazine.

If you wan’t to read about Memories in the making be sure to grab a copy. The issue is on sale now!

Thanks to Computer Arts for the feature and to Garrick for making this possible, lets hope it helps us sell some books and raise awareness about Maggie’s!

Enjoy!

Grab a copy

You can also purchase a digital copy on your iPhone here.

Guarantee your copy of Memories by pre-ordering it from the Subism website. Simply click the link above and select the correct ordering option depending on where you live, and we’ll send you a copy of the book as soon as it arrives back from the printers.

Inside you’ll find a dozen wonderfully written texts by people who have survived cancer, or lost a loved one to the disease. Each touching work is complemented with 12 illustrations by different artists who have interpreted the stories visually. All this has resulted in an incredible looking art book that’s bound to inspire you every time you pick it up.

Best of all, when you buy, the entire cover price will be donated Maggie’s Cancer Caring Centres. The charity helps hundreds of cancer victims and their families every day, and each centre fosters an atmosphere of understanding, support and creativity.

The cover price is an extremely affordable £10 and we’ve added P&P and PayPal costs to make ordering as simple as possible for you. The great price has been possible thanks to our excellent printers Taylor Bloxham and our paper sponsor Robert Horne Group, who have donated their printing skills and the paper respectively. Without them, as well as all our artists and writers, this project would not have been possible. So hats off to these companies.

Pre-order today and support this great cause.

“I like live drawing, layering textures, cooking and dancing like an idiot,” she says. “I was struck straight away by the Memories project as a really nice way to raise money and awareness for a good cause, and a great project for illustrators to have the opportunity to respond directly to some inspiring writing.”

Have a look at Jenny’s website here, or check out her project to draw all her Facebook friends in alphabetical order here.

Jason’s another illustrator we found via our Open Submissions strategy and he has created an image to go with the Joe Kriss poem Otherside. His work was chosen and we’re super-pleased to have him on board. “I love to experiment with a range of media including print, 3D and animation. My work is influenced by the natural world and personal memories often mixed together in strange landscapes and cities,” says Jason.

He found out about the project via a friend who has also contributed, and saw it as an opportunity to challenge himself and to do some good at the same time. Please take a look at Jason’s portfolio site here.

Oscar was born in Spain, moved to America to study commercial art, before relocating to London where he’s worked in advertising as well as setting up as a freelance illustrator. If you check out his site here, you’ll see that he’s got great skills in character and caricature work – exaggeration, lots of fun, and visual puns aplenty. He’s equally happy working in Photoshop and watercolour and the texture and depth of natural media shows through in his style. We send our thanks to Oscar for joining the project, it’s great to have him on board.

Olga also works under the pseudonym 10am, and took a break from studio work last year to pursue personal projects in silk screening and print making, and she enjoys making books. There’s personal motivation behind her decision to get in touch with us, download our brief, and create an illustration for the Joe Kriss poem, Otherside. Olga sadly lost her father to cancer three years ago.

We’re all really pleased she decided to work with us, and let me tell you, her work looks fantastic in the layout. The book has been sent to the printers now – more news on our launch date soon. In the meantime, check out Olga’s portfolios here and here.

Sebastian’s home town is Stockholm, where he works as a graphic designer and illustrator. He does a lot of TV channel identities, title sequences, commercials and animated shorts, and you can find his portfolio here. There’s an example of his design work to the left.

“It was quite the challenge being on the road working with limited tools, not to mention the extremely limited Cuban internet connection but I’m very happy with the outcome,” he explains, refering to the illustration he sent us. We think it’s ace. Thanks for joining the project, Sebastian.

The image you see here was something he rustled up earlier for The KDU’s journal which is called Solstice. Pretty cool, huh? You can see a lot more of Alexander’s intricate digital illustrations on his website. We welcome him to the project and thank him for his contribution.

In other news, we just thought we’d let you know that another Memories contributor, Matthew Richardson, has won a rather prestigious illustration competition. The Folio Society invited entrants to design imagery with first prize being a commission to illustrate a new printing of The Outsider by Albert Camus. (You know, the existential novel also called The Stranger, about killing an Arab, which so fascinated The Cure.) It sounds like a dream job for an illustrators and big congratulations go out to Matthew, though I do wish The Folio Society would stop stealing our contributors. You can check out some of the work here.

We discovered Thom via our Open Submissions process via which new and up-and-coming artists, and anyone else who wanted to get involved in Memories, could have a shot at being in the book. We sent Thom the poem Otherside by Joe Kriss, he responded with some great artwork, and when we saw it we were sure we wanted him in Memories.

Thom dropped us a line and it was clear also that he had a passion for working with us. Here’s what he said: “When I discovered the Memories project, I instantly wanted to get involved. My uncle Charlie passed away after suffering with leukaemia when I was very young, but as I got older I was always told how similar I was to him in looks, interests and personality. So I always felt that he was still around, although I wish that I had the chance to actually spend more time with him.”

I think I know what you mean, Thom. My uncle Chris also died of leukaemia and I look a little like him, particularly if I grow a beard.

It’s excellent to have Thom Lambert on board. The image you see here he created as a t-shirt graphic for a record label. He’s inspired by things like vintage graphics, comic books and Saturday morning cartoons, which no doubt you’ll recognise when you check out his portfolio here. Thanks again, Thom.