March 6, 2008
500 Designs For The New York Times
Since January 2006, quirky black-and-white brushstroke illustrations have graced the back page of the The New York Times Magazine. The work is that of Toronto-based designer and OCAD teacher Bob Hambly, who just completed his 500th illustration—a bus—for the prestigious Sunday newspaper supplement.
"Even after twelve years, I still get that little pang in my stomach each time a new story is sent to me," he says. "I feel a great sense of responsibility for the page. After all, it is the New York Times."
The magazine publishes feature-length articles and scribblings from a variety of well-known contributors, including Albert Einstein, Elmore Leonard, Pulitzer-winning journalist William Safire, and even sitting American Presidents. The Lives column featuring Bob Hambly's work presents curious stories of everyday people, and the bus drawing illustrated an article about a 1966 ride on a Greyhound.
The subject of the weekly illustration is always a discussion between the artist, the editor of the page, and the magazine's art director—and deadlines can get pretty hairy. "On occasion, I've only had several hours for sketches and a final," Hambly told Torontoist, though he normally has a mere two days from start to finish.
"I was thrilled [in 1996] to hear that they were going to use my illustrations on a weekly basis, but I had no idea how long it would last for. I believe the longevity of the Lives page is really a testament to the stories themselves—it's the people's voice of the magazine."
Oshawa-born Hambly has lived in Toronto since 1980, and is the co-founder and creative director of design firm Hambly & Wooley. His work has also appeared in Entertainment Weekly, Time, InStyle, House & Garden, and Martha Stewart Living magazines.
UPDATE: Bob Hambly has informed us that, as of May, The New York Times will be debuting the work of a different illustrator for the magazine's back page. "I've always known that at some time it's going to end," he told the National Post. "I'm not shocked, but it's the kind of thing you'd love to go on forever."
Tip o' the chapeau to Canadian Magazines. Images used with permission.
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Getting the ink brush to work for you is a real challenge, but also very rewarding. The kind of stuff Hambly is doing for each drawing is like a cross between logo design and spontaneous brush strokes - it's a lot harder than it looks. But the results are so much more expressive than what you get from monowidth tools like markers or hacking away at shapes with Illustrator beziers.
P.S. - For anyone interested in giving this sort of thing a try, I can't recommend the Pentel Pocketbrush highly enough. It's very accessible for beginners and a less accident-prone and portable way to try out the ink brush. I got one about a year and a half ago, and it's become my primary sketching tool. It's even encouraged me to get back into using crow quills, real brushes & ink.
Excellent illustrations!
Those could have been drawn in Illustrator or Photoshop with a pressure sensitive Wacom tablet and you wouldn't be able to tell the difference.
tyrannosaurus_rek, you're right, Hambly is very talented...
Best way to spend a Sunday afternoon, drinking coffee and taking in the story alongside Hambly's artwork.