Jim Connolly (illustrator)

Jim Connolly
Jim Connolly at work.
Born	1978 Sheffield, England
Nationality	British
Education	Manchester Metropolitan University
Known for	Illustration, design, art

Jim Connolly (born 1978) is an English illustrator, designer and commercial artist from Sheffield. He is best known for creating comic book style designs for album/single covers, concert posters, magazine articles and silkscreen prints. His style features loud and brash bubblegum colours and comical characters usually drawn with a sharp vectorized look. The dominant features of his work usually include comic book, science fiction and horror references, often with a UK slant. Beyond his comic book style work he has also worked in a variety of different styles as an illustrator and designer, mainly on outsourced E-Learning games for the BBC and Channel 4 via several E-Learning companies.

Connolly studied illustration and animation at Manchester Metropolitan University under the tuition of illustrator Ian Whadcock. During his time in Manchester he first began creating and contributing to many underground comics and fanzines. This early work later evolved into the creation of concert posters and album/single artwork for several bands.

Having seen Connolly's designs for the Ape Drape Escape, The Barbs commissioned him to work on two singles and an album cover. Their single 'Massive Crush' reached No. 1 in the Philippines music chart in late 2004. In September 2004 Big Cheese Magazine (in issue 55) featured an article about the relationship between the Barb's music and Jim Connolly's artwork.

Relaxed Muscle, a side-project of Jarvis Cocker, Richard Hawley and Jason Buckle, used a Connolly-penned depiction of the band on the digital content on their album A Heavy Night With.... This can be seen alongside the band's quirky music videos.