So lately I've been super busy on a bunch of really exciting projects, one of which was writing this article on Sustainable Design for Creative Bloq. I hope that you like it and that it inspires you to design more sustainably!
Creative Bloq is an amazing, informative website, delivering daily design tips and inspiration on the creative sectors of Graphic Design, Illustration, Web Design, Animation.
Just over a week in and while the excitement of a brand new year still hangs in
the air, I’ve also been reflecting a lot on the year that’s passed.
Here are a few of my personal highlights of 2012 :)
1) Going to see Phantom of the Opera at the Artscape!
2) Taking my first stab at coming up with and illustrating my own kid's book! 3) Going to the Spier Secret Market and seeing the Roses Handmade jar I illustrated while working at Good Design! 4) Getting my first international illustration commission! 5) Having my London map featured on Lana Kenney's blog for her post on London and the canvas of my map being bought at GreatBigCanvas and ImageKind! 6) Illustrating for new Cape Town beach signage, already now up at a lot of our beaches! 7) Going to the Constantia Good Food and Wine Festival for the first time ever! 8) Getting to see the airport tarmac and surrounding planes on a
trip up to JHB! (I love flying and the airport!!) 9) Creating and submitting a personal coat of arms to Don’t
Panic Online! 10) High tea at the One&Only! 11) Trying out new recipes, including Pumpkin Pie and Lemon Cheesecake Filled
Pavlova! 12) Making the top 100 finalists in
the CE Design Contest II! 13) After waiting many years, finally getting to see one of my favourite bands play in
Cape Town - Switchfoot! 14) Going to the Hout Bay Market for the first time ever! 15) Being invited to submit an illustration for It’s A ShapeChristmas! 16) Getting an invite to dribbble and dribbbling! 17) Throughout the year, winning some amazing illustrated children’s books - the first book I won was Tad Carpenter’s I Say You Say Opposites Book all the way from Kansas City, Missouri, USA! 18) The second book I won was Genevieve Godbout's amazing illustrated children's book, Joseph Fipps that came all the way from London! 19) And then nabbed this awesome vintage children's book, entitled Het Bos, by Alain Grée, all the way from Belgium! 20) And just before 2012 wrapped up, I was very
excited to see that I had received a mail from NOTCOT informing me that I’d won
a Holiday Android vinyl toy (Frankie Frost Android designed by Scott Tolleson). I'm
waiting with much excitement to see the collection slip in the mail! And my top 5 viewed posts of 2012: #1Illustration Friday - Toy #2 The Tube Reinterpreted & Celebrated #3 CE Design Contest II #4 Bologna Children's Book Fair Submission #5 London: Land of Pints, Pubs & Pounds So very excited to see what 2013 has in store!!
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.
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.
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.
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.
