Profile - Stephen has degrees in Fine Art - 2D and 3D (1989) and Graphic Design (2000) and
is a member of the Association of Illustrators. He has also managed to skirt the periphery of mainstream education, teaching in various capacities.

When not conducting experiments in the bending of time to create the perfect illustration, Stephen oversees Magpie Designs - delivering high caliber graphic design products to an unsuspecting world.

His influences include everything he has ever seen, felt or done, but rates the resistance to entropy as his main motivator. Other passions include all things in the natural world, science, politics, outer space and the numbers 2 and 4 - wherever they occur. He longs to travel the world while remaining firmly rooted to his mortgage - avoiding fecklessness at all costs.

Although starting out with a directionally and geographically challenging life, (born up north + growing up down under) Stephen has more recently attained equilibrium and now resides in London.

How I Work - “ Much in the vein of particle acceleration, illustrations are born as I hurl myself at the paper at tremendous speed and record the results. Traditional materials, including coloured pencil, ink and watercolour are often a starting point. I then bring these into the computer where vectors and pixels can come in and play. I am constantly striving to create an image that harmoniously combines traditional and computer generated imagery and remains striking. My primary aim is to finish the brief on time to the mutual satisfaction of all by any means necessary. ”