Rian Hughes’ path into the design world is one that a majority of us are familiar with. He studied design at the London College of Printing, worked for an advertising agency, two magazines, and a couple record sleeve design companies. However, even though he was focusing on his design career, he was drawing his own comics. He became a regular contributor to Paul Gravett’s Escape Magazine from 1983–1989. He even released his first graphic novel in 1987, The Science Service.
Since the mid-1980s, Hughes has been involved with design work from a range of comic book publishers. He has even branded a couple of comic book shops, most notably Forbidden Planet (the same Forbidden Planet that can be found in Chelsea).
His most notable work is the logos he has done for both DC and Marvel comics. For DC, he created a slew of logos for Batgirl, Batman & Robin and Multiversity (for the comic fans, he does work very closely with writer Grant Morrison). For Marvel, he created different logos for X-Men, Fantastic 4 and Spider-Man.
In addition to logos, Rian has also had the opportunity of designing entire covers for Marvel’s The Invincible Iron Man.
Rian’s work can be viewed on his portfolio site. Additionally, he has recently released a book, Logo-a-gogo: Branding Pop Culture, that dives into his work with a hefty amount of case studies.