A pencil doodle will become...
an ink drawing which in turn will yeld...
a digitized Whimbat.
Creating the Whimbats
How did we create our exclusive “little people” illustrations?
I have always had a good time drawing this kind of illustrations. They usually start as a quick pencil doodle (in any piece of paper and almost everywhere I am. A sandwich bag, a receipt or an envelope will do!).
Some of the Whimbats come up, literally, as phone call doodles! Then I ink the sketches using either a brush or a marker, or both. Finally, I scan them at 300 dpi in grayscale, clean them up a bit and trace them to obtain a vector file. Some of these make it to the next stage, a digital font.
I love this creation process. The most charming stage is often the first. The original ink drawing still retain some of the organic quality and spontaneity of the pencil sketch. But the final digitized Whimbat, if a little colder and smoothed, is a versatile source of illustration that conveys a sense of fun, joy of life and craziness.
The Whimbats army is at the moment 1000 people strong! There is variety enough to illustrate whole books, complex websites and many issues of magazines, not to mention packaging, stationery, posters, brochures and other materials, either on screen or printed. Find out more taking a look at our Specimen Book and the Serving Suggestions page.
A companion article explains some more details about the Whimbats.
