The idea of creating this series was inspired by John Alcorn’s Christmas Alphabet from 1961. Each pair of letters in his design followed a simple rhyme that provides inspiration to the images. Initially I was going to base the series on ghosts and monsters from UK folklore. I managed to research a full list for the alphabet but the collection of names proved quite obscure. Moving on from that, I created a second list of words related to Halloween, only choosing to avoid literary characters such as Frankenstein and the like. The next stage of the process was to write the captions and rhymes that I could illustrate. With all this in place, I finally designed the layout for the series, creating a template inspired by Tarot cards

 

I worked quickly, on average creating one design a day. Drawings were scanned and redrawn in Illustrator that were then coloured and arranged into composition within the template. From here I worked in Photoshop for final editing. Some of the letters proved tricky to inspire imagery and the quick turnaround was an additional challenge. However, this pressure often provides a focus of work to get ideas flowing

 

Each design was finished on the day of posting online and I’m really pleased with how they’ve turned out. I’m also relived that I managed to finish them in time and am really happy from the feedback that many people have enjoyed following the series. Now I can take a step back and think of what to do with the collection. Cards, prints, a book? All suggestions are welcome! 

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