Nigel Sussman

You just can’t look away once you’ve seen one of Nigel Sussman’s isometric mural illustrations. There’s so much going on – dancing horses, dinosaurs serving in a restaurant, people running in hamster treadmills… The detail is incredible and it’s all done with a light-hearted sense of humour that keeps you looking and smiling.

With that special knack for drawing viewers in, it’s no wonder Nigel has worked for hugely innovative brands like Google and Redbull, as well as picking up more traditional print projects with the likes of Popular Mechanics and Time Out. Nigel spent two years at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, before crossing the country to the California College of the Arts to complete his degree in Illustration. His influences include Martin Handford (creator of Where’s Wally), MC Escher and the computer game Sim City.

Approach

Today Nigel works on his drawings using a Wacom Cintiq tablet, but he has a good grounding in traditional media, working in pen and ink with acrylic paints.

Style

Bold, bright and complex, Nigel’s signature style uses isometric line art and a striking but simple colour palette. He loves creating seek-and-find type drawings, as well as illustrations that feature complex fantasy architecture and/or imaginary machines.

Client list

Nigel has a stellar client list including Bosch, PayPal, Redbull, New Scientist, Google, Popular Mechanics, VMWare, Time Out, ARUP and more.

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Salad Town Mural Time-lapse

This mural is painted on a temporary facade protecting the new storefronts are under construction on the corner of Telegraph Ave. And Haste St. in Berkeley, California. The mural wraps around two sides of the building and is approximately 150 feet long by 10 feet high. This bold, isometric line-art city is loosely inspired by the city of Berkeley, but is mostly a fantasy land with giant salads and sandwiches (foreshadowing of the restaurant to come) scattered all through town. I did an illustration to scale and then used it as the basis of the final painting, which I painted by hand with brushes and house paint over the course of three and a half days.