Illustrations for Wade Radford’s Anthology ‘Cognitive Dissonance’

This collection of 15 illustrations was commissioned for the book ‘Cognitive Dissonance’, published by Bedlam BD, which is an anthology of the work of Wade Radford. 

Wade is a filmmaker, writer, actor and artist, whose prose and Polaroid zines I instantly became a huge fan of. (If you don’t look at anything else from his huge range of work, I suggest reading Ciao Philadelphia and discovering the Dear series of Polaroid collectable zines as a starter). 

We have been working together for most of this year, and as a pair of creative freelancers, we’ve become both unofficial work mates and close friends, off on adventures.  Checking out and running zine fairs, capturing film footage across the North Yorkshire Moors and Teesside and pinging ideas off each-other, our collective creativity inspiring each of us, there’s also been a load of laughing and looking out for each-other.

I’d done some illustrations for Wade in return for some photography and publishing he provided for me, and it was amazing to be around someone who was as positive and supportive of my creativity as I am a fan of theirs. So – when I was asked to create illustrations of film stills of the anthology of Wade’s expansive and hugely impressive body of work, I was honoured to be asked to take up the commission. 

I was also excited and slightly apprehensive about the challenge of illustrating some iconic images that really did need me to capture them as embodiments of Wade’s film career which are hugely familiar to his fans. No pressure. 

As I worked through the images, I realised the level of the task – creating images that were basically a retelling of the adult life of someone you’d got to know well, and also how quite weird it is to become that acquainted with someone else’s face, to then see them regularly and observe them to that level. 

The interesting thing was how quickly the drawing skills I’d been using since I was a child advanced during the time, and now the images are published in the anthology – I’ve rarely been more proud of something I’ve drawn – in this case each image is hand drawn on a digital pad using Procreate and an iPad/apple pencil. 

It was, however only once I had the book in my hands and was capable of seeing my illustrations alongside the text, that I took in the enormity of is all. Really emotional stuff! I’d also forgotten some earlier images I’d produced, printed further in the book, which was fabulous!

The book itself is an almost unbelievable 350 page tour through the fantastic creative life Wade’s lived so far, and includes nearly 700 mostly unseen images, a complete film ‘years’ Chronology and new writing by Scott Colbert, Jason Impey and Wade himself. 

It includes the revised version of 2024 zine ‘Busby and Me’ and four shorts including the before-mentioned ‘Ciao Philadelphia’. Images include personal scrapbooks and of course the 15 images I was commissioned to produce in full. 

To purchase the book, which is strictly limited to 100 Hardback A4 copies, and find out more about Wade, follow him at https://wade-radford.com

Illustrations taken from photograph stills of Wade Radford’s films. Film Photography by Wade Radford, Jason Impey and Wesley Strong