An educational textbook publisher contracted Randal for an aerial perspective map of a typical mill town for use in a textbook. Randal made up the view based upon elements required by the publisher in order to visually illustrate the textbook lesson.
Randal used Fractal Painter software on a Macintosh computer using a Wacom tablet to digitally illustrate in a line and watercolor style. The final illustration was delivered via file transfer protocol as a digital file.
Milltown Aerial Perspective
Randal Birkey created this aerial perspective of the archaelogical site at Jamestowne, Virginia, located in the Colonial Historic National Park. The image was used in a textbook for children studying this first English settlement in the New World.
Historic Jamestowne Site
Read more about it here: Historic Jamestowne
On the Sustainable City project mentioned below, a close up floor plan of City Hall was required to illustrate how a municipality need to allocate political resources and energy toward building a more sustainable community. Randal did a floor plan of a typical City hall building to illustrate the office space dedicated to a city sustainability manager.
City Hall Floor Plan
Through a web search, Randal was contacted by Idea Engineering out in Santa Barbara, California about doing a map for their client, the Home Depot Foundation. Through email communication, a project scope, fee and timeline was established. The objective of the project was to create a generic city map that could be used on a website to highlight various “green” and “sustainable” features that Home Depot Foundation promotes as good city planning and public policy.
Based upon the resources that Idea Engineering and Home Depot furnished, Randal first created a digital “pencil” of the line art for “The Sustainable City” map. This pencil was created using Corel Painter software, running on a MacBook Pro, using a pen stylus on a Wacom Intuos3 Tablet.
This linework file was reviewed approved by Idea Engineering and Home Depot Foundation so that Randal could then continue the digital map illustration process.
This is the final illustration as delivered to the client. The line art was kept on a layer by itself floating above a base layer used to paint digital watercolor and pencil shading that gives the map its dimensional and textured look. The developers of a new website will use this map to highlight various areas to provide greater detail and content about:
When the final client website goes live, I’ll add a link to the finished product.
Randal's MacBook Pro, Extra Monitor, Corel Painter, Wacom Stylus and Tablet setup
Kodak was a sponsor of the Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia. They wanted to give visitors a handy map of places to visit in the Atlanta area. Randal created this forced aerial perspective map to highlight a number of sites and locations.
Atlanta Summer Olympics Map for Kodak
Randal Birkey was contracted by the Memphis Arts Council in the 1980’s to create a fun map for use in a promotional poster. The map was intended to highlight a number of locations in the city where arts related activities and events were being promoted. Randal worked from maps, drawings and aerial photo references of the city to create this “rounded earth” forced perspective view. In each location, one single element was selected and exaggerated to communicate the basic art events: music, dance, theater, etc.
Randal used a cutting edge software product at the time called Fractal Painter, running on a Macintosh computer with a Wacom tablet. This image was produced entirely digitally with nothing scanned or hand drawn on traditional paper surfaces. The final image file was delivered to the customer via email, and the printer went directly to CMYK film separations and printing plates from the file. It was reproduced in 4-color offset printing as a fold out poster.
Memphis Arts Council - Aerial Perspective Map
Randal did many illustrations using a “stipple” ink line style in the early 1980′s before the Macintosh computer came along and changed the way business and print communications were done… the so-called “desktop publishing” revolution. This is an example of a real estate development site plan done by hand in stipple style, primarily because the style lends itself very well for newsprint and magazine reproduction.
A Real Estate Development Site Plan in Stipple Style
In the 1980′s Randal shared office space with an architectural and planning firm called Boyer, Hoppe & Associates. This firm had a client comprised of the major tenants along Wacker Drive, one of Chicago’s more famous business streets, as it follows the east and south side of the Chicago River. Along Wacker Drive are buildings such as the Sears Tower, the Civic Opera House, 333 W. Wacker Dr. (the building BIRKEY.COM is located in), the Leo Burnett building, and many others.
These and other tenants contracted BHA to design a plan for upgrading and beautifying the street level experience of Wacker Drive. The BHA Development Plan called for center plantings, obelisks, paving, flags, and many other enhancements that were eventually implemented and are still experienced to this day.
Wacker Drive Streetscape - Development Plan
The original art was roughly 6 feet wide by 2 feet high done on D’Arches rough watercolor paper. The line work was done by hand with pencil and Rapidograph sepia ink pens. The Windsor & Newton watercolor washes were then added by Randal as well. The final art was commercially mounted and displayed in various venues in Chicago until it made it’s final place in the architectural design studio of Jonathan Boyer and Heidi Hoppe. I’m not sure where the original art is today. Anybody out there know?
Randal did his first map for Wheaton College through Rich Nickel Design in the early 1980′s. Also contributing to the project as a writer was Amy Wolgemuth. This original art was done by hand at 20 x 30 inches in size on hot press illustration board. The line art was done with very thin Rapidograph ink pens using sepia ink. The shading and toning was added with color pencil. The aerial perspective was then drum scanned and printed in 4 color offset process in an interior spread for the Wheaton College Viewbook.
Wheaton College Campus - Aerial Perspective View
For this familiar with the campus, on the middle left side is Edmund Chapel (with the steeple), and on the right foreground is the large Billy Graham Center. Notice the whimsical “Spirit of St. Louis” airplane in the upper foreground to give the view some sense of depth and perspective. This was a really fun project – and the viewbook won some design and writing awards!
Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois, has recruited Randal on several occasions to create or update various campus maps. This is an example of a mechanical or vector line art version created in Adobe Illustrator. This style of map is very easy to update and make changes to because of the vector nature of Postscript, the graphics language that Adobe Illustrator uses.
Wheaton College Campus Map