Jason Ford

Stuff that has influenced me

superheroes, superhero fingerpuppets
record sleeves (beatles)
pop art imagery
comics (archie as purehart the powerful) colours, print, ragged edges of pages, poor print quality
walt disney
Belgian comics (Blake et Mortimer). Belgian comics are very much unlike American ones. They are beautifully printed, hard cover books with serious stories and very high quality drawing.
Maurice Tillieux: Gil Jourdan

Comic book open to a double-page image showing an enormous red machine. Smaller figures are in the foreground. Speech bubble reads "BEHOLD, KRO -- MY LITTLE GIFT TO THE GODS" Jack Kirby's Marvel comics. Amazing futuristic scenes, machines, ridicolous stories like superman vs frankenstein

Children's activity books. Reduced shapes, limited colour palette, leaves a lot up to the imagination
Comic lettering. Huge drop shadows, conveys excitement

Magaizne cover featuring a sharp, stylised drawing of an orchestra conductor in white-tie, holding his baton. Text reads "men only / November 1947" Men Only magazine covers (1940s). Loose linework, flat colour.

Never mind the bollocks, here's the sex pistols
Saul Steinberg: The Discovery of America
Hergé: Tintin, End Papers
Go 2 Record Sleeve. "This is a record cover. This writing is the design upon the record cover [...]"

My own work

Mostly editorial illustration
Advertising for Ben and Jerry's Foundation
Gravitylight, We walk the line
Own work as a break from comercial work
Editorial jobs give you all sorts of different subjects to work on, most random stuff

Stuff I look at

Shop signage
Lettering
Ice cream vans
Neon signage
Random stickers
Lettering with snow on top
Straightforward shop names

Process

Pencil drawings
Brush and ink black line art
Digital colouring
Very rarely meet my own clients (all through email, agency)
Work from a shared studio

Super Book for Superheroes

workshops with kids
book has developed into its own thing
The Superhero Comic Kit
Coming up: Superhero Adventure Playset (paper engineering, pop-up book)

Questions

Do you have any advice for finding a good workspace?

We just replied to an ad
The market is getting more competetive
Renting a place is definitely a learning process
Find a group of people you like working with and set up a studio with them
People will change over time
Split the rent between a number of people