Rian Hughes
Encyclopedia
Rian Hughes is a British graphic design
er, illustrator and comics artist
, noted for his work on 2000AD, where he illustrated Robo-Hunter
, Tales from Beyond Science, Really and Truly and Dan Dare
, among others. His work was highly distinctive, wearing its design influences on its sleeve, daring to be two-dimensional and bold in its use of large expanses of flat, bold colours. This stood out particularly during the early 1990s, when British comics were leaning ever more towards fully painted art. Unusually, Hughes preferred to be his own letterer
, and designed several unusual fonts for this purpose.
Since leaving comics illustration, Hughes has become a successful advertising artist, graphic designer and font designer. He runs his own company, Device, with clients including Virgin Airways
, Penguin Books
, DC Comics
, Eurostar
the BBC
and a range of magazines and newspapers. Hughes prefers to design his own fonts for new projects usually giving them humorous and occasionally rude names. The font Knobcheese was marketed as "A typeface in the Swiss (cheese) tradition. With knobs on."
Hughes graduated from London College of Printing and was employed at various advertising agencies where he worked for ID magazine, Smash Hits
and Condé Nast
. He arrived late at his very first job interview at an advertising agency with a lump of dog excrement stuck to the bottom of his portfolio, managed to transfer some of it on to the white shirt he was wearing and the rest onto the meeting-room table. Directors had to open windows to let the stench out. Despite this, he got the job. At the same time he was drawing his own comics, released as small press
minicomics in editions of around 20 copies. Three issues of Zit were published between 1983 and 1984 and through these he got involved with the British small press comics
scene of the time based around the Fast Fiction
stall Paul Gravett
was running at the Westminster Comic Mart in London
.
Hughes was a regular contributor to Gravett's Escape Magazine
from 1983 to 1989 with strips including Norm and The Inheritors. In 1987 his first graphic novel
, The Science Service, co-written with John Freeman
, was published by Belgian publishers Magic Strip in seven languages. The UK edition was co-published in 1989 by ACME press in the UK and Eclipse Comics
in the US.
to the logo of Mega City Comics. In 1990 the strip Dare
was drawn by Hughes, serialized in Revolver
, a magazine he designed, and written about in Speakeasy, a news magazine he'd also redesigned.
At Fleetway
he did influential work, designing a new display font for their weekly comic 2000 AD
, under the supervision of innovative Art Director Steve Cook
. When the adult comic Crisis was launched it featured a radical Hughes design and he continued to spearhead Fleetways identity with the launch of Revolver
and their graphic novels line.
For Titan Books
he was given the task of designing books that repackaged American comics for the UK market. Most notable was his work on Love and Rockets
, a personal favourite of Hughes. His design was considered daring but the American publisher, Fantagraphics Books
, was impressed and used similar concepts in their own collections.
For DC Comics
Hughes has designed numerous logos and covers, initially for the Vertigo imprint where many British creators were working. Here he continued his collaboration with Grant Morrison
, writer of Dare
and Really and Truly, creating covers and identity for The Invisibles
. He has also worked on covers for DC's superhero
lines, notably the Tangent series of Elseworlds
comics.
Other notable design work for the comics industry includes the 1986 MTV
Europe Awards booklet Outbreaks of Violets, possibly the rarest Alan Moore
title, late-era issues of Deadline
where he worked on the entire magazine on a minimal budget in three days, and the retro
covers for Flex Mentallo
produced with artist Frank Quitely
.
Hughes design output has broadened into work for clients in the music industry, advertising, toy industry and publishing.
Hughes recently completed artwork for Oxford-based rock group The Winchell Riots, designing the vinyl & CD sleeves for their 'Red Square EP' which is released September 2010.
combined type, image and layout to achieve a dynamic, integrated whole.
Hughes illustration work includes title sequences for The Box, poster designs for Tokyo fashion company Jun Co.’s Yellow Boots chain, the animated on-board safety film for Virgin Airlines, Eurostar's poster campaign, a collection of Hawaiian shirts, a range for Swatch and the BBC's CD edition of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy.
Now widely copied, the influence of Hughes' illustration style can be seen in advertising, on covers for mass-market women's paperbacks, children's books and editorial illustrations worldwide.
being used for the first time to create type.
This is the technique he used in the early days of his career when producing custom type for his design work. Early fonts like FF CrashBangWallop and FF Revolver (originally designed for Speakeasy and Revolver magazine respectively) were digitisations of fonts originally done in this old-fashioned method of Rubylith on board.
His first fonts were released back in 1992 as part of the FontFont range, while subsequent designs have been released via his own foundry, Device Fonts.
Many of Hughes’ fonts were created for specific design commissions, and their names reflect their application or the circumstances of their conception. The chunky no-nonsense Judgement family was commissioned for 2000AD, home of Judge Dredd. Metropol Noir, which was created specifically for the BDA Gold Award winning 1996 MTV Europe Music Awards programme is named after the Paris hotel Hughes was put up in for the event. Others are more descriptive; FF Knobcheese suggests a knobbly Swiss Cheese; Foonky and Laydeez Night derive from a kitsch 70s aesthetic.
A retrospective catalogue ”Ten Year Itch” was published in 2005 and features all Hughes’ type designs up to that point.
Comics work includes
A limited edition volume from Knockabout Comics
collects together Hughes' work including Dan Dare
and Really & Truly
, that he produced with Grant Morrison
. It also includes and adaptation of Raymond Chandler
's "Goldfish", by Tom DeHaven and, with co-author John Freeman
, The Science Service. Only 3,000 copies will be printed.
An extra limited run of 350 is available from Forbidden Planet International, housed in a slipcase and signed and numbered by the author.
Graphic design
Graphic design is a creative process – most often involving a client and a designer and usually completed in conjunction with producers of form – undertaken in order to convey a specific message to a targeted audience...
er, illustrator and comics artist
Comics artist
A comics artist is an artist working within the comics medium on comic strips, comic books or graphic novels. The term may refer to any number of artists who contribute to produce a work in the comics form, from those who oversee all aspects of the work to those who contribute only a part.-Comic...
, noted for his work on 2000AD, where he illustrated Robo-Hunter
Robo-Hunter
Robo-Hunter is a recurring strip in the British Comic 2000 AD, initially written by John Wagner and illustrated by Ian Gibson. The series starred Sam Slade, a laconic, ageing, cigar-smoking bounty hunter of robots that have gone renegade. Though action orientated, the series was noted for its...
, Tales from Beyond Science, Really and Truly and Dan Dare
Dan Dare
Dan Dare is a British science fiction comic hero, created by illustrator Frank Hampson who also wrote the first stories, that is, the Venus and Red Moon stories, and a complete storyline for Operation Saturn...
, among others. His work was highly distinctive, wearing its design influences on its sleeve, daring to be two-dimensional and bold in its use of large expanses of flat, bold colours. This stood out particularly during the early 1990s, when British comics were leaning ever more towards fully painted art. Unusually, Hughes preferred to be his own letterer
Letterer
A letterer is a member of a team of comic book creators responsible for drawing the comic book's text. The letterer's use of typefaces, calligraphy, letter size, and layout all contribute to the impact of the comic. The letterer crafts the comic's "display lettering": the story title lettering and...
, and designed several unusual fonts for this purpose.
Since leaving comics illustration, Hughes has become a successful advertising artist, graphic designer and font designer. He runs his own company, Device, with clients including Virgin Airways
Virgin Atlantic Airways
Virgin Atlantic Airways Limited is a British airline owned by Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Group and Singapore Airlines...
, Penguin Books
Penguin Books
Penguin Books is a publisher founded in 1935 by Sir Allen Lane and V.K. Krishna Menon. Penguin revolutionised publishing in the 1930s through its high quality, inexpensive paperbacks, sold through Woolworths and other high street stores for sixpence. Penguin's success demonstrated that large...
, DC Comics
DC Comics
DC Comics, Inc. is one of the largest and most successful companies operating in the market for American comic books and related media. It is the publishing unit of DC Entertainment a company of Warner Bros. Entertainment, which itself is owned by Time Warner...
, Eurostar
Eurostar
Eurostar is a high-speed railway service connecting London with Paris and Brussels. All its trains traverse the Channel Tunnel between England and France, owned and operated separately by Eurotunnel....
the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
and a range of magazines and newspapers. Hughes prefers to design his own fonts for new projects usually giving them humorous and occasionally rude names. The font Knobcheese was marketed as "A typeface in the Swiss (cheese) tradition. With knobs on."
Early days
Smash Hits
Smash Hits was a pop music based magazine, aimed at teenagers and young adults and originally published in the United Kingdom by EMAP. It ran from 1978 to 2006 and was issued fortnightly for most of that time...
and Condé Nast
Condé Nast Publications
Condé Nast, a division of Advance Publications, is a magazine publisher. In the U.S., it produces 18 consumer magazines, including Architectural Digest, Bon Appétit, GQ, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and Vogue, as well as four business-to-business publications, 27 websites, and more than 50 apps...
. He arrived late at his very first job interview at an advertising agency with a lump of dog excrement stuck to the bottom of his portfolio, managed to transfer some of it on to the white shirt he was wearing and the rest onto the meeting-room table. Directors had to open windows to let the stench out. Despite this, he got the job. At the same time he was drawing his own comics, released as small press
Small press
Small press is a term often used to describe publishers with annual sales below a certain level. Commonly, in the United States, this is set at $50 million, after returns and discounts...
minicomics in editions of around 20 copies. Three issues of Zit were published between 1983 and 1984 and through these he got involved with the British small press comics
British small press comics
British small press comics, once known as stripzines, are comic books self-published by amateur cartoonists and comic book creators, usually in short print runs, in the UK. A "small press comic" is essentially a zine composed predominantly of comic strips. The term emerged in the early 1980s to...
scene of the time based around the Fast Fiction
Fast Fiction
Fast Fiction was a market stall, magazine, mail order distributor and news sheet that played a key role in the history of British small press comics...
stall Paul Gravett
Paul Gravett
Paul Gravett is a London-based journalist, curator, writer and broadcaster who has worked in comics publishing and promotion for over 20 years....
was running at the Westminster Comic Mart in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
.
Hughes was a regular contributor to Gravett's Escape Magazine
Escape Magazine
Escape magazine was a landmark British comic strip magazine founded and edited by Paul Gravett and Peter Stanbury. Nineteen issues were published between 1983 to 1989...
from 1983 to 1989 with strips including Norm and The Inheritors. In 1987 his first graphic novel
Graphic novel
A graphic novel is a narrative work in which the story is conveyed to the reader using sequential art in either an experimental design or in a traditional comics format...
, The Science Service, co-written with John Freeman
John Freeman
John Freeman may refer to:*John Freeman , character animator for Disney, Marvel Studios and others*John Freeman , Australian politician*John Freeman , writer and literary critic...
, was published by Belgian publishers Magic Strip in seven languages. The UK edition was co-published in 1989 by ACME press in the UK and Eclipse Comics
Eclipse Comics
Eclipse Comics was an American comic book publisher, one of several independent publishers during the 1980s and early 1990s. In 1978, it published the first graphic novel intended for the newly created comic book specialty store market...
in the US.
Design and logo design
From the mid 1980s through to the present day, Hughes has been involved with design work for a wide range of comics publishers. He is responsible for the distinctive look of the Knockabout Books line of collected underground comics and periodicals from 1985 to 1992. By the early 1990s it seemed like every aspect of the British comics industry had Hughes' stamp on it, from the carrier bags at Forbidden PlanetForbidden Planet (bookstore)
Forbidden Planet is the trading name of two separate science fiction, fantasy and horror bookshop chains across the United Kingdom, Ireland, and the United States of America, after the feature film of the same name....
to the logo of Mega City Comics. In 1990 the strip Dare
Dan Dare
Dan Dare is a British science fiction comic hero, created by illustrator Frank Hampson who also wrote the first stories, that is, the Venus and Red Moon stories, and a complete storyline for Operation Saturn...
was drawn by Hughes, serialized in Revolver
Revolver Comic (UK)
Revolver is the title of a British comic which was a spin off from 2000AD. It lasted for seven regular issues and two specials, and was published between July 1990 to January 1991.-History:...
, a magazine he designed, and written about in Speakeasy, a news magazine he'd also redesigned.
At Fleetway
Fleetway
Fleetway, also known as Fleetway Publications and Fleetway Editions, was a UK publishing company which mainly produced comic magazines. For a time owned by IPC Media, they are now a division of Egmont Publishing....
he did influential work, designing a new display font for their weekly comic 2000 AD
2000 AD (comic)
2000 AD is a weekly British science fiction-oriented comic. As a comics anthology it serialises a number of separate stories each issue and was first published by IPC Magazines in 1977, the first issue dated 26 February. IPC then shifted the title to its Fleetway comics subsidiary which was sold...
, under the supervision of innovative Art Director Steve Cook
Steven Cook
Steven Cook is a British artist, photographer, and graphic designer.Best known for his work in the comics field, Cook was art director and designer for the British comic 2000 AD . During this time he produced a number of striking cover illustrations along with its distinctive, iconic logo still in...
. When the adult comic Crisis was launched it featured a radical Hughes design and he continued to spearhead Fleetways identity with the launch of Revolver
Revolver Comic (UK)
Revolver is the title of a British comic which was a spin off from 2000AD. It lasted for seven regular issues and two specials, and was published between July 1990 to January 1991.-History:...
and their graphic novels line.
For Titan Books
Titan Books
Titan Publishing Group is an independently owned publishing company, established in 1981. It is based at offices in London, England's Bankside area. The Books Division has two main areas of publishing: film & TV tie-ins/cinema reference books; and graphic novels and comics reference/art titles. The...
he was given the task of designing books that repackaged American comics for the UK market. Most notable was his work on Love and Rockets
Love and Rockets (comics)
Love and Rockets is a black and white comic book series by Gilbert Hernandez and Jaime Hernandez, sometimes cited jointly as Los Bros Hernandez. Their brother Mario Hernandez is an occasional contributor...
, a personal favourite of Hughes. His design was considered daring but the American publisher, Fantagraphics Books
Fantagraphics Books
Fantagraphics Books is an American publisher of alternative comics, classic comic strip anthologies, magazines, graphic novels, and the adult-oriented Eros Comix imprint...
, was impressed and used similar concepts in their own collections.
For DC Comics
DC Comics
DC Comics, Inc. is one of the largest and most successful companies operating in the market for American comic books and related media. It is the publishing unit of DC Entertainment a company of Warner Bros. Entertainment, which itself is owned by Time Warner...
Hughes has designed numerous logos and covers, initially for the Vertigo imprint where many British creators were working. Here he continued his collaboration with Grant Morrison
Grant Morrison
Grant Morrison is a Scottish comic book writer, playwright and occultist. He is known for his nonlinear narratives and counter-cultural leanings, as well as his successful runs on titles like Animal Man, Doom Patrol, JLA, The Invisibles, New X-Men, Fantastic Four, All-Star Superman, and...
, writer of Dare
Dan Dare
Dan Dare is a British science fiction comic hero, created by illustrator Frank Hampson who also wrote the first stories, that is, the Venus and Red Moon stories, and a complete storyline for Operation Saturn...
and Really and Truly, creating covers and identity for The Invisibles
The Invisibles
The Invisibles is a comic book series that was published by the Vertigo imprint of DC Comics from 1994 to 2000. It was created and scripted by Scottish writer Grant Morrison, and drawn by various artists throughout its publication....
. He has also worked on covers for DC's superhero
Superhero
A superhero is a type of stock character, possessing "extraordinary or superhuman powers", dedicated to protecting the public. Since the debut of the prototypical superhero Superman in 1938, stories of superheroes — ranging from brief episodic adventures to continuing years-long sagas —...
lines, notably the Tangent series of Elseworlds
Elseworlds
Elseworlds is the publication imprint for a group of comic books produced by DC Comics that take place outside the company's canon. According to its tagline: "In Elseworlds, heroes are taken from their usual settings and put into strange times and places — some that have existed, and others...
comics.
Other notable design work for the comics industry includes the 1986 MTV
MTV
MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....
Europe Awards booklet Outbreaks of Violets, possibly the rarest Alan Moore
Alan Moore
Alan Oswald Moore is an English writer primarily known for his work in comic books, a medium where he has produced a number of critically acclaimed and popular series, including Watchmen, V for Vendetta, and From Hell...
title, late-era issues of Deadline
Deadline magazine
Deadline was a British comic magazine published between 1988 and 1995.Created by 2000 AD stalwarts Brett Ewins and Steve Dillon, Deadline featured a mix of comic strips and written articles targeted at older readers...
where he worked on the entire magazine on a minimal budget in three days, and the retro
Retro
Retro is a culturally outdated or aged style, trend, mode, or fashion, from the overall postmodern past, that has since that time become functionally or superficially the norm once again. The use of "retro" style iconography and imagery interjected into post-modern art, advertising, mass media, etc...
covers for Flex Mentallo
Flex Mentallo
Flex Mentallo is a comic book character created by Grant Morrison for his run on Doom Patrol. Flex is in part a parody of Charles Atlas' long-running "The Insult that made a Man out of Mac" advertisements seen in American comics from the past....
produced with artist Frank Quitely
Frank Quitely
Vincent Deighan, better known by the pen name Frank Quitely, is a Scottish comic book artist. He is best known for his frequent collaborations with Grant Morrison on titles such as New X-Men, We3, All-Star Superman, and Batman and Robin, as well as his work with Mark Millar on The...
.
Hughes design output has broadened into work for clients in the music industry, advertising, toy industry and publishing.
Hughes recently completed artwork for Oxford-based rock group The Winchell Riots, designing the vinyl & CD sleeves for their 'Red Square EP' which is released September 2010.
Illustration
Hughes' discovery of the Mac in 1993 pushed his illustration work in a more stylised graphic direction. Adopting first Freehand than Adobe Illustrator, he utilised expanses of flat colour and texture in asymmetric and dynamic layouts, his characters became more elegant and exaggerated, and the type, generally custom designed for each illustration, became an integral part of his imagemaking process. This very influential flat vector style has been dubbed "Sans Ligne" in reference to the European "Ligne Claire" school by artist Will Kane. Though enabled by the Macintosh, Hughes' considers his combination of design, illustration and typography to be a return to the working methods of the poster artists of the early 20th century, a period when artists like the Stenberg Brothers, Cassandre and Jean CarluJean Carlu
Jean Carlu was a French graphic designer, specialised in posters. He was member of a family of architects; his brother Jacques Carlu for example designed the Palais de Chaillot in Paris...
combined type, image and layout to achieve a dynamic, integrated whole.
Hughes illustration work includes title sequences for The Box, poster designs for Tokyo fashion company Jun Co.’s Yellow Boots chain, the animated on-board safety film for Virgin Airlines, Eurostar's poster campaign, a collection of Hawaiian shirts, a range for Swatch and the BBC's CD edition of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy.
Now widely copied, the influence of Hughes' illustration style can be seen in advertising, on covers for mass-market women's paperbacks, children's books and editorial illustrations worldwide.
Type design
Hughes’ has described typography as “the particle physics of design”. Hughes’ interest in letterforms began at an unusually young age thanks to a Letraset catalogue his architect father had lying about the studio. At 15 he visited Letraset, where he saw RubylithRubylith
Rubylith is a brand of masking film, invented and trademarked by the Ulano Corporation. Today the brand has become genericized to the point that it has become synonymous with all coloured masking films....
being used for the first time to create type.
This is the technique he used in the early days of his career when producing custom type for his design work. Early fonts like FF CrashBangWallop and FF Revolver (originally designed for Speakeasy and Revolver magazine respectively) were digitisations of fonts originally done in this old-fashioned method of Rubylith on board.
His first fonts were released back in 1992 as part of the FontFont range, while subsequent designs have been released via his own foundry, Device Fonts.
Many of Hughes’ fonts were created for specific design commissions, and their names reflect their application or the circumstances of their conception. The chunky no-nonsense Judgement family was commissioned for 2000AD, home of Judge Dredd. Metropol Noir, which was created specifically for the BDA Gold Award winning 1996 MTV Europe Music Awards programme is named after the Paris hotel Hughes was put up in for the event. Others are more descriptive; FF Knobcheese suggests a knobbly Swiss Cheese; Foonky and Laydeez Night derive from a kitsch 70s aesthetic.
A retrospective catalogue ”Ten Year Itch” was published in 2005 and features all Hughes’ type designs up to that point.
Comics
- Zit (three issues, self published, 1983-4)
- The Inheritors (Modern Era Editions, 1988)
- The Science Service (script by John FreemanJohn Freeman (editor)John Freeman is a British writer/editor/designer known for his work with Marvel UK, and on Doctor Who Magazine and The Really Heavy Greatcoat.-Biography:...
) (ACME/Eclipse, 1989, ISBN 0-913035-86-6)
- Dan DareDan DareDan Dare is a British science fiction comic hero, created by illustrator Frank Hampson who also wrote the first stories, that is, the Venus and Red Moon stories, and a complete storyline for Operation Saturn...
(with Grant MorrisonGrant MorrisonGrant Morrison is a Scottish comic book writer, playwright and occultist. He is known for his nonlinear narratives and counter-cultural leanings, as well as his successful runs on titles like Animal Man, Doom Patrol, JLA, The Invisibles, New X-Men, Fantastic Four, All-Star Superman, and...
):- "Dare" (RevolverRevolver Comic (UK)Revolver is the title of a British comic which was a spin off from 2000AD. It lasted for seven regular issues and two specials, and was published between July 1990 to January 1991.-History:...
#1-7, 1990) - "Dare" (finale) (in Crisis #55-56, 1991)
- "Dare" (Revolver
- Tales from Beyond Science (tpbTrade paperback (comics)In comics, a trade paperback is a collection of stories originally published in comic books, reprinted in book format, usually capturing one story arc from a single title or a series of stories with a connected story arc or common theme from one or more titles...
, 88 pages, Image ComicsImage ComicsImage Comics is a United States comic book publisher. It was founded in 1992 by high-profile illustrators as a venue where creators could publish their material without giving up the copyrights to the characters they created, as creator-owned properties. It was immediately successful, and remains...
, January 2012, ISBN 1607064715):- "The Men in Red" (with Mark MillarMark MillarMark Millar is a Scottish comic book writer, known for his work on books such as The Authority, The Ultimates, Marvel Knights Spider-Man, Ultimate Fantastic Four, Civil War, Wanted, and Kick-Ass, the latter two of which have been adapted into feature films...
, in 2000 AD #774, 1992) - "The Music Man" (with Alan McKenzieAlan McKenzieAlan McKenzie is a British comics writer known for his work at 2000 AD.-Biography:McKenzie worked for Marvel UK during the early 1980s, editing Starburst, Cinema and Doctor Who Monthly magazines. After leaving the Marvel staff in 1985, he wrote several Doctor Who comic stories for the Monthly under...
, in 2000 AD #775, 1992) - "Long Distance Calls" (with Mark Millar, in 2000 AD #776, 1992)
- "Agents of Mu-Mu" (with Alan McKenzie, in 2000 AD #777, 1992)
- "The Eyes of Edwin Spendlove" (with John SmithJohn Smith (comics)John Smith is a British comics writer best known for his work on 2000 AD and Crisis.Smith's work is characterised by intricate, sometimes obscure plots and an interest in taboos and the occult, told in an elliptic, fractured narrative style reminiscent of Iain Sinclair or the cut-up technique of...
, in 2000 AD #778, 1992) - "Secrets of the Organism" (with John Smith, in 2000 AD #779, 1992)
- "The Secret Month Under the Stairs" (with Mark Millar, in 2000 AD Winter Special #4, 1992)
- "The Man Who Created Space" (with Mark Millar, in 2000 AD Sci-Fi Special, 1994)
- "The Men in Red" (with Mark Millar
- Really & TrulyReally & TrulyReally & Truly was a 2000 AD comic strip, created by Grant Morrison and Rian Hughes. It ran in 1993 as part of the "Summer Offensive" and dealt explicitly with drugs...
(with Grant Morrison, in 2000AD #842-849, 1993)
- Robo-HunterRobo-HunterRobo-Hunter is a recurring strip in the British Comic 2000 AD, initially written by John Wagner and illustrated by Ian Gibson. The series starred Sam Slade, a laconic, ageing, cigar-smoking bounty hunter of robots that have gone renegade. Though action orientated, the series was noted for its...
(with Peter Hogan):- "Slade Runner" (in 2000 AD 1994 Yearbook, 1993)
- "Winnegan's Fake" (in 2000 AD #852-854, 1993)
- "Metrobolis" (in 2000 AD #904-911, 1994)
- "War Of The Noses" (in 2000 AD #1023, 1996)
Collections
- Yesterday's Tomorrows: Rian Hughes Collected Comics (Knockabout ComicsKnockabout ComicsKnockabout Comics is a UK publisher and distributor of underground and alternative comic books.-History:It was formed by Tony Bennett and Carol Bennett in the 1980s to distribute Gilbert Shelton's Freak Brothers titles as well as British work from creators such as Hunt Emerson and Bryan...
, 256 pages, 20072007 in comics-January:*January 10: Superman & Batman vs. Aliens & Predator released.*January 24: The Boys is canceled with issue #6.-February:*February 2: Newsarama reports that The Boys has been picked up by Dynamite Entertainment....
, ISBN 0861661540)
A limited edition volume from Knockabout Comics
Knockabout Comics
Knockabout Comics is a UK publisher and distributor of underground and alternative comic books.-History:It was formed by Tony Bennett and Carol Bennett in the 1980s to distribute Gilbert Shelton's Freak Brothers titles as well as British work from creators such as Hunt Emerson and Bryan...
collects together Hughes' work including Dan Dare
Dan Dare
Dan Dare is a British science fiction comic hero, created by illustrator Frank Hampson who also wrote the first stories, that is, the Venus and Red Moon stories, and a complete storyline for Operation Saturn...
and Really & Truly
Really & Truly
Really & Truly was a 2000 AD comic strip, created by Grant Morrison and Rian Hughes. It ran in 1993 as part of the "Summer Offensive" and dealt explicitly with drugs...
, that he produced with Grant Morrison
Grant Morrison
Grant Morrison is a Scottish comic book writer, playwright and occultist. He is known for his nonlinear narratives and counter-cultural leanings, as well as his successful runs on titles like Animal Man, Doom Patrol, JLA, The Invisibles, New X-Men, Fantastic Four, All-Star Superman, and...
. It also includes and adaptation of Raymond Chandler
Raymond Chandler
Raymond Thornton Chandler was an American novelist and screenwriter.In 1932, at age forty-five, Raymond Chandler decided to become a detective fiction writer after losing his job as an oil company executive during the Depression. His first short story, "Blackmailers Don't Shoot", was published in...
's "Goldfish", by Tom DeHaven and, with co-author John Freeman
John Freeman (editor)
John Freeman is a British writer/editor/designer known for his work with Marvel UK, and on Doctor Who Magazine and The Really Heavy Greatcoat.-Biography:...
, The Science Service. Only 3,000 copies will be printed.
An extra limited run of 350 is available from Forbidden Planet International, housed in a slipcase and signed and numbered by the author.
- "Ten Year Itch" (an overview of his typeface design) Device, 2004
- "Art, Commercial" (a monograph documenting his illustration, logo design and design work) Die Gestalten Verlag, 2002
External links
- Rian Hughes - Design, Tea, and Biscuits VIDEO Talk at Art Directors Club, NYC November 2007
- Assessment of Hughes’ work
- Overview of Hughes’ FontFonts
Interviews
- Creative Characters Interview with Rian Hughes, MyFontsMyFontsMyFonts is a digital fonts distribution, location based in Marlborough, Massachusetts, selling fonts through the web site. It launched in September 1999 , and started selling fonts in March 2000....
, April 2009