View from the Zoo

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 «Lovebutton» cards and stickers that I ordered from moo.com are here and ready for distribution. The minicards are very versatile – I use them as business cards, as gift tags, as bookmarks or simply as portfolio samples. The jellybeans were delicious too. White ones were coconut  flavored, the red ones, sour apples and the pink ones tasted, well, pink (bubblegum or rootbeer or…).

And here you can see how the stickers turned out.

My new collection of Valentine designs is now available on moo.com.  These 14 cute designs are inspired by contemporary handmade plush toys.  I would recommend the stickerbooks as gifts, the mincards (which are really tiny) as love notes that you can strew about the house and the notecards (that have a sturdy folding flap) to display on your shelf. I’ll show them to you as soon as I receive my order!

Francois Chetcuti waited over ten years to see his paper toy project published. His first publisher in Germany went bankrupt in 1999 just before it was scheduled for production and the project was shelved until this year when H.F. Ullmann picked it up. Comprised of 8 superb toys to build yourself, the sturdy cardboard cards come packaged with a detailed instruction book in a beautiful tin box . The toys actually have moving parts and require a bit of patience to build. The difficulty levels and the estimated time required to complete each toy is indicated.

Francois is inspired by illustrators Tibor Gergely and Richard Scarry and the Little Golden Books series from the 1950s. He has been collecting vintage toys and children’s books for over 20 years. Francois Chetcuti lives in Lille, France. He has a website-game that shows his work as an illustrator and sculptor.