Don't Panic Coat of Arms Submission

My submission for Don't Panic's Design a Coat of Arms Competition! It symbolises some of the more quirkier aspects of myself!

You can vote on the designs for the competition here and here's my entry :)

The meaning behind it all

CROWN - When I was young I would draw crowns on EVERYTHING. So I figured that was important to include.

ROBIN - Besides the fact that my name is Robyn, I was actually named after the Cape Robin, as my dad is an avid birdwatcher!

DAISY (in said Robin's mouth) - I love daisies - they're my favourite flower! There's something so wonderfully straight-forward about daisies; they always seem so happy and unpretentious! Plus, they feature in one of my most favourite movies, You've Got Mail :)

BLUE CRANE - I live in Cape Town, South Africa and the Blue Crane is our national bird.

PENCIL (in Blue Crane's mouth) - I love to draw; I have a real passion for illustration - one day I hope to illustrate a children's book :) (Note how the details on the Blue Crane's back look like pencil doodles ;) )

BOWL (in the shield) - not many people know this, but if I can, I will choose to eat my food in a bowl rather than on a plate. Weird. I know.

PLANE - I LOVE flying! I love take-off, landing, peering out of the window to see the scenery (a window seat is a must!), watching planes coming and going - I could seriously sit for hours at the airport watching them take-off and land! I'm probably the only person I know that wishes flights on planes were longer (even international ones!) and gets excited every time I see the sign for Cape Town International! I love the airport!

STRAWBERRIES - LOVE them! I can polish off a whole box of Woolies' strawbs when they're in season, no lies! Surprisingly I haven't ever gone strawberry picking - but is something I definitely want to tick off this year on my bucket list!

"EVER UPWARD" - The motto of the place I'd most like to see one day - New York City! I've dreamt of going to NYC ever since I was 13! I would go into detail about how obsessive I am over NYC, but I figure my Pinterest board will clue you in! 

POSTAGE STAMP - When I was young I used to collect stamps. My dad would collect the old school kind, while I was more interested in the children's book illustrated ones! I have stamps that feature the vintage Winnie-the-Pooh illustrations, Alice in Wonderland and ones from all over the world with cute illustrations! Go figure. On the stamp, you can see my tribute to Table Mountain - one of the most amazing places to go visit in Cape Town! (Also the new 7th Wonder of the World, so definitely a must-see!) It's so amazingly serene and beautiful up there, seriously one of my most favourite places in Cape Town :)

Below is some of my process work.

Initial quick scamp of what I was thinking of doing - I tend to work on one spot - so I'll keep drawing and rubbing out until I get to more or less what I want it to be.

Based on the initial scamp, but more refined. Again, I tend to keep drawing on one spot until I get it right!

Then I get cracking on my trusty computer and start playing around with colour and composition.

Voila! And there we have it!

Illustration Friday - Puzzled

Quick illustration for this week's Illustration Friday topic of "Puzzled".

Happy Easter!

So it's been a while since I last had a good block of time to doodle away to my heart's content, but in between eating way too many Easter eggs and hot-cross buns, there was time for a bit of a doodle, and here it is! Wishing you all a belated, blessed Easter :)

Some of my most favourite animated videos :)

So last week I stumbled across this video entitled "A Year of Sun with Mr. Persol", produced by Passion Pictures for Persol. SO lovely!

PRODUCTION Passion Pictures // passion-pictures.com

DIRECTED BY Kevin Dart // kevindart.com // Stéphane Coëdel // vimeo.com/steffromuk

PRODUCER Ryan Goodwin-Smith // ryan.gs

ASSOCIATE PRODUCER Jen Coatsworth

DESIGNERS Kevin Dart // Chris Turnham // christurnham.com

ANIMATORS Jérémy Pires // vimeo.com/jeremypires // Nelson Boles // vimeo.com/nelsonboles // Nick Appleton

ANIMATION ASSISTANT Mariano Melman

COMPOSITING Stéphane Coëdel // Celine Desrumaux // groovythesushi.blogspot.com

EDITING Stéphane Coëdel

STORY Kevin Dart // Stéphane Coëdel // Elizabeth Ito // kikutowne.com // Chris Mitchell // jinzoningen.blogspot.com/

SOUND AND MUSIC Dave Newby // vimeo.com/dnewby

AGENCY Winkreative, London, UK // winkreative.com

CREATIVE DIRETOR Tyler Brûlé

DESIGN DIRECTOR Maurus Fraser

ART DIRECTOR Silke Klinnert

ACCOUNT MANAGER Ariane Elfen 

COPYWRITER Matthew Temple 

PRODUCER Julie Thyman

And also happened to stumble across the animated adaptation of Oliver Jeffers' Lost and Found book.

ADAPTED AND DIRECTED by STUDIO AKA's Philip Hunt

BASED ON Oliver Jeffers' award winning children's picture book, "Lost and Found"

NARRATION by the great Jim Broadbent

SCORE by composer Max Richter 

Available on Amazon UK, PLAY UK & iTunes UK

And last but not least, I love this opening title sequence for "Catch Me If You Can" discovered via Art of the Title. Inspired by the amazing designer Saul Bass and the 60's, in which the movie is set, Paris-based Olivier Kuntzel and Florence Deygas created this winner of an opening sequence.

Read more about their process of making the animation here.

CE Design Contest II

So lately I've been very busy on my entry for the CE Design Contest II. Basically the competition called for designers to design a vinyl toy, blister pack and a t-shirt. It's not often that you come across such an amazing brief - so I had a lot of fun dreaming up ideas!

This is Trilby. He's a tiger in the circus who has both a fondness for collecting medals, as well as wearing them. Perhaps he likes to wear so many medals because he thinks they give him a false sense of status. Possibly a kleptomaniac.

Scamp of the blister pack. I'm quite a Type A person, so I like to draw up more or less what I'm thinking of doing. On the blister pack we're introduced to some of Trilby's friends in the circus.

And here's the scamp brought to life!

Some detail shots.

Design for the t-shirt.

And here's my entry! South Africa represent!

My sister also did an AMAZING entry for the competition - you can check hers out here and here!

UPDATE:

Made the top 95 finalists, but unfortunately didn't place in the top 5 international designers :) Congrats to all the finalists!!

Illustration Friday - Highlight

So it's been a while since I last posted..life has been so busy lately! So first Illustration Friday for the year - this week's topic was "highlight". I thought it only appropriate to share with you the highlight of my 2011, which was most definitely travelling, but most importantly, that I got to fly on a plane again!! The last time I flew in a plane was when I was 12 or so years old! Anyone who knows me well, will tell you that I'm pretty obsessive over planes and airports :) I'm one of those kinds of people who enjoy going to the airport just to watch the planes come and go - there's something magical about it all! Hope you like :) xoxo

Experiments with Colour

Just trying out some different colour combo's on past illustrations :)