Olivier Kugler





Olivier Kugler is a master of draftsmanship born from a passion for drawing which started from a young age, encouraged by his father who works as a painter, printmaker and teacher. Olivier also read a lot of comic books which heavily influenced his enthusiasm for drawing.

Even though at heart he wanted to be an illustrator , Olivier chose to do Graphic Design at college, as he felt that this would be a more sensible career path in terms of job prospects.
Towards the end of the course he was awarded a scholarship for one semester at the University of Georgia in Athens, where he spent seven months. It was during that period he elected to take an illustration class and was encouraged by his tutor, illustrator Alex Murawski , to draw on location. This decision was to shape the very essence of Oli's career.






On completing his diploma Olivier began to seek freelance illustration work with little success. It was at this stage that he took a job as a graphic designer in a small design firm. After spending just over two years there, a friend who had gone to the School of Visual Arts in New York and met Marshall Arisman, encouraged Olivier to take the same route, and again it was a period during which he drew constantly. By the time he graduated Olivier had established his unique and intriguing style.

Olivier creates his illustrations by scanning his own pencil drawings and then manipulating them on screen. He brings to life the people he meets and the places he goes , and creates an alternative to reality that it some ways can often seem more real than (omit) the source. His sensitive drawings convey emotions and atmospheres beautifully.

Olivier has become an extremely successful illustrator and has worked on some amazing project s throughout his career, where possible still working directly on location.		  
 
  FROM SHETLAND TO CUBA

Last year Olivier worked on an illustrated journal documenting a journey he made from Scotland to Cuba , which was published weekly in T he Guardian's travel section (Kugler's World) and The Guardian's g2 supplement (Kugler's People).		  



 
 
The journey started out in Aberdeen from where he took the ferry to Lerwick in the Shetland Islands. Then he got the boat to Torshavn in the Faroe I slands. After one week in the Faroe Islands he took the ferry from Torshavn to the east coast of Iceland from where he drove to Reykjavik. After a week in Iceland he travelled to New York by plane as he " unfortunately couldn't get a hitch on a boat"
He stayed in New York for around two weeks and then went on a road-trip down to Miami, from where he travelled with his friend George via the Bahamas to Havana in Cuba for two weeks. On their way back to Miami they spend a couple of days in Dr Gruber's Sharklab on Bimini in the Bahamas.