Kevin House

Kevin House (Illustrator-designer)

I am an illustrator and designer living here in Victoria. After completing a design program in Kingston Ontario in 1991, my wife and I relocated to the coast to pursue our careers balanced with an active outdoor lifestyle.

Years later, spent as a creative designer and art director in some of western Canada's leading design studios and advertising agencies, I decided to shift my focus and go freelance to concentrate on my first love of illustration and identity work. I'm still what you might call an "illustrative designer". Often combining an illustrative element to my design work. The years spent designing have definitely influenced my illustration work. My illustration style could be described as a combination of clean line and design influenced imagery with one foot firmly placed in the elegance of the past, often with a dash of humor. I almost always will have a type component in my work. I work digitally in Adobe Illustrator which allows me to create rich and colourful pieces that are small in file size yet infinitely scalable which appeals to my practical design side.


Victoria Waterfront

Victoria is famous for it’s Inner Harbour. But that's another piece for another time. I chose rather to show a different not usually noticed view that caught my eye one day quite by accident while walking into town. From across the harbour this panorama reminded me of one of those classic illustrations of the Manhattan skyline from a 1930’s era New Yorker magazine cover. With a little creative license I think I managed to get something fairly similar. Those of us who live here see a very different side of Victoria than many who are only visiting. With this image I'm trying to convey a sense of the other side of the city's personality to a degree. There are many areas of Victoria that are uniquely interesting visually and others that offer interesting historical significance. Self directed through my own research and curiosity, I'm trying to present these concepts with illustration work in an ongoing series of locations and business that have each played a small role in creating the "flavour" of present day Victoria. There are many stories yet to be told, a rich, creative minefield that I am more than happy to explore. Perhaps someday the designer in me will put them all into a lovely book. To be continued....

Please drop by my website www.kevincreative.com to see some other examples