Cycling poster illustration for the NHS

Back in Spring 2023, the team at The Royal Marsden, an NHS Foundation Trust, approached me asking for a cycling poster illustration to celebrate the 10th anniversary of “Le Cure de France”, an annual cycle event established to raise money for cancer research.

The fact that the project involved drawing bicycles, cyclists and landscapes made this a DREAM commission!

The poster has also been adapted to a postcard size which has been distributed to the cyclists who took part in the event. 

In this blog post, I want to bring you with me through the phases of this project from brainstorming and sketches to the final poster.

Client brief and first sketches

The brief from the client requested the illustration to be a modern take on the vintage Tour De France posters with mountains in the background and the pink jerseys worn by the cyclists prominent in the composition of the image. These three elements were all incorporated in the three sketch options proposed to the client. 

The client liked the first option and the meandering road through the mountains but asked to make the overall ride seem more challenging and impressive, so I came up with a combination of the first and second option. This time I presented a coloured sketch to gather some feedback on the colour palette. 

Coloured illustration

The client was happy with the sketch so I went ahead and worked on the final illustration. 

Revisions from the client

When I presented the final poster, the client had some second thoughts about the colours used in the illustration. Even though that meant almost going back to the drawing board I was quite happy I did, as the new coloured sketch presented to the client was definitely better than the first one and much more in tune with their brief. 

(This is one of the instances where working digitally is really advantageous. I was able to make substantial changes to the illustration without starting again from scratch.) 

Final illustration

This is the final poster and how it looked in real life. I’m totally in love! So much so that it gained a place on the gallery wall next to my desk.

That’s all for now, until next time!

This cycling poster illustration was a dream commission! If you are looking for a freelance illustrator and you think I could be a great fit, why don’t we chat?

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