Scrapbook Notebook 7

cover image by Muxxi

Scrapbook Notebook 7 can now be viewed and downloaded from Joomag.

Originally published in 2013, this edition includes Ben Tallon's work for "The Campaign Against Living Miserably" (CALM) and "One Million Trees" by Illustration's MD Harry Lyon-Smith...

Making Life Less Miserable

Ben Tallon uses his skills as an illustrator and art director to launch Xpress, a new awareness campaign to raise money for the The Campaign Against Living Miserably . . . .

Directing a full awareness campaign wasn’t something I had in mind when I sat down with a cup of coffee last August, right at the start of the Olympic Games. I’d come to talk to the The Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM) to find out more about their work to prevent male suicide in the UK. One year earlier I had begun writing a two hundredpage behemoth of a rant when my career as a freelance illustrator was on life support thanks to budget cuts. At the time I didn’t see my book as theraputic, just anger and frustration controlling my fingers on the keyboard. I had no idea just how many men take their own lives. My conversation with Rachel, editor of CALMzine resulted from my work as an illustrator and as Creative Director of Quenched Music. Both were rich with potential methods of helping CALM and we saw opportunities to do something together. Without friends, family and colleagues the world can be a pretty dark place. CALM had left me in no doubt that too many men inhabit a place where there are no friends; nobody to talk to at ease about the things that bring you down. The next day I drew up ideas for a campaign. I wanted to somehow get to the core of the feeling I get when I write angrily in my book or draw something to make people laugh - the way music can make you cry or smile. To me, all of this is precious. My team and I called the campaign Xpress and agreed that if just one person should benefit from this work, if just one life is saved, however indirectly, then each of us will have achieved something far bigger and real than anything we have yet done. We decided to create three tangible elements for the campaign. First, my company, Quenched Music would release an album of all the best new music in the UK and beyond. If we could recruit one or two established artists for the record that would give us something we could sell to raise money for CALM and champion musicians who struggle in economic times like this. Second, a newspaper released on the same day, with features, interviews and photographs would raise money and, third, the official website would encompass everything, offering the crucial interaction. The big challenge was convincing recognized faces from the Arts to join our cause. If I could sit down with a few comedians, actors, painters and poets and find out their experiences then we might have an original angle to connect with many more. This was never a hunt for celebrities. It needed to be about males who are successful in their fields but make the all-important connection with people from all walks of life. Reverend and The Makers came on board for the album, Jon McClure sharing his personal number with me on Twitter. I reached out to comedian, Ian Stone via The Arsenal FC Magazine for which I illustrate a regular feature. He met us in London. I started to get excited. The website went live and after Christmas, the response is looking altogether more encouraging. Then one morning, my email inbox shows (1) and it’s from Stephen Merchant’s agent; he will call me in the morning and give us an interview. Things move fast when someone of Steve’s repute supports the cause.

Ben Tallon (right) interviewing Danny Dyer

This campaign now has a brand and an audience that has pledged £805 at the time of writing enabling us to pay for the physical album copies which we sell on behalf of CALM. The project keeps me awake at night as I balance it with a full-time illustration career. Every learning curve has been worthwhile so far. Xpress has become a creative obsession, something I have to see succeed. I have spent £3500 of my wilting overdraft and savings to make this come together and it’s the glut of goodwill and kind people that will drag us to the conclusion and leave something worth remembering behind. We need all the help we can muster before the end of May 2013 so please spread the word and help us however you can. We also want to hear from you and learn about your ideas and experiences.

The Xpress Team

Find our more about Xpress at www.xpressofficial.com.

One Million Trees

Illustration’s MD Harry Lyon-Smith turns from pale green to deep green while going round the world and explains why the agency has decided to donate 1% of its turnover to planting millions of trees . . .

illustration by Tim Bradford

I should begin by saying that the irony of writing about safeguarding our environment whilst on a two year motorcycle journey around the world has not escaped me. That said, my travels have enabled me to witness disturbing goings-on that would otherwise have gone unnoticed. Like many of us, my environmental awareness is something that has been building slowly over the last decade or two. My position on the environment before leaving the UK in May 2011 is best described as ‘pale green’, hence my search for transport of some kind that would not be too environmentally expensive on what is a somewhat selfindulgent exercise. Batty, my chosen bike (see www.vegibike.com), came to life after rejecting battery powered bikes and small scooters as not yet fit for such a big, hard journey. I had read about diesel engines running vegetable oil and a quick search showed that motorbikes with diesel engines were available though only in small numbers. These diesel engines have their problems, such as not being very fast and, as I was to discover, recent versions refusing to adopt veg oil as a fuel. However at that stage I was very excited about using a fuel that was largely carbon neutral. Of course issues and challenges abound with biofuels taking land away from food sources and rain forests, which is no doubt true in some cases. Proving to myself that such fuels could be used for significant journeys was the driver. In the event I managed to travel about 20,000 miles before being forced to abandon veg oil much to my angst. An unwise decision to replace the engine in Nepal instead of rebuilding the original one undid the veg oil attempt and diesel has been the fuel since. Thankfully Batty does an astonishing 120mpg so the environmental damage has not been as great as it might have been.

What began to dawn on me was that wherever I went, man’s impact on his beautiful, robust yet fragile home was very apparent. As the miles climbed so the joined-up scale of this environmental impact gripped me; the expansion of cities and towns, the massive road systems being built, burgeoning industries, aeroplanes constantly overhead, forests giving way to farmland. What chance did nature have against such demands and consumption by her premier species? It was in Guatemala, with something like 30,000 miles on the clock, that these troubled thoughts, and particularly the overt deforestation going on in Central America, that I started wondering if there was something that Illustration Ltd could do to help nature and her fight for survival. Finding a real way to help is a challenge in itself.

Inspiration finally came from Let My People Go Surfing by Yvon Chouinard of the outdoor clothing company Patagonia, lent to me by JP, my colleague Stacey’s husband in America. In the book Chouinard describes how as a company they had to accept being party to environmentally damaging practices and how they elected to dedicate 1% of their revenue to invest in projects that enable nature to thrive. In December 2012 my colleagues and I decided to donate 1% of our turnover to reforestation, aiming to plant 1 million trees every five years. To achieve our aim we have partnered with WeForest who offer practicable solutions that can potentially clawback nature into her own hands, whilst benefiting and restoring local communities and weather. WeForest aims to plant 2 trillion trees which is designed to help restore Earth’s temperatures to what nature naturally dictates. Let me be clear that not for one moment do I advocate anyone around the world not having the same opportunities that we enjoy in more developed countries. It is the great challenge of our era to learn to work in balance with nature so that all of us can have more in terms of energy sources, mass and individual transport, healthy lifestyles, healthy foods and healthy communities. This means evolving from our more nature-consuming ways and Illustration is delighted to be part of a burgeoning movement of companies investing in a healthy planet.

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