The Guy Fox Blog

  #9. London Children’s Map (January 2006) Winning the Guardian Award was an ‘honourtunity’; it was an honour , of course, but also an opportunity . And of course, it was the grease that got us unstuck! No excuses.  No more ‘ Big If ’!   During 2005, we spent a bit of time working ‘under the hood’ on the organisation itself. Lawyers at Winston & Strawn helped us re-form the Guy Fox charity into a non-profit social enterprise.   In November 2005, we moved into a basement office, which had once been a wine cellar. It had no heat; it was furnished with desks and shelves that had been donated by volunteers or that we’d found in the street; it was a cold, damp, dark space – but it was our cold, damp, dark space where we would make our vision a reality.    In between meetings with lawyers and negotiating our lease, Kourtney had completed the London Children’s Map . She showed the proof to buyers at Tate Modern, the Natural History Museum and St Paul’s Cathed...

#1. Drawings of Guy Fox (Autumn 1998) These pen and ink drawings are the very first iterations of the Guy Fox character. As you can see, he's gained a little weight since then – mostly in his nose! These days, we draw him in pencil, add the black lines with an old-fashioned dip pen and ink, and then scan the drawing so that we can colour it in Photoshop.  But back in 1998, when Kourtney Harper created Guy Fox, she and her husband were relocating from Chapel Hill, North Carolina to London and living out of a suitcase – no computer, no scanner, no software. So when inspiration struck, Kourtney popped in to see Mr Poole at Cornelissen .  Mr Poole was one of those living institutions who can only exist in a place like London. Dressed in pinstriped trousers, waistcoat, pocket watch with fob and immaculately-polished shoes, and wielding a walking stick that doubled as a grappling device, Mr Poole sold pen and ink drawing supplies. Nib holders, nibs, brushes and in...