Every year, The Society of Illustrators honors the best achievements in illustration from the past year in an exhibition. B&A’s John Hendrix and Andrew Bannecker are among those selected this year for “Illustration 54: America’s Original Annual of Illustration.” The jury selected nine of Hendrix’s illustrations and eight of those will be exhibited across all the categories. Two of Bannecker’s illustrations were selected.

Hendrix’s work represents a wide range in his professional life, advertising campaigns, children’s books and editorial work with clients including AT&T, Rolling Stone and Random House. Three of his illustrations for A Boy Called Dickens, a type piece, and a Rolling Stone trivia series are in the show. Hendrix says it is always an honor to be a part of the annual show but that this year is “particularly special,” for the number of his pieces included.

Bannecker’s two pieces for the show are a non-commissioned illustration called “Night Falls” and an advertising piece called “Wish.” “Wish” was created for the American Cancer Society. The piece represents “the birthdays that cancer survivors are celebrating thanks to cancer research.”

The Society of Illustrators Annual Show will open on January 4^th, 2012. For more information, visit The Society of Illustrators website.

See more of John Hendrix’s illustration work here.

See more of Andrew Bannecker’s illustrations here.

Adam Hayes and Andrew Bannecker collaborate with Nike on their new VCXC space in The Bronx, New York. Located across from the Van Cortlandt Park Cross Country Track, the space is devoted to runners and features custom tees, interactive displays, and running gear. VCXC honors the park’s cross-country heritage and promises to be a community gathering space for local runners. Nike opened similar sports-specific stores in Chicago and California.

Hayes designed branding and map illustrations that decorate the interior and exterior walls of the space. He sketched several potential logo designs before Nike settled on his hand-drawn crest design. Hayes says of the crest, “The playful typography with the silhouetted and iconic tortoise and hare mascots retain the youthfulness and high energy of this sports event.” He adds that he’s extremely happy with how his logo has been used.

Bannecker also created a branded logo for the space as well as playful illustrations that reflect his own style. He combined the head and shell of the tortoise and the hare for one logo and in another, simply had the hare jumping over the VCXC logo.  Bannecker’s illustrations are interspersed with Hayes inside and outside the space.

The Nike VCXC space will remain open until the end of cross-country season in December.

See more of Adam Hayes’ illustration work here.

See more of Andrew Bannecker’s illustration work here.

Adam Hayes

Adam Hayes

Adam Hayes

Andrew Bannecker

Andrew Bannecker

Andrew Bannecker

Andrew Bannecker brings fruits and vegetables to life for Jamie Oliver’s JME homeware line. The line’s summer collection is based around the theme “Summer Loving” and celebrates popular food pairings like tomato and basil and lemon and mint.

Bannecker’s colorful illustrations appear on mugs, tea towels, and picnic tins. The products feature the foods interacting with each other in a loving or flirtatious manner. The lemon and the mint piece hold hands on the mugs and the orange woos the carrot on a tea towel.

The products are available now on Jamie Oliver’s website.

See more of Andrew Bannecker’s illustrations here.

Chicco, an Italian company specializing in baby products, is launching a new campaign in Times Square to familiarize American customers with its products and its name. The campaign invites parents to film short videos of their babies correctly pronouncing the company’s name, “KEE-ko”, and to post the videos to the Chicco site where they could end up on a massive billboard in Times Square. Andrew Bannecker created illustrations of Times Square for the billboard and website.

Bannecker was asked to create a fun and charming kid-focused version of Times Square. The colorful illustrations include parents, children, taxis, and other bright Times Square billboards. The art was designed to surround the video module on the massive billboard. At the center above the video is the tagline “Get Them to Say Chicco (KEE-ko)”. Bannecker’s illustrations also appear on the Chicco website and their Facebook page.

To find out more about the campaign visit the Chicco website.

See more of Andrew Bannecker’s illustrations here.

Client: Chicco
Agency: McCann Erickson
Art Buyer: Agatha Maciejewki
Creative Director: Nathalie Brown
Creative Director: Karen Ingram
Illustrations: Andrew Bannecker

Each year, the Society of Illustrators recognizes the top achievements within the field of illustration. Exhibitions and awards encompass all genres, media and level of expertise, from students to lifetime Society members. Illustrators 53: Book and Editorial Categories will recognize illustrations used in or for the cover of books and work commissioned for newspapers, magazines, medical or scientific journals, and online magazines.

B&A would like to congratulate the following artists, Andrew Bannecker, Marcos Chin, Josh Cochran, John Hendrix, Rod Hunt, Yuko Shimizu, Mark Todd, and Steven Guarnaccia on their entrance into the show. Cochran will also be awarded a silver medal for his work Zombies vs. Unicorns, seen above.

The opening reception will be held Friday, February 6^th at 6:00 pm at 128 East 63^rd Street in New York City. The show will run until February 19^th. For more information visit the Society’s website here.

Andrew Bannecker

John Hendrix

Rod Hunt

Mark Todd

This weekend in New York City October 9-11, RE:FORM SCHOOL will be taking over 233 Mott St. in a call for the reform of the American Public Education System. RE:FORM school is an art exhibition, event series, and public awareness campaign that believes it is the right of every child to have access to high quality education. It is open to the public between 10:00am-6:00pm.

Artists involved include Andrew Bannecker, Gary Baseman, FriendsWithYou, Shepard Fairey (founder of Studio Number One), Tes One (pictured above: Wonders Never Cease), TrustoCorp, and many more. Events include a silkscreening workshop with Faile, a paper mural workship with WK Interact, and a breakdancing class with Ken Swift. Don’t forget to stop by the old fashioned bake sale! Proceeds support local arts and education.

Tes One is featured at RE:FORM SCHOOL’s blog in their “Meet the Artist” series. He explains, “When I was younger, I had a hard time concentrating in school because my imagination was quite vivid. I would daydream a lot. I wanted to explore and discover things as much as I could. As I got older, the capacity of my imagination would shrink to make room for practicality, limitations, life, etc. 
I created “Wonders Never Cease” as personal reminder to never stop exploring, never to close my mind. With as much as there is to learn, you will never reach the end. Stay curious!”

Wonders Never Cease was created specifically for this exhibition, it is painted on a 6′ x 4′ chalkboard. Read more about Tes One at Meet the Artist: Tes One.

Tes One, Taking Tree

Tes One, New Day

Links:
RE:FORM SCHOOL
Tes One

The Mid-Autumn Festival (中秋节), also referred to as the Moon Festival or Lantern Festival, is a major holiday in China and Vietnam. Family members and friends gather underneath the full moon at the autumnal equinox to celebrate the harvest. An indispensable part of festivities is eating mooncakes (月饼), round pastries with a thin skin that contain a sweet, dense filling of ingredients such as red bean paste, lotus seed paste, dates and walnut paste, and more.

B&A Reps Asia has enlisted B&A artists to create 6 unique mooncake paper crafts for the Mid-Autumn Festival on September 22nd. Download the mooncake craft templates, print them out, assemble them, and then give them out as gifts! The paper craft kit includes five paper mooncakes and one box to hold them all. Andrew Bannecker, FriendsWithYou, ilovedust, Nicola Meiring, and Stanley Chow all contributed mooncake designs. Am I Collective designed the gift box.

Andrew Bannecker

FriendsWithYou

ilovedust

Nicola Meiring

Stan Chow

Am I Collective

Download them all here.

The American Cancer Society and The Martin Agency team up with artists and musicians for their “More Birthdays” movement, because “A world with less cancer is a world with more birthdays.” Artists were given uplifting facts in the fight against cancer to use as inspiration for new work. Musicians recorded their own version of the song “Happy Birthday” especially for the American Cancer Society. People who visit morebirthdays.com can purchase custom art, send personalized music videos, or send an art e-card with a special birthday message.

Artists invited to join the movement include Am I Collective, Andrew Bannecker, ilovedust, and Kai & Sunny. Musicians Justin Bieber, Maroon 5, Devo, and Colbi Caillat also lent their support. Visit the website to see the full list of participating artists and explore the art and music in celebration of more birthdays. Wrapping paper, posters, and limited edition prints are for sale with proceeds supporting the American Cancer Society.

Pictured above: Am I Collective – “Breathe Deep”
Inspiration: Nearly 70 percent of America is now covered by smoke-free laws in public spaces.

Andrew Bannecker – “Wish”
About his piece: “I focused my design on the magic moment right after you blow out a birthday candle. It represents the birthdays that cancer survivors are celebrating thanks to cancer research.”

ilovedust – “Poppin’ Off Birthdays”
Inspiration: Every day, we celebrate 350 more birthdays because of the progress made against cancer.

Kai and Sunny – “Butterfly Effect”
What “more birthdays” means to Kai and Sunny: More adventures, more experiences, more knowledge, more surfing.

Wrapping paper

The blog will resume January 4th, 2009. Cheers!

Animation and direction by:
12 foot 6

Art By:
Andrew Rae
Andrew Bannecker
Stan Chow
Am I Collective
Josh Cochran
Nishant Choksi
FriendsWithYou
Nathan Fox
Big Chief
Tatiana Arocha
Tristan Eaton
Sarah Coleman
Ben Wachenje
12foot6

Sound, Music, and Voice:
Expansion Team

More news from Copenhagen: The Hopenhagen campaign from Ogilvy continues to blanket the city and other parts of the world as COP15 Climate Change Conference continues. Hopenhagen is “a movement to empower citizens to help create a better future for our planet by working together to combat climate change.” Global partners in the Hopenhagen campaign include Coca-Cola, Siemens, and SAP.

Andrew Bannecker worked on a series of posters for Coca-Cola that are displayed throughout the city as COP 15 is underway. The posters can be seen anywhere from on the sides of bus stations to giant billboards stretched across building facades.

The posters’ themes deal with Coca-Cola’s three main initiatives for sustainability: water conservation, recycling, and PlantBottle – a renewable, recyclable, plant-based plastic used in Coca-Cola bottles.

Comments Bannecker, “It’s seems clear that with the current environmental changes facing us, something needs to be done now. I hope that Hopenhagen will be a catalyst.”

Bannecker’s Hopenhagen poster greets visitors at the Copenhagen Airport

Bannecker’s work adds cheer to Copenhagen

The cheery animation is a first by Andrew Bannecker, who hopes to do more animations in the future. Keep checking the Tory Burch website for new animations as the rest of the series unveils!

Taschen’s Illustration Now! 3 holds a dazzling display of exciting and beautiful illustration across a wide range of styles and techniques. The book opens with an introduction by Steven Heller, a respected figure in the art and design world and former art director of the New York Times. Curating the volume is Julius Wiedemann, who has been an art editor for design magazines in Tokyo as well as many other Taschen titles. Among the 150 artists carefully chosen is Andrew Bannecker. A longtime fan of Taschen, Bannecker notes that “Having them select my work for this book is truly an honor.” Bannecker’s lively illustrations capture the imagination and certainly add a flair to the illustration tome.

Shepard Fairey’s latest project is Art for Obama, a book filled illustrations that were inspired by Barack Obama and the groundbreaking 2008 presidential election. Much of the artwork is from the Manifest Hope art show in January preceding Obama’s inauguration. Featured artists include Andrew Bannecker, Gary Baseman, Tristan Eaton, and SNO & Shepard Fairey. Andrew Bannecker’s image (left) was chosen for the cover (right).

Fairey co-edited the book with Jennifer Gross and all proceeds go to Americans for the Arts, a non-profit organization that promotes art throughout the nation.

“Art for Obama: Designing for Manifest Hope and the Campaign for Change” (Abrams Image) is on sale now.