Wednesday, December 19, 2012

It's A Shape Christmas - My Submission

I woke up this morning to find that today was the reveal date for my submission for It's A Shape Christmas! So here's the full picture - what do you think?







You can view it online here at It's A Shape Christmas :)

I've also included all the downloads here for your iPads and iPhones so they'll still be available long after the site closes down for the year :) (Just click on the image you want for it to open up to it's full size) The iPhone and iPhone5 downloads are different to those offered on the site.


iPad




iPadMini


iPhone


iPhone5

Monday, December 17, 2012

Coming Together at Christmas!

Whipped up this repeating pattern for the Tigerprint Design Competition : Coming Together at Christmas - what do you think?




Tigerprint run a monthly on-line design competition, ranging from photography to illustration and character design to puzzles and are the sole supplier of over 5000 greetings products to Marks & Spencer.

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Coming Soon to a Beach Near You!

A while ago I was given the amazing opportunity of illustrating some icons and a diagram for beach signage for the City of Cape Town! 

It was all part of a brief to design a new, integrated coastal signage system - the fact that Cape Town will be celebrating as World Design Capital in 2014 was a big motivating factor in creating upgraded signage.


The new signage needed to make important issues of beach safety and stranding clearer. The illustrations needed to be engaging, user-friendly, simple, and create proactive behaviour on the city’s beaches. The next print run will also include signs completely in Afrikaans and isiXhosa.

These will soon be on all the beaches in Cape Town - I've heard some are already up at Camps Bay Beach! Design by Laskarina Yiannakaris and Robertson Wade Design. Firm., illustrations, diagram and icons by me.

DOG SIGNAGE





Various dog signage placed at Western Cape beaches outlining 
to what extent dogs can roam that specific beach.

Exploration of dog stances for the dog signage.

BEACHED MARINE MAMMAL SIGNAGE





Beached Marine Mammals signage was created due to an increase 
in whales beaching themselves along the Western Cape shoreline.

Here is an article the City of Cape Town posted on the new beach signage.

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Look What Came in the Post! (A very belated post)

A couple of weeks ago, I was SO very excited to hear that I had won a copy of Tad Carpenter's I Say, You Say Opposites book, especially as I'm a super huge fan of Tad's and have been following his work for many years!!

These are some of my favourite pieces* of his:


 
Two of the four posters Tad created for Conan O'Brien's 2011 Summer Concert Series. The other two were on Ke$ha and Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeroes.



Tad's work for Adobe - an Illustrator CS6 How-To Guide of this illustration - "A Modern Day Venus". His guide showcased some of the new features of Illustrator CS6. Such amazing colour use!






In collaboration with agency BrandCory, Tad created and illustrated the "flavour monsters" on the Snapple Half 'N Half Packaging. So fun!

And here's some pictures of the book I won :)

The book arrived in an awesome hand-made envelope held together by super fun illustrated tape! Tad was very kind to leave a lovely message in the book :)


Some spreads from the book - so fun, colourful and interactive!


Tad was also very kind to send these amazing cards along with the book! 



Not just super fun and beautifully illustrated, the books are interactive and encourage kids to learn through prediction and repetition.

Along, with the I Say You Say books, Tad also has another new book out, entitled "Sad Santa".




Pop over here to see more about Sad Santa!

*All images featured are copyright of Tad Carpenter.

Monday, December 3, 2012

It's A Shape Christmas - A Sneak Peek


Recently, I was very honoured to have been chosen to submit for this year's It's A Shape Christmas!

It's A Shape Christmas is an interactive advent calender, in which 25 creatives (illustrators, typographers, designers and photographers) are each given a particular shape to work with and give a Christmas slant to it. Each day a different creative's piece of work is revealed. There's a very cool video with more info on the It's A Shape Christmas project, created by Made By Shape and produced by Beata Sawka here.

There are some ridiculously AMAZING people featured this year: Lydia Nichols (Philadelphia, USA), Barney Ibbotson (Manchester,UK), Alan Heighton (Doncaster, UK), Chris Madden (Manchester,UK)Dave Raxworthy (London, UK), Emil Paun (Manchester,UK)Oliver Sin (Cheltenham, UK), Katie Daugherty (Kent, Ohio, USA) , David Ryan Robinson (London, UK), Timothy Joe Reynolds (Milwaukee, Wisconsin), Tom Nicklin (Chesire, UK), Mathew Lucas (Macclesfield, UK), Isabel Foo (Toronto, Canada), Dean Zappy (Manchester, UK), May Ninth (Manchester, UK), Laurie Pink (Manchester, UK), Cintia González (Málaga, Andalusia, Spain), Michael Thorp (Manchester, UK), Kat Loveday (Manchester, UK), Brandon James Scott (Toronto, Canada), Rui Almedia (Lisbon, Portugal), Daren Newman (Manchester, UK), Luke Drozd (London, UK), James O' Connell (Manchester, UK) and yours truly (Cape Town, South Africa represent!).

SO very honoured to be featured alongside such talented people!! They've all set the bar very high!

The Made By Shape team have also done such a sterling job on the design of the website - so functional and beautifully designed! Go check out their site for yourself!



Here's a sneak peek of a piece of my submission - I had so much fun creating it!



Can you guess what shape I was given and what I illustrated for it? ;)

I'll keep the full image a surprise until I have been featured on the website - they've actually kept our reveal date a surprise for all of us involved, so I'll wait in suspense with you! So very excited to reveal the final piece!! :)

Sunday, November 25, 2012

Aphrodisiac - Work in Progress


The first digital rough of the Aphrodisiac lettering. Still needs a lot of tweaking!


Testing out the Aphrodisiac lettering (as it is so far) on the CD cover, which is also still very much a work in progress.


Playing around with some effects here - just getting a sense of what it would look like with more muted tones.

What do you think?

Saturday, November 24, 2012

Some More Lettering - Aphrodisiac


Amongst a bunch of other things, I'm busy working on some more lettering at the moment. This is for a very good friend of mine - she recorded a CD single called "Aphrodisiac" a few days ago, and this is the lettering that's going to go on the cover I'm busy creating!

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Work in Progress


Not sure yet where I will go with this..when I'm feeling a little bit more inspired I'll finish it up properly :)

Saturday, October 20, 2012

Saturday Doodling


A bit of a lazy-Saturday-doodle :) There's still a lot more I want to change and add to it, so still very much a work in progress!





Thursday, October 18, 2012

Illustration Friday - Water




My submission for this week's Illustration Friday topic of "Water". Forced to take to living on nearby land when his little patch of sea mysteriously disappears, Marvin seems to be making the best of a bad situation!

Friday, September 28, 2012

Bologna Children's Book Fair Submission

My submission to the Bologna Children's Book Fair, entitled "Jacques & Pepi's Misadventures". The story centers around Jacques, a mime and Pepi his pet monkey who set off on a "treasure hunt", searching for clues for Jacques' prized heirloom's whereabouts after it is stolen from his apartment one day.

Close-up of a sad Jacques.

Jacques and Pepi spy out the land.

Jacques and Pepi search for clues.

Jacques catches his breath in the park.

Jacques and Pepi continue their quest.



Saturday, August 25, 2012

Work in Progress




Snippets of an illustration I'm busy working on at the moment in my spare time. It's still very much a work in progress - I'm still going to add some texture to it; at the moment I'm just trying to get the base of the illustration down first. I'd love any feedback and thoughts on how to improve on it :)

Friday, August 3, 2012

Illustration Friday - Lonely


My submission for this week's Illustration Friday topic of "lonely". Forever trapped in a wintery snowglobe, Mr. Snowman dreams of some company.

Tuesday, July 31, 2012

A Tribute to Switchfoot


Every so often, a band comes along that you just resonate with; a band that puts a voice to the questions you’ve wrestled with over and over in your mind. This band, for me, is Switchfoot.

Described as music for thinkers, Switchfoot sings from a beautiful, sincere place, often more mulling over questions than answers in their lyrics, and asking the hard-hitting questions we tend to shy away from or sweep under the rug. Contrasting their contemplative-natured lyrics, they also inspire listeners to reach for so much more out of life, than just surviving or scraping by each day.

I’ve been following Switchfoot for a good couple of years now - ever since their album New Way to Be Human, and to say that I’m beyond excited that they will be playing again in my town on their Vice Verses tour in just over a week is a HUGE understatement! Last time I heard them was in a school hall in Stellenbosch many years ago – it was a very touching and moving concert, with children affected by Aids (many orphans as they had lost their parents to Aids), singing their song “Dare You To Move” – somehow those lyrics took on even more significance and depth with these kids singing them.

So, here is my small tribute and thank you to Switchfoot, for inspiring me to embrace the questions of life instead of running from them, and to embrace and live each moment fully, to use my talents and to be a blessing instead of a curse in this world.

While I was still studying at college, in my second year, we were asked to create a storyboard of a 60 second clip of any track of music of our choice. I chose the song "Adding to the Noise" off their Beautiful Letdown album.

I had great fun imagining each clip way back then - hope you like! (click on the pics to see them big).








Saturday, June 30, 2012

Airport Awesomeness I

Perhaps it's the British Airways billboard that recently popped up in town, or perhaps it's the fact that it's been a year since my first overseas adventure, but I'm just itching to hop on a plane again (I LOVE flying, especially the long international ones!) and go explore somewhere new and experience other ways of life! Actually, even just flying again would be awesome.

Hopefully this collection of airport awesomeness will tide me over for a little while :)

Pop-up Passport ads by BBH London
http://tinyurl.com/7aug9h5
http://tinyurl.com/7ksomk5

Aren't they amazing?!


That British Airways billboard I spotted in town.
http://tinyurl.com/7q3gjov

South African Airways In-Flight Arrivals AV by Maja Studio




Great job by Maja Studio.
http://tinyurl.com/7ofy5se
http://tinyurl.com/79b4cwj
http://www.majastudio.co.za/

Josef Hoflehner's Jet Airliner Photographs


AMAZING.
http://tinyurl.com/raup48

Air Hostess Lego

How lovely are these ladies? Lady on the right is especially lovely - look at that awesome 50's vintage look she's got going on!

http://tinyurl.com/8x2bar4
http://tinyurl.com/7j3g3sz

Airport Illustrations
Brad Woodward's "Whatever Happened to First Class?" Illustration

Brad Woodward based his illustration on a haiku from a New York Times article entitled "Whatever Happened to First Class?" 

The haiku: 

"Glory days of flight 
Attendants wore white gloves, suits
It's peanuts, neck cramps"

http://tinyurl.com/7syfmky

Maria Zaikina's Cover for Le Cool Moscow

http://tinyurl.com/7rebt33

U2's Beautiful Day Music Video

Who can forget this amazing moment from U2's Beautiful Day music video? I can't think of anything more epic than U2 playing their tunes on carpets down the runway! Apparently this was filmed at Paris-Charles DeGaulle.




http://tinyurl.com/yczpode

Some pics of the beginning of an amazing overseas adventure.

 Our plane!

Tata for now!
xoxo