These days you hear much talk about adding value to your work, so you are better placed to find ideal customers or clients. Whilst illustrating a commission for Shell garages' Deli2Go range I was able to explore this theme further.

I have always been interested in packaging, especially those of food and drinks. So when I was asked by Conran Design to illustrate a snack range at the end of last year I was delighted and very excited to be involved.

I worked in house for two days at their design studio off Camden High Street in London. On the first morning I was met by the account handler and introduced to the senior designer who would be overseeing this project. Shell launched their Deli2Go range a few years back and have been expanding with new products every year. They already had a 'house' style and I was to illustrate a extended snack range with the same feel. Images would be needed for 6 small snack packs including Bombay Mix, Chilli coated peanuts and Trail Mix.

There was a long list of different ingredients for each pack, which would include a wide range of foods from dried coconut, salt crystals, chilli, peanuts, lentils, and dried papaya to name just a few of the 17 separate ingredients. I set to work with my trusty brush pen as always. They remarked how great it was to see hand drawn elements & pleased I would be lifting artwork from these sketches - they really enjoyed seeing my brush pen drawings.

The designers were mindful of the tight timeframe and wanted the almonds arranged in such a way so each icon could be viewed easily & pick out which were working the best. So I arranged them like this after adding textures...

Two days of in house illustrating to produce 17 different illustrations with many textural options as seen above was a challenge. I was not asked to work on the actual design layout for the packaging - but I played around with some of the Pantone reference from the Shell style guide. At the end of the two days - we were in a 'happy place ' as they designer put it. It had been a fantastic learning curve and I learnt more about process of illustrating for packaging. So if you pull up at a Shell garage look out for these and I would be delighted if you could send me a pic!

Since this project I have been providing my clients with a few different versions of the same icon. I thoroughly enjoy drawing and am blessed with fast drawing ability and since clients like to have options - that's a win/win. The image below is part of a recent illustration project where I've sketched several different versions of the same icon. This expedites the process, reducing the need for additional rounds of revisions. And it also shows that I understand the project from their perspective and am eager to work diligently to accomplish fine artwork.