My name is Glenn Hustler. I am an illustrator based in Bradford, U.K. I’ve always had an interest in historical matter. A couple of my un-commisioned projects include an illustrated story of the First Crusade, in which I married a number of events during the Crusade to the reported words of the Pope who called for it to happen, and a fictional diary of a WWI soldier complete with illustrations.
After I graduated I met Patrick Hadley, an archaeologist interested in public understanding of the past. He introduced me to the idea that there is a need for a new approach in the visual depiction of human prehistory. The problem being that current illustration of this kind provides a deceptively complete picture of what is known, which means it’s audience generally doesn’t feel the need to question it.
Together, we have founded a non-profit company advocating this approach. Enkyad Heritage Media brings artists (visual, music, dance) and archaeologists together to help bring the past to life. We have written and storyboarded a short animation set in the Mesolithic, which contains many self-contradictions in it’s presentation. Once finished we plan to take the animation to art galleries and history museums. The hope is that by encouraging an open questioning of the material we present, we can build interest in the subject by allowing people to pursue their own lines of enquiry.
Other opportunities to produce work related to the subject of archaeology have come through Patrick. I provided work for the northern hunter gatherer forum, last year I met Dave Farnell, editor of the archaeological journal, The Post Hole, for which I have produced covers, and most recently I had my logo accepted for the day of archaeology!
The brief was very helpful. It was clear the logo had to be bold, bright and punchy but clearly be archaeological, so I layered some earthy colours in the text while trying to keep them bright and cheerful. While sketching out ideas I played around with the concept of using broken or partly hidden text, in order to create a puzzle to be solved and there is an element of that in the top line.
