Peter Cassell captures the face by painting the soul

Hello,

As part of Filip Yip & Co., Peter Cassell has collaborated with Filip for years on character, branding, technical illustration, and motion projects. Among his many talents and styles, Pete has a real gift for fusing portraiture and caricature to create charming images that somehow look more like the person than the person themselves! His take on John Oliver’s double-Emmy win last month is a great example. And so are the portraits below, commissioned by Michael Patrick Partners for a fund-raising brochure for Saint Francis High School in Menlo Park, California. The designers wanted to feature some of the school’s board members in a more engaging way than the usual starchy corporate photos, so they thought of illustration—and then they thought of Pete. But it turned out the board members were all on vacation, so Pete couldn’t meet or photograph them. No worries. He had them send selfies and then worked his magic from there. The result was a brochure with a more unified, look and portraits that jump off the page and connect with the reader the way old-school headshots could never do.

Fondly,

Freda