Monthly Archives: July 2021

4 Stories about the things we love – Multimedia

This incredible project by St Petersburg based digital agency, Pixeljam, is a serious labour of love. It highlights four things that the agency loves about Russia – with incredible web design throughout.

We strongly suggest you visit the site, because it’s such a great example of using web design and multimedia as a storytelling tool. Top notch!

You can check it out here.

Mama Joyce Peppa Sauce – Website

What a fun website for Mama Joyce Peppa Sauce! The designers used some really smart scrolling effects along with strong typography and great copy to create a website for a hot sauce that you actually want to visit. We think that’s quite an achievement!

You can visit Mama Joyce Peppa Sauce’s website right here.

Stellenbosch Academy alumnus named a winner in the Picture This! illustration competition.

The three South African winners of the annual Picture This! illustration competition have just been announced, and we are proud to announce that Megan Vermaak (one of our alumni) has been named as one of them! 

Picture This! is organised in six countries, with Protea Book House overseeing the South African edition. The local winners, who may not have published an entire picture book with a trade publisher before, are Richard Murombedzi from the Eastern Cape, Elizabeth Sparg from KZN, and Megan Vermaak from the Western Cape. Danolene Johannessen, also of the Western Cape, received an honourable mention.

Each entrant had to submit a story accompanied by unpublished illustrations in a technique or medium of their choice. A professional jury then selected the three best entries in South Africa, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom. 

The works of the winning artists will form part of a travelling exhibition, which will be shown in the participating countries. The final selection will be published in an international catalogue and presented to several leading picture book publishing houses at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair 2021, thus giving the artists an excellent opportunity to find commissions.

Megan Vermaak,  Stellenbosch Academy Alumnus, who previously completed both her Undergraduate and Honours degrees with us in Applied Illustration Design, entered some of her illustrations from her book titled Panda Bear into the “Picture This” competition.

Here’s what the judges had to say about her work;

Megan started off working traditionally and did everything by hand. She used gouache paints, but instead of working with flat colour, she used water and let the paint run, giving it freedom to create its own marks. Once the paint had dried, she finished off each element by making use of black ink and a delicate line. 

She then scanned each element and started compiling the different spreads digitally, using Photoshop. This process gave her the flexibility to easily move things around until I had the right composition with the right balance.

Illustrator Piet Grobler, another one of the judges, says Megan’s characters are slightly idiosyncratic and unconventional – a characteristic that defines their charm. “By using animated movement and expression, she adds to the rhythm of the text and the playful nature of the story. This is furthermore confirmed by her well-composed pages and the effective placement of text within the free and spontaneous watercolour illustrations.”

To view the work you can check it all out here.

We are so proud of you Megan!

Crazy About Eggs – Multimedia

This website by Superhero Cheesecake, a Dutch digital agency, for Crazy about Eggs is just so much fun to use. It’s a new way to create a web presence for a product which is probably not the most exciting thing to most of us – free range eggs. We love the use of fun design, illustration and photography to create a really fresh way for a brand like this to represent itself online.

You can visit the site here.