Harry Cunningham

BEHANCE | @harrycunningham INSTAGRAM | @harry.digital WEBSITE | www.harrycunningham.com

TOOLS | Adobe Illustrator

DESCRIPTION // I’ve really been into creating icons lately. I’m not quite sure what it is, but it may be the simplicity of the shapes, glossy hues or the design process of simplifying something into a few colours and shapes. For my submission, I created little Australian Christmas vector characters. The idea behind it was to make something that could be printed on cards, wrapping paper or tea towels.

A few of the vector designs were inspired by things I had seen before, like the “surfing Santa”. The koala’s hat was my Christmas twist on the Australian cork hat, which was said to have been invented by jackaroos of the outback. Due to of the lack of snow in Australia, sandmen are more common, so I created one which is meant to be at the beach. I knew I wanted one Australian animal dressed as a reindeer which turned out to be a crocodile. I was originally going to have a white kangaroo (because of the Australian Christmas song “Six White Boomers”) but I ended up making a mother kangaroo with her joey coming out of a Christmas stocking. The last vector art character is an emu coming out of a gift box. It’s meant to represent how they hatch from eggs (or at least how I imagine they would hatch)

DESIGN PROCESS // Whenever I begin a project, I always start with writing notes or sketching for a few minutes to flesh it out. I then use Pinterest, Instagram or Dribbble to find inspirations. I usually search for designs that I know I will learn from and push my creative skills.

Q: How would you describe your style?

A: I’m still trying to find my style, and I think it is expressed in different ways depending on the project. I love to travel so more often than not my work is centred around that. Whether it’s to do with culture, different countries, animals or food, my style is definitely better when I’m inspired by my work.

Q: If you saw Santa coming down your chimney, what do you hope he brought you?

A: A Mac cooling pad. My MacBook has been overheating lately lol!

Two favourite things about Christmas // Travel // Family (and food!)