I have illustrated an article for today’s Süddeutsche Zeitung weekend special (SZ Wochenende) on “Wutbürger” (enraged citizens) who take to the streets in protest of controversial issues. For the full page, I illustrated a large crane swinging a massive demolition ball crowded with little protesters. >MORE

A new book is out that gives advice on all things love. In the author’s experience, love matters tend to be obstructed by partners making the same mistakes over and over.

He argues that many are not aware of the essential physics of relationships, from how they are typically starting out to what causes them to they fail, and aims to remedy that through his book. Relationships, in the author’s view, follow along basic patterns that both partners need to understand before sucessfully engaging in a love affair to last.

Martin Rauh-Köpsel is a psychologist, an educator, and an expert advisor for German television.

I have created the book’s jacket design using an illustration of a heart-shaped roundabout with various exits. >MORE

Martin Rauh-Köpsel: Die Liebe ist ein Kreisverkehr – Wie Sie im Beziehungschaos die richtige Ausfahrt nehmen (Roundabout Love: Taking the Right Exit)

This is this year’s winter cover for Süddeutsche Zeitung’s three-monthly SZ-Vinothek wine supplement that got printed both in a tabloid newspaper format, and on a glossy wine brochure. I created the cover art for this edition and an interior illustration showing a couple dreaming of far-away travels. >MORE

A new book from Random House discusses the effects of traumata, and ways to heal. In the author’s view, love is among the essential symbiotic needs of man which may be shattered by a traumatic event that typically includes major physical violence. Traumata can lead to behavior of avoidance, dissociation, hallucination, aggression, and submission.

Franz Ruppert, the author of Trauma, Angst und Liebe (Trauma, Fear & Love), is a professor for psychology who has authored a number of books already. I have created the book’s jacket design in a color-and-type-only setup. >MORE

I really like the setup in this recent image here that shows a bunch of people on tightropes against the backdrop of a blue sky.

>MORE COLLAGE

Here’s a large mixed-media piece I did for today’s Welt am Sonntag feature on investments. It shows a bunch of puzzled investors in front of a circular maze wondering where to get the best interest rates for their money. >MORE

I have illustrated an article written by Willi Winkler in a Süddeutsche Zeitung weekend special (Das Prinzip Heimat in SZ Wochenende) dealing with people who are feeling at ease with their particular cultures from different regions of Germany.

I have showcased five different “prototypes” for the various regions here, which range from Bavaria to Berlin. >MORE

TOP: Traditional Bavarian, Berliner Hipster Girl
BELOW: Skipper from Hamburg, Black Forest Girl

This is my latest cover art for The Writer magazine. It is on a writer’s demons. >MORE WHIMSICAL

I have created the jacket design and the cover illustration for Sarah Diehl’s novel Eskimo Limon 9. Published by Atrium, it shows a German forest against the backdrop of a starry night sky.

Diehl’s first novel tells the story of a Jewish family from Israel who is moving to a small provincial town in Germany where everybody is well-meaning and trying hard to be as politically correct as possible.

The book title refers to the American Pie style Israeli cult film from the 1980’s which led to a series of sequels. It also lends to the whimsical culture clash setting described in the story that reveals that Germans seem to know all about the holocaust, but nothing about Jews. >MORE

Richard David Precht’s bestselling book on philosophy has just been released in a paperback edition.

I have created the cover illustration and signature jacket design for Wer bin ich, und wenn ja, wie viele? (Who am I, and if so, How Many?)

Precht’s book has sold more than 1.3 million copies to date in Germany alone. >MORE

The latest issue of Das Magazin has just come out. I have created the cover art on the topic of “kids leaving home,” showing a young guy on a motorcycle who is escaping from his parents’s home inside a snow glass.

The monthly Das Magazin is one of the few publications surviving the transition from East Germany after the unification.

>MORE WHIMSICAL

I got featured in the latest issue of Eltern, a parenting magazine from Germany (Gruner+Jahr publishers). Eltern was actually the first magazine to ever publish a work of mine. This was back in the late seventies when I was only ten years of age.

Eltern launched a contest at the time to sketch our holiday plans. The contest won me one out of three cash prizes from 2,144 entries. The 100 DM award for my entry that showed me riding the bike with my dad bought my school class an excursion day to Lake Chiemsee near Munich.

Decades later, I created my second illustration for Eltern, this time around as a professional illustrator. I illustrated a piece about a little girl’s pasta diet (see below). (It does look a little different than my first piece, doesn’t it?)

>READ THE PORTRAIT

This collage piece was made for today’s Süddeutsche Zeitung to illustrate a supplement on the upcoming Olympic Games in London commencing later this week

The five Olympic rings make for the shape of a lion, with a variety of athetes doing their thing in and around those rings.

>MORE COLLAGE

This book from Kösel Verlag (Random House) gives an account of today’s defective mothers who seem inapt to properly raise their children, fighting fierce combats over whose child is the best (and deserves the best, for that matter).

The authors share delightful insight into a bizarre world of its own, the world of combatant mothers who compete to know what is best for their offspring every step of the way, and who are willing to fight as many battles with one another as it takes to serve their cause.

I have created the book’s jacket design, incorporating the silhouette drawing of a mother pushing a tank-shaped buggy. I have also conjured up a number of interior illustrations for the individual chapters.

Christine Koller & Claudia Ries: Vorsicht, Zickenzone!
- Kleine und große Biestigkeiten unter Müttern
(Babies First! Stroller Moms Gone Berserk)

>MORE BOOKS

Here’s a full-size spread I did for Süddeutsche Zeitung’s “Wochenende” (weekend) edition for an article that pleads to appreciate mistakes made on construction sites. I designed a large scaffolding full of little workers doing everything wrong they possibly can.

>MORE WHIMSICAL