My focus as a designer, illustrator and art director is mainly within the creative industries working with high profile arts and music clients.
My early career as the first in-house designer for Peter Gabriel’s ‘Real World’ group offered great opportunity designing CDs for world class music artists and working on books, merchandise, award-winning animations, and video projects. After seven years with Real World I moved on to work independently, both freelance and via an agency founded with colleagues, designing for clients including EMI Music, BBC, and the Arnolfini Gallery (as well as for retail clients such as Habitat). High profile projects included the iconic Blur ‘Think Tank’ album.
Today, while I continue to work as a designer, my focus is on art direction, working closely with artists such as Parra, Vhils and Space Invader to develop their ideas and take them through to the production and publication of their fine art editions. Clients include Pictures On Walls, with whom I also curate exhibitions (such as the Cans Festival in London, 2007).
Alongside these activities I often write for arts publications such as Juxtapoz and Creative Review and have had four books published by Thames and Hudson, identifying and discussing innovative artistic talent from around the world: ‘Stencil Graffiti’ (2002), ‘Street Logos’ (2004), ‘Graffiti Brasil’ (2005) and ‘Street Sketchbook’ (2007). The fifth is due for publication in autumn 2010. I also regularly lecture on the subject for institutions such as Tate Modern and at international art festivals, and give talks on illustration and design for colleges and universities.
More details of my work in all these areas can be found on this website, and to get in touch about any aspect of my work please contact me at mail(at)tristanmanco(dot)com.