Grandma's 80th

The card I made for my grandma’s 80th Birthday.

I love imagery that have any authentic inspired representation, & the water lily is often portrayed in a lot of Chinese & Japanese art & also in woodblock prints which I also am a big fan of. I thought not only for its pretty visual property that the water lily would make an ideal focal subject of the cards design, but also because of it’s meaning in other cultures. It represents life in general, as the flower grows up from the mud into an object of great beauty. People also grow & change into something more beautiful. So the symbol represents the struggle of life at its most basic form. Like the water lily my grandma has matured into something great of her own kind.

The writing is hand drawn in black ink. I wanted it to look feminine, elegant & playful at the same time. The letters are light in form & quite linear, they hold rather curvy & wave like structures to them, which are quite irregular when you compare the individual letters to one another. This makes them have a wild look about them. The floral & leafy serifs also give subtle likenesses to vines glowing into different forms & shapes that are therefore creating letters. I think this type is sweet, pretty & feminine & suits my grandma nicely.