Tag Archives: Digital Illustration

CSO’s Symphony Center

The home of the world renowned Chicago Symphony Orchestra is called Orchestra Hall, located on Michigan Avenue in Chicago. Randal Birkey was commissioned to produce a series of architectural illustrations of the Orchestra Hall renovation project called “Symphony Center,” a new combined complex housing the auditorium, practice rooms, backstage production and staging areas, and the headquarter offices for the CSO organization.

These illustrations were commissioned for use in a high-end printed piece that went to CSO fund-raising tool. Randal worked from the architectural blueprints, in a Mac-based drawing and painting program called Fractal Painter. A Wacom tablet was required for the kind of control needed for the digital “brushes.”

Chicago Symphony Orchestra Hall Lobby

Chicago Symphony Orchestra Hall Lobby

Chicago Symphony Orchestra Hall Rotunda Cutaway

Chicago Symphony Orchestra Hall Rotunda Cutaway

Chicago Symphony Orchestra Hall - Concert Hall Interior

Chicago Symphony Orchestra Hall – Concert Hall Interior

Redfearn Development Streetscape

A graphic designer from the Marietta, South Carolina area contacted Randal in 2003 through this portfolio website and inquired about developing a streetscape illustration to be used in promoting a residential housing development. Randal worked with the designer and the photo resources provided by the developers and architects to create this illustration intended to communicate a lifestyle to prospective home buyers.

Redfearn Streetscape

Redfearn Lifestyle Streetscape

It is now 2010 and the development was built, and here is a photo along one of the streets.

Redfearn Development - South Carolina

Redfearn Development - South Carolina

City Hall Floor Plan

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

City Hall Floor Plan

Steel Company Trade Ads

Hubbell Steel Company Ad Images

Hubbell Steel Company Trade Ad Images

CLIENT

Hubbell Steel
Franklin Park, Illinois

OBJECTIVE

A Chicago area steel distributor required conceptual images for a series of trade ads.

SOLUTION

Working with a designer, Randal Birkey created a series of conceptual images in a digital watercolor style using Fractal Painter on a Macintosh, using a Wacom Tablet. The images were delivered in formats that could be placed directly into design layout software, bypassing the usual image “scanning” stage.

Contact Randal Birkey for all your corporate collateral and trade advertising illustration needs.

American Invsco – Delaware Place – Chicago, Illinois

Delaware Place Illustrations

Delaware Place Illustrations

OBJECTIVE

A leading US condominium developer, American Invsco, required a marketing map and new condo building illustration of a new development in Chicago called Delaware Place.

SOLUTION

Randal Birkey created a street level detail map of the neighborhood around the development, highlighting amenities and proximity to  shopping, recreation and transportation.

Randal also created a street level view perspective of the high-rise condo building in a similar line and watercolor style used for the map for continuity and consistency.

The illustrations were created digitally using Painter and Adobe Photoshop software on an Apple Macintosh, also using a Wacom tablet. The final files were delivered to the client via a Birkey.com FileSharing site.

Contact BIRKEY.COM for all your marketing maps and building illustration needs.

Nuclear Reactor Cutaway Illustration

Randal Birkey was contracted by Boston Edison, a Massachusetts utility company, to complete a series of technical illustrations for a public relations brochure. This image is a nuclear reactor core, with the sides shown cutaway to reveal the rods inside.

The illustration was done using Fractal Painter software on a Macintosh computer, and a Wacom tablet.

Nuclear Reactor Cutaway

Nuclear Reactor Cutaway

Da Vinci's "Vitruvian Man" Adapted Illustration

“Vitruvian man, a figure study by Leonardo da Vinci (c. 1509) illustrating the proportional canon laid down by the Classical Roman architect Vitruvius; in the Academy of Fine Arts, Venice.” — Encyclopaedia Britannica

This is Randal Birkey’s simplified and adapted illustrated version of Leonardo Da Vinci’s “Vitruvian Man” for use on a potential logo design and health related website interface.

Vitruvian Man