We didn’t get it but it was a lot of fun in the process.

Sadly Manchester was unsuccessful in its bid to stage the Eurovision Song Contest 2023 on behalf of Ukraine. There were seven cities in the running and, at the time of writing, it came down to a tussle between Glasgow and Liverpool.

For the Manchester bid I was commissioned by design agency Creative Concern on behalf of Marketing Manchester to produce some wacky illustrations that imagined how the city might look during Eurovision.

The brief was for lots of flags, logos and branding; lots of people having fun and lots of well-known landmarks that created an exciting sense of place.

I set to. After pencil outlines had been approved, I hand drew and then painted the base layer of each scene. Once scanned, numerous other layers were added in Photoshop to give these vibrant, over-the-top visualisations of the city. Oh, and a plan of the main city centre venues too.

It was all a bit mad before the tight deadline but I’m super pleased with what I produced and very proud to have been asked to represent our city for this important bid.