This is Merry Christmas to Daniel, my friend who has just moved to a new posting in South Africa. An avid photographer, Daniel has already been to a number of game parks but hasn’t yet seen this elephant.
Also I wish all my readers a wonderful holiday, I thank all those who have participated in «View from the Zoo» and, finally, I’ll be back in January 2009!
Ritzenhoff did a great job with my coffee cup design for their My Darling 2008 collection. This sunny lion is king of the Java Jungle in the morning with his brew. Notice how the cup and the packaging are related to form a complete character that looks really good in the store display. The challenge is not only to make the cup interesting on all sides but also to create a character that a coffee lover can relate to.
A bit of background
The design started out as a business card for a very small corner café (now closed unfortunately). The owner, Remo, is a Leo. I developed a number of lions in different café settings and this one was Remo’s favorite. It also became the poster for my first exhibition of animal art at the café called «Les rois animaux» (The Animal Kings). Later on I submitted a revised and adapted version to Ritzenhoff but I didn’t hear from them for quite awhile, and then, surprise, one morning they announced their intention to produce the cup for this season.
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!
I do relate to this bear who seems ready to hibernate. With shorter days everyone could use a bit of light therapy and a caffeine boost. The illustration was published this morning in La Presse (Montreal) on the cover of the health section accompanying a couple of articles on the effects of the time/season change and how to deal with the four o’clock energy slump that many of us suffer from. I rather enjoyed doing the tribute to fifties’ designer George Nelson’s sunny Ball clock and figuring out how to draw the cabin-chic wood panelling in the background.