Big Lebowski Inspired Cocktail Book Editorial Illustrations

THE PROJECT: Complete book illustration project, including cocktail illustrations, recipe illustrations, cover illustrations, and additional chapter opener illustrations, including cocktails, food, lettering, and Big Lebowski movie-inspired artwork. THE SPECIFICS: In the summer of 2022, I partnered with Quarto Books to create all the illustrations for an upcoming title, The Unofficial Big Lebowski Cocktail Book, featuring over 50 recipes for cocktails and foods that were all inspired by the Coen Brothers’ movie The Big Lebowski. The author André Darlington wrote the content and recipes, but they wanted something illustrated instead of the typical photographs. The movie is quirky with lots of fun details, so the brief was to bring out the fun and characters from the movie to make the book have a similar vibe. Based on the recipe text, I created hand-drawn cocktail illustrations for each drink, using hand-lettering to illustrate the titles for each drink, and then added some fun spot illustrations that referenced the character, scene, or story plot point that the drink referenced. I had no photos to go by, so I had the pleasure to visualize the recipes and color to see how they might look. In addition to the over 50 cocktails, there was a series of food recipes for noshing with friends or bowling buddies, so I got to illustrate those food recipes as well. This project was a very fun project that spanned the summer of 2022 and where I got to flex all my favorite drawing muscles, including lots of lettering, cocktail illustrations, and food illustrations, all combined into one quirky package. I’m proud to have illustrated this project from the cover through all the recipes. Thanks to Creative Director Laura Drew for the commission. The book releases March 2023, and you can order the book here, or at your favorite bookstore: https://www.amazon.com/Unofficial-Big-Lebowski-Cocktail-Book/dp/0760381216/