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
This was my first 4 color business card, created back in the 1980′s, when I relocated by studio from my home in Oak Park, to a studio space in Chicago, on North Wells Street, just south of Chicago Avenue. This illustration was done on yellow tracing paper, using sepia ink in a Rapid-o-graph ink pen, then adding color using color pencils. The image is based upon a Frank Lloyd Wright house drawing, designed for Thomas P. Hardy in Racine, Wisconsin. For a business card, the line work needed to be greatly simplified.
I then selected a period style font and hand outlined the contact information for the card.
FYI, a Delineator is: one who draws or traces the outline of or sketches out in order to represent pictorially or to depict.
Randal Birkey Delineator - Business Card
KOIN Tower in Portland, Oregon
Randal admired the architectural style of this proposed skyscraper design and decided to do a line art rendition of it in the context of downtown Portland, Oregon. The building was completed in 1984 and was designed by Zimmer Gunsul Frasca Partnership (architects). It is currently owned by CommonWealth Partners of Los Angeles.
Kingsbury Place Commercial Office and Retail Building Illustration
Randal was contracted by a graphic design firm in the 1980′s to create this architectural illustration. The design firm was commissioned by the building developer to design printed materials to attract an anchor tenant to a new commercial office/retail building in Chicago’s River North area. This building is still located at the northwest corner of Kingsbury and Orleans.
Randal worked from the architectural blueprint drawings to create a 3D perspective wireframe model of the building. Once a viewpoint was agreed upon (looking northwest from across the street on Orleans), the linework was transferred from the 3D software, into 2D vector software like Adobe Illustrator. After cleanup and final linework was completed there, it was printed with a large format digital plotter on rough drawing paper.
Randal finished the illustration by adding the color, values and textures using color pencils by hand. The 20″ x 30″ artwork was then drum scanned and inserted into the designer layouts and printed in 4-color offset printing process.
Several smaller detail illustrations were done as a part of this project in the same manner and style: a closeup of the building entrance, and the main lobby.
The intended goal was reached… the final printed piece and their marketing efforts landed an anchor tenant!