In 2013 The Duchenne Dash Charity Bicycle Ride to Paris humbly rolled out of London. Ten years later it has grown into a powerful peloton of avid cycling supporters and has raised over £5.5 million for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy research. There can be no more giving, loving and caring group on the planet than these wonderful people that devote so much to give hope to the boys that suffer this crippling disease.
History of Duchenne Art
I am blessed to be still working with the Duchenne Dash since 2016. I was first asked to create an image to be used in marketing materials – posters and social ads. As I learned more about DMD it became clear that the young boys with this disease needed to be celebrated. In fact there was a campaign in the UK calling them “The World’s Strongest Boys”. Brilliant.
And while I couldn’t use the words, I didn’t have to go far to start finding images with a powerful idea like that. So the world’s strongest boys became the creative brief and it still is today.
Concept Drawings
Every job I take, every image I create for myself or anyone, be it digital, watercolor or acrylic painting starts with a sketch of some sort. A scribble, a doodle, a concept drawing. The idea. It’s actually my favorite part of the process because it is the problem solving part. It’s an image or an idea that is full of promise and hope – the harder part of making the idea work comes after that.
There have been a lot of Duchenne Dash doodles and concept drawings over the past seven years.
Final Images
All of the Duchenne Dash images I’ve created so far have all be completed as digital art using Adobe Illustrator. It’s the bread and butter program for me. Most of my catalog of cycling art prints was created using this program. For organizations like Duchenne it allows us to take the original digital work created for a poster, for instance and easily adapt it to a social media post size. Or an email footer. Digital is so very versatile it’s hard to beat for event promoters and business use of art images.
Looking ahead
I love having a long-term relationship with my clients. We become of one mind and as far as the work goes, the supporters, fans or members of an organization start to see a consistent look and feel to the brand they support. That’s a very, very important thing to have and it works for me as well.
So to my friends at Duchenne Dash, thank you for your support of my work, in support of your very, very important work. Cheers.
How you can get involved
If you want to find out more visit Duchenne UK
If you want to learn more and participate visit Duchenne Dash
If you want to read more about my charity involvement visit The World is Better on a Bike
