View from the Zoo

I put togther my birthday tea party invitation (it says «come and celebrate my
5(0) years with me») with animals that I had drawn recently. Except these guys thought they were posing for a five year old’s celebration - until my main monkey came in with the zeros that were missing. The design challenge : to find a look that was adult and masculine using funny animals. The party theme was inspired my my preschool mad hatter tea parties I had with my friends, complete with little dishes and tiny tea cups. However today, instead of water and crackers, there will be real cucumber sandwiches and homemade scones topped with whipped cream and jam. Yummy!

More great news! My designs are now available as greeting cards, business cards and stickers on moo.com, a dynamic young printing company based in London, England. You choose the designs you want, mine (preferably), someone else’s (I am in very good company) or even your own (your travel photos, for example), drop and crop them on the products you want and place your order.  I love the quality of their printing, their range of products and their choice of artists (besides me!). Even the packaging of the cards are neat.

And I am not talking about crawling ants or climbing cats! These animals actually help in the kitchen. Presenting Boston Warehouse’s Animalhouse collection of colorful and affordable kitchen tools, designed by Christopher Raia Studio near Boston. Available at Amazon, Target and, here at home, at Zone Maison (Quebec).

Following are a couple of questions answered by Chris Raia.

Q : How did the idea come about? 
A : We developed the Animalhouse range because we saw an opportunity to create well-designed, ergonomically advanced cooking tools that also made people laugh. Today, people cook to entertain, and invariably guests gravitate to the kitchen at dinner parties. Why not have fun with the gadgets they’re using?

Q : Can you give us an idea of the design process?
A : The Animalhouse design process was very complicated because we were essentially serving two masters. On the one hand, we intended from the start that these tools be ergonomically excellent; on the other, we knew that each item had to capture the spirit of the animal being portrayed. Often, these two goals would conflict so that we had to sometimes make hard choices about which to favor.

The Toucan Can Opener reflects the best of both worlds. While it is a cool looking Toucan head, it also has several ergonomic advantages for the user. In addition to precisely dimensioned grip sizes, we included an S-shaped crank with softgrip areas which is much more comfortable to use than the typical can opener crank. It was the first can opener on the market whose crank had these features.

Design director/developer: Christopher Raia Studio
Manufacturer: Boston Warehouse
Initial seed inspiration: The Beren Group
Photo of toucan opener by Christopher Raia Studio.

This is part 2 of 3 of the interview with Rob. I really enjoy Rob’s imagery especially his personal work. Above we have selection of commercial and personal illustrations.  Check out his new portfolio of character design on his blog. 

Q: How and why did you start to draw animals?

A: I’ve been interested and sympathetic feeling toward all kinds of animals my entire life. We lived out in the country so there were plenty of opportunities to explore and discover things. My childhood dreams of wanting to be a zookeeper or veterinarian evolved into an environmental consciousness when I hit my teens. Art has been the other passion obviously. I was disappointed that my studies in Fine Art (BA painting, MFA sculpture) led me to conclude that “serious art” had no business depicting animals. You could talk about landscape but not the organisms that were part of its ecology. That has changed but I think in general, animals are often used in an ironic or symbolic way in order for the art to be about itself rather than the subject it appears to be about. Anyway, luckily, I discovered the work of Morris Graves and a few other artists that depicted various animals in a sympathetic light. In order to experience animals in art, I just had to expand my search criteria a little: children’s books and Disney films, comics, other design and illustration art.