Heather Gatley's illustrations showcase the people and businesses on Regent Street

Heather Gatley has created a series of animated illustrations for an instagram campaign highlighting the people and places on Regent Street/ St James’ London during lockdown.

The series Behind Our Doors, showcases a different business in the historic London shopping area with each instagram post. From urban beekeeping to Jaffa Cake recipes, Heather’s signature watercolour and ink washes create a united identity and perfectly captures the unique characteristics of each business’s story.

After working out the content and composition of each post, Heather would illustrate the elements that needed to be animated separately, “so they could be manipulated as different layers, independent of a main illustrated ‘backdrop’. Often this required me to do several drawings of the same object or a scene in different stages. Then Jack worked his magic!”

Commissioned by the Communications Store, Heather worked with animator and illustrator Jack Snelling to create movement that worked with Heather’s physical methods of creating her illustrations.

“It was a real learning curve for me as I’ve never had my work animated before. It required me to think differently about my illustration style and what type of movement would compliment it best, as well as getting my head around all the mechanics involved to make it happen!”

Ultimately, the collaboration was something Heather enjoyed and adding a nice change to her usual solo routine!