View from the Zoo

That’s right! Now you can buy over 80 products with my animal characters on the Ginza, Tokyo’s fashionable shopping district. Since last September I have been very busy working with MacStyle on a large collection of small items, ranging from chocolates to keychains, from cards to charms, from pens to pencil cases and much more. Some of the more unusual items are golf markers inlaid with Swarovski crystals (top) and cute boxes of amino acid powder (a hangover remedy) by Ajinomoto (below). Personally, I’ll take the chocolates (above). All these items are available at the YrStyle Ginza shop,  4-4-13 Ginza Chuo-ku Tokyo.

You Power in Japan has just launched their Fall catalogue this week. They have selected images from the Animal Kings, Kid Zoo and Modern Ark collections to create photo frames, photo albums, blackboards, wall art and cute little glass plates.  Thanks to my agent, SCT, for being the matchmaker!

3×3 has just announced their winners for this year’s edition of the Children’s Show, a juried collection of illustrations and books for children. Just to get in, the majority of the eight judges have to vote for the piece. I’m very happy to announce that three of my entries were selected – one for a newspaper illustration about relaxing activities for kids during Spring Break, a second for a poster showing the handmade Bambino sled and, the third, for the ADzif line of blackboard wall decals «Memo». Congratulations to La Presse, goslide.ca and ADzif! 

All the winners will be published in the upcoming annual No.7. 3×3 is a magazine of international contemporary illustration, published in New York. In addition to the magazine, 3×3 organizes three juried shows each year and publishes an invitation-only directory.

My first illustration in Japan has just been published – the cover of the annual Auto Camp Guide of Japan. It was a great opportunity for me to work on a new pattern of tents and trees that can be seen in the background. I quite enjoy the commercial quality of the Japanese characters on the cover. Below is one of the crazier sketches that I proposed.