Original art, whether photography or illustration, distinguishes a magazine. Engaging, thought-provoking imagery can take a story from good to great, from simply memorable to downright unforgettable.
Yes, original artwork increases the budget, and not every custom publishing client can afford it. But we’re here to show you why it’s worth the investment, especially when you’re trying to stand out.
In addition to a vast network of skilled wordsmiths, we have access to incredible artists whose credits include such titles as The Atlantic, New York Magazine, The Washington Post, and Bloomberg Businessweek. These creatives make us look good in every issue we publish on behalf of our clients — and we’re always on the lookout for up-and-coming talent to add to the pool.
Here are five artists we love and their recent commissions.
Nathan Hackett
The UK-based illustrator’s work has appeared in such notable publications as The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, GQ, and The Hollywood Reporter. Recently we added the University of Houston magazine to his list, as we asked Hackett to conceive a groovy illustration for a digital story about the generational wars and whether boomers, Gen X, millennials, and Gens Z and Alpha can really get along. We love the heartwarming image of people of all ages boogying down together on the dance floor.
Hackett’s cartoonishly friendly and inviting style also looks right at home in the summer 2025 issue of Texas Heritage for Living, a quarterly magazine we produce for Texas Farm Bureau Insurance.
Hackett and the D Custom design team bonded over the extreme temps plaguing both Texas and England while working on the illustration for the story about saving on summer energy bills. The dollhouse-inspired, 3D cross-section diagram of a home demonstrates the many creative ways TFBI policyholders can keep their cool while saving on energy costs — always a hot topic for Texans during the sweltering summer months.
D Custom Art Director Katy Rimer says it’s all the thoughtful little details that elevate this illustration — lemon wedges floating in the lemonade, the drill and bolts scattered on the floor next to the woman installing window curtains, the newspaper on the front stoop, and the sock peeking out from the laundry basket.
Tim McDonagh
For the fall 2025 issue of Texas Heritage for Living, we wanted to infuse a feature about classic, creepy Texas folk tales with a bit of seasonal spookiness while still maintaining a family-friendly tone. D Custom called upon illustrator Tim McDonagh, whose color-saturated, comic book-influenced artwork has been published in Sports Illustrated and The New York Times. We knew he could make readers stop and stare.
Our art department originally envisioned a scene in warmer autumnal tones, but we were taken by the cooler shades McDonagh suggested to keep the scene slightly eerie yet strikingly beautiful. He executed the showstopping opening spread in cool, fall-friendly blues, purples, and greens — with pops of neon pink and orange — to create a haunting effect without falling into horror-show territory. It was a delicate balance we worked with McDonagh to achieve.
His sprawling desert landscape — populated by such local legends as the Black-Eyed Children of Abeline, the Texas Wampus Cat, and the Ghost Lights of Marfa — illustrates the beauty of the great state of Texas as well as the variety of creepy and colorful folk tales that have been passed down through generations.
Emma Kelly
We’re nuts for the adorable watercolor-style illustration Emma Kelly created for a front-of-book round-up on the many ways readers can embrace pecan season, published in the fall 2025 edition of Texas Heritage for Living.
We asked Kelly to combine two pecan-themed Texas roadside attractions: “Ms. Pearl the Giant Squirrel,” the world’s largest squirrel statue, located in Cedar Creek, Texas, and Texas Pie Company’s pecan pie vending machine in Kyle, Texas. The original art turned out wonderfully whimsical: Pearl is depicted inserting a coin into the vending machine to procure her very own pecan pie.
Kelly — whose work has appeared in Esquire and Vanity Fair — was especially accommodating. She provided different illustration options, including iterations of Pearl with a fluffier tail as well as a slimmed-down version. (Naturally, we chose the fluffier one.)
João Neves
Hailing from Portugal, artist João Neves was our first choice to illustrate “The Boot Scootin’ History of Texas Honky-Tonks” in the spring 2025 issue of Texas Heritage for Living. The assignment was a perfect fit for Neves, who specializes in the kind of typography-laden, neon sign-style illustrations we were looking for.
We briefed Neves on the project by sending him some of our favorite examples of his own work, in addition to photos of eye-catching neon signs that line the streets of Nashville — especially those featuring country-cute imagery such as cowboy boots and cacti.
Neves nailed the commission with the opening spread — “it looks cooler than I ever could have imagined,” Rimer says — which resembles an actual neon sign mounted on the black brick wall of a genuine Texas honky-tonk. He also created smaller spot illustrations to complement the photography used throughout the rest of the feature.
Ryan Olbrysh
Sometimes a story calls for turning existing photography into something entirely new. Such was the case for “The Brand Builder,” a column by Patrick Mulligan, University of Houston’s executive director of brand management, published in the fall/winter 2025 issue of UH magazine.
We needed to work Mulligan’s headshot into a collage featuring some of the university’s most recognizable marketing imagery, such as athletics jerseys and cheerleading uniforms, school mascots Shasta and Sasha, the basketball court at the Fertitta Center, and students throwing up the famous “Cougar paw” hand sign. Artist Ryan Olbrysh — who specializes in digital photo collage illustrations and whose work has been published in Newsweek and Time — pulled it off, expertly merging the various images into a cohesive, dynamic photomontage that conveys at a glance Mulligan’s position as the university’s branding authority.