Published 12:00am, 09/12/2019 by BPUK Team | Customer Showcase
This month's customer showcase is a book by animator and illustrator, Leon Nikoo. He does a lot of work mainly focused on travelling the world documenting his experiences. Rather than documenting his experiences through words, he likes to rely on photography, sounds and his illustrations.
This results in a unique and intriguing view of the places he’s visited, and it really captures their beauty. This has led to his book, “People and Places of South America” being printed and we're lucky enough to be the ones to do so!
People and Places of South America by Leon Nikoo
Now to the book itself... After embarking on travels in the early months of 2019, Leon found himself visiting a range of South American countries such as Peru, Chile, Argentina and Brazil! Using his skills as an illustrator, Leon captured the essence of these countries through art. Taking his sketchbook with him every step of the way, his collection of illustrations quickly grew. Along with his illustrations, photographs were taken and sounds recorded. You might wonder why the sounds were recorded but don't worry, we'll get to that soon enough!
When he returned to the United Kingdom, he quickly began working on his book, turning his illustrations into beautifully printed artwork, all encased in hardback binding with examples of the people he met along the way on the cover.
As you can see, the book looks amazing! Printed on a hardcover case, it has a luxury look and feel to it. With its hand-drawn illustrations on every page, this book really stands out!
Leon's Illustrations
Along with his book, Leon released a collection of his illustrations on his Behance page. Here you can see his work from start to finish and how it developed from a personal project into a book printing experience worth sharing! His unique style and use of vibrant colours capture every moment perfectly, as you can see below.
The illustrations range from the violent volcanoes of Bolivia, to bustling South American streets, all the way to Machu Picchu in Peru. His travels took him wide and far and his illustrations allowed Leon to capture the essence and individuality of each place.
These are only a few of his illustrations and much more can be found on his Behance profile.
Kickstarter Campaign
When Leon returned from his travels, a Kickstarter campaign was set up. This was to help him raise the money for a small print run for people who liked his art and wanted to experience his travels for themselves.
His Kickstarter campaign has now ended but you can still follow along with the project. I'd advise you do this if you're a fan of the work you see. Follow along here!
Augmented Reality
One thing that makes this book unique is its augmented reality usage, which we have seen very few books utilise. Augmented reality helps bring the illustrations to life with the Artvive app. This is where the sound recordings I mentioned previously come into place. Turning illustrations into moving pictures with sounds to match, the atmosphere of each location is captured perfectly.
Launch Party
From Leon himself:
"To finalise the project, I held a launch party at Yonder, a climbing centre in London. I luckily met a Peruvian man who lived in London who helped me make empanadas and also introduced me to a Peruvian band. There was also a life-size Alpaca which we all drew. It was a spectacular event."
Along with his launch party, Leon has also done a showcase of his book to his old school as seen on his Instagram. You can follow him to stay up to date and view even more of his illustrations from his travels.
The Future
If you've been paying close attention you might have noticed that the spine of the book says, "People and Places of South America Part 1". All of the people involved at Book Printing UK are eager to see the 2nd part. We're really interested in how far Leon can take augmented reality within his book and can't wait to see more locations come alive.
This is one of the most thought out and well-rounded books we've seen fly off our presses, and can't wait to start printing more. With that being said, we really think this book deserves more recognition and since we love sharing people's stories, that's what we are going to do. In 2020, we will be entering this book into many of the print awards available! This includes the Print Week Awards, The Solution Awards and many more. So, stay tuned in the coming year to see how far Leon's work can progress. Hopefully it's all the way, and we're confident it can.
I hope you've all enjoyed hearing about Leon, People and Places of South America and everything he's done with the book. I highly recommend you download Artvive and use it on the illustrations on this section of his Behance page.
Leon's work doesn't stop at printing a book, he has a very interactive site you can enjoy. Go check out more of his work!
If you'd like to start printing books, you can get a free online quote here.
"The quality was superb and the service was great." -Leon Nikoo