Back in 2016, I was moving from Costa Rica to Hong Kong to face a new challenge. Full of dreams and hungry of learning, I arrived at the South China Morning Post doors. There I found new friends and colleagues and learn a lot from all of them. Today I have the same feeling once again, and I want to say thanks to all that people that I meet here in Hong Kong because they change in a way or another my professional and personal life, I really can’t mention names because there are many people and I don’t want to leave anyone out
In three years at the South China Morning Post, I collaborate in 30 print pages and I have good memories for all of them, some remind me of a trip with a friend to collect information in China, a rush hour with a piece of breaking news, or a long project that I only talk about day after day (oh poor friends of mine, I’m sorry )
Bellow, some of the print graphics memories I create at the South China Morning Post
I had fun doing full-page graphics at the South China Morning Post print ed, and the online was an awesome sandbox where I found the freedom to test and play with pretty much all the topics that come to my mind, my first graphics as stand-alone were the Statues Graphic and the lightning project
Statues drawings
And some of those first steps at the South China Morning Post
But maybe the more recent ones were the most I enjoy because of the diversity of ways to work, some times doing projects by my self and some others collaborating in bigger projects with the other artist, visual journalist and designers. That’s the case of the Forbidden City series collecting data and working in graphics on for a year
The biggest project that I ever did up to today, and at the same time one I enjoy the most was the Forbidden City, below the Part One print version. To be honest, I’m very bad doing drawings, but since I get here I face a lot of projects where the drawings were the essence of the graphic, like this all manually made:
Forbidden City series, part one for the print
And the extended digital chapters, which in my case covered the architecture aspects of the Forbidden City in Beijing:
- Forbidden City, Part One: Chapter ONE
- Forbidden City, Part One: Chapter TWO
- Forbidden City, Part One: Chapter THREE
Maybe the most exhaustive part was the built of the of the VR feature in the second chapter made with Cinema 4D:
Here the output on youtube 360/VR:
…and some more of the stuff of the Forbidden City Series, small animations and graphics
I can say that I try pretty much all kind of topics in the South China Morning Post from many soccer graphics to the architecture ones, Chinese projects like the new the Silk Road (OBOR), of the perception of the rule of law, explosions, weather conditions, the moon events, crazy aircraft stories, game-like graphics about food, vessel tragedies like the Aulac and the Sanchi tanker, trend games like Pokemons hunting, a lot of Trump, and the Brexit, automobile technology, and snakes, my fascination with Asians anatomy, always nice to have some time off so I also did one about holidays; if you want to know where you can go with your documents and how much it cost I did one about the passports too; graphics about Chinese cities, Hong Kong’s ageing population, war vehicles, why no toilets too; the Golden Globe Awards, celebrations like San Valentine, or where the Asians lives in the US; all about North Korea in 15 graphics, the evolution of Peral River Delta considered the Chinese silicon valley; Spanish Galleons crossing the Pacific heading to China’s goods; Thai kids trapped in a cave; automation and industrial robots and many many more that I can’t remember now. All those with a nice touch of memories because work at the South China Morning Post graphics team was more about have fun with the stuff you love to do rather than just work
My last project with the South China Morning Post was the Tibet permafrost, and there wasn’t a better way to finish my time there like doing one last project with my teammates like the ones I enjoy for 3 years
Permafrost cover
Cover illustration by Adolfo Arranz
Permafrost extension in the northern hemisphere
For the print, I split the project into two backpages, so I can make a more specific topic on extreme temperatures, on my point of view a Goldilocks place were the temperature is too hot in one place and incredible cold in the other
My last page at the South China Morning Post, published in February 2019.
As I set in the title of this post, this is just to say thanks to all you guys that help me to evolve and create more and more. Thanks to the Hispanic gang of the South China Morning Post; thanks to my British boss today a good friend, to the friends at Hong Kong University, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, the Hong Kong Design Institute and the Baptist University that also open their doors to me, all my Hongkongneer friends and all the South China Morning Post family that let me be part of that amazing experience
From now on, my graphics will appear in the Reuters pages, lucky me to work there with more good friends. Hope to come back soon here, to my website, to write about some new graphics and backstages made for the world
Marco Hernandez 