"Elementary, my dear Watson..."

With a second series of the successful BBC reimagining starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman currently filming and a sequel to the Robert Downey Jnr and Jude Law blockbuster due for release later this year, the world is going Sherlock Holmes crazy.

Having already designed a series of reprint books detailing the 'further adventures' of Holmes (you can read about the design process of those, here), we were asked to work on a spin-off series of original novels.

Here's the final cover to The Breath of God, by Guy Adams. The brief was to design a cover which had a more illustrative/narrative feel – something which actually told the story rather than a collection of graphic elements like the previous series design. The second book cover in this new series, also by Adams, is currently under wraps, but it's a doozy...

You can preorder The Breath of God here

And here's a couple of covers from the successful Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes series for comparison:

- Martin

Clarks 3D Comic

Grab yer 3D glasses! We recently designed a mini-comic for Clarks and Titan Magazines. It's a little magazine to keep kids entertained when they're dragged off to get their back-to-school shoes during the summer holiday (but what's gonna keep the parent's entertained, that's what I wanna know!) Clarks have two characters Jack Nano and Daisy and each of them has half the comic.

Here's the two covers. They are actually in 3D so if you have a spare pair of glasses kicking about dig them out!

And here's a couple of links to the Jack Nano and Daisy TV adverts which feature the magazine. Pick up a copy from all branches of Clarks now!

- Martin

Poster (again)!

No, I will never get bored of this.

Poster!

This was spotted at Victoria station. It's the poster for Anno Dracula, a great horror novel written by Kim Newman. We did the cover, so it's great to see it up and out there in the world! You can read an excerpt here. Now go buy the book. Go on.

Also, check back in a week or so and we'll be posting a 'making of' for the cover, showing the various prototypes and alternative concepts we went through.

- Martin

The Greatest Stuntman in the World

Vic Armstrong, the 'World's Greatest Stuntman (TM)' was on BBC Breakfast last Friday talking about his forthcoming autobiography. If you click this link, you can watch it (the interview with Vic is about ten minutes in). Failing that, look, here he is:

The subtitle of the book is also basically it's synopsis: "My Life as Indiana Jones, James Bond, Superman and Other Movie Heroes".

Vic's an amazing guy, with some incredible stories to tell of his time working as a stuntman for some of the biggest stars in Hollywood. The best thing is, he's still doing it - he worked on the recent Thor movie and is currently working on the new Amazing Spider-Man reboot.

It's a book well worth checking out - and I'm not just saying that because we designed it:

(Nice to see the beeb used the cover design as their backdrop...)

- Martin

Doctor Who: Companion Chronicles - The Memory Cheats

One of the problems of working in publishing is that there's such long lead times and embargo periods on things, you have to wait ages until you can admit to having even worked on them!

There's some hugely exciting stuff I'm dying to post online but it'll just have to wait. In the meantime, to whet your appetite, here's a CD sleeve we did for Big Finish a few weeks ago. It's especially timely since the new series of Who has just started on the beeb (and if you'll allow me to geek out momentarily… IT'S FREAKING AWESOME!)

Find out more about The Memory Cheats by clicking here.

– Martin

Icons

Huzzah! A book I designed for Titan last year has been nominated for an Eagle Award! Icons: The DC and Wildstorm Art of Jim Lee is in the running for Best Comics-Related Book.

If you have a moment, please pop along here to vote for it! Here's some images from the book:

You can see more at our website: amazing15.com

There's also a rumour circulating it might be up for another, even more prestigious award... More on that as we get it!

- Martin