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Cartoon Network artist Jane Bak: ‘Hey Houston’

Cartoon Network artist Jane used Affinity Designer to create new work in her acclaimed ‘Hey, Houston’ series.

Jane Bak, from New Jersey, is a 2015 graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, one of the oldest and best-known colleges of art and design in the US.

Jane has a style of her own, a textured vector look using limited palettes and expressive raster brushwork, fully realised in her 'Hey, Houston' series, which follows the adventures of the Starman and Houston characters.

Jane's original 'Hey, Houston' designs caught our eye

We love her style, so our creative director Neil Ladkin got in touch with Jane and asked her to create some new ‘Hey, Houston’ work using Affinity Designer.

We think the new illustrations are beautifully captivating and thought provoking.

One of the Affinity Designer illustrations Jane created for us

“I love portraying some emotion with the inclusion of a character like Starman in this series, whether he’s staring off into the depths of infinity, examining a new species of plant with unbound curiosity, or playfully skipping across a pond on a new world. It’s an exploration.”

Jane Bak

We were thrilled with the work Jane did in Affinity Designer

Jane started out in her career using primarily free software, and was very positive about her first experience with Affinity Designer.

She concludes: “I used a lot of raster brushes in my pieces, changing nozzle sizes on the fly, and loved being able to mix raster and vector without interruption in Designer. It felt natural very quickly—things like the Pen Tool are easy to pick up and brushes just work.”

Jane praised Affinity Designer's slick, responsive usability

“I was really pleased that my Starman and Houston characters had another mission exploring completely new places, I really enjoyed taking them on an exciting new adventure.”

Another of Jane's original 'Hey, Houston' images which inspired us to commission more

You can see more of Jane Bak’s work on her Behance profile.


A version of this article featured in Computer Arts magazine (UK, issue 254) in June 2016.


PR manager

John heads up our public relations and is co-editor of Affinity Spotlight, as well as being responsible for a lot of what we post on our Facebook page and Twitter feed. When he’s not trying to charm journalists into giving us more great media coverage, or serving as butler to an elderly cat, his interests include music, Cuban cigars and American whiskey. Get in touch with John if you would like to contribute to Affinity Spotlight or have any press enquiries.

Credits & Footnotes

All images are copyright of Jane Bak.