Smiles and Tiles

Kenneth Townsend (1931-99) was a British artist and freelance designer 

based in Hastings. His humorous pictures were utilized by various companies

 to decorate pottery, textiles, children's games, and glass trays.

He also illustrated six books, one of which,the 1968 children's book 

Felix the bald-headed lion, was written by him.

The animals on the tiles of the "Menagerie" series are among Townsend's 

most famous designs. There are around 25 different tile designs,

including the ones shown in this gallery.

The games designed by Townsend look delightful, too...

Marble Fun, a scoring game by Merit

Tiles from Remember, Remember, a memory game by Galt Toys.

As you can see, some of them are very similar to the ceramic tile designs.

Townsend's work is still popular and loved by many, especially in Britain. 

Thanks to Hazel Terry for the discovery, and to the members of the flickr group 

"Lovers of Kenneth Townsend's work" for uploading a majority of the images in this post.

Creative Collage Creatures

Among the talented artists I've had the pleasure to discover in recent months,

Andrea d'Aquino is one of my favorites. I really love the textures and organic feel

of her collage-illustrations, and her refined use of color, humor and whimsicality. 

D'Aquino is a new Yorker of Italian American descent who has been working 

for many years as a top level art director and more recently as an illustrator.

To learn more about her life, vision, work process and sources of inspiration 

I encourage you to read her interview on Pikaland, I found it very inspiring! 

A recent cover for Uppercase magazine 

Andrea's entry for the The New Yorker's Eustace Tilley contest was inspired

by d'Aquino's own pet schnauzer and the "off-leash hours” at Central Park.

 A very proud and noble dog indeed!

Seahorse Safari

 Andrea Marescalchi

Exquisitely delicate and otherwordly 

I love the mystery of seahorse

Rachel Wilson

 DKNG studios

Sarah Young

 Poster by Fulda, 1950s

  4everDesign, Meeting

 Eric Carle

  Cliff Roberts, from Ford Treasury of the Outdoors, thanks to Today's Inspiration

  Cvijeta Job, illustration for Mira Boglic's Suma Od Koralja, 1962,

thanks to A Journey Round My Skull

 Tetsuo Ikeda

Eleanor Grosch

  Takahashi Haruka, 1928, thanks to bi-s-co

 Diana Fayt, "Love involves...

The Animal Rainbow

Some of you might remember that last March Sebastiano and I 

brought a few projects to the Bologna Book Fair in hopes to find publishers 

who would help us translate them into printed works.

I am delighted to say that one of these dreams has become reality: 

L'Arc-en-ciel des Animaux has just been published in France by Milan Jeunesse.

Although our previous series Rencontre les Animaux was already introduced to France 

by Odile Jacob, this was the first time that we worked directly for a French publisher,

and the experience has been a very positive one, which we hope to repeat. 

For this book my role was that of the organizer: I proposed the rainbow idea,

did some research to find suitable creatures, and used my french to communicate 

with the publisher. But all the beauty and creativity comes from Sebastiano. 

After working with bold, bright, saturated palettes of pop primary colors 

in Impara con gli Animali, he is continuing to experiment with a more naturalistic, 

but still very graphic style of illustration. 

And for the first time he made a book full of white backgrounds! 

The 39 animals (three for each color) are showcased on 64 pages in a large, 22 x 30 cm.

 hardcover volume. Our editor, the very charming and efficient Héléne Perignon 

was very happy with the results, and so are we. 

And till Sunday, you have a chance to win one of Sebastiano's brand new 2011

limited edition cat calendars on Moderncat... 

Aren't the endpapers great?