Me and zebras

My first significant commission was designing Queue for the Zoo for Liberty. Out of those animal illustrations my favourite has always been this one. I think it’s because it looks friendly and has a sense of humour.

I was told the zebra was left out of Queue because its stripes were too distracting and overwhelmed the pattern.

This was good for me because I was able to use it for one of my own designs, called Zebedee (half after my Grandma’s Yorkshire terrier).

I didn’t want to make a pattern made of lots of identical repeating zebras. Each of them needed to be a little different.

I like patterns where things are happening and you can find interesting details you can use to make up stories.

The obvious thing to do was to give them different specs.

That’s something I enjoy about drawing. When you’re drawing treehouses, you’re an architect. When you’re drawing glasses you get to a glasses designer.

Zebra glasses - glasses for zebras.

I don’t have a favourite animal and I’m not in love with zebras, but as my life as a designer started with me drawing a zebra with glasses, it made sense to make my logo one too.