The Royal Mint - We're only a few months into 2017 and already we've been spoiled by several exciting new coin releases, from the
new 2017 designs we will find in our everyday change, to the special commemorative issues that marked the
Sapphire Jubilee. One striking new series in particular, that is set to continue in 2017, has coin collectors very excited.
The
Queen's Beasts series of Proof coins, designed by Jody Clark, roared into life in December with the launch of the first coin in the series, the Lion of England. Having previously designed the 2014 Britannia - which can be seen on
this UK £50 coin - and most recently The Queen's fifth circulating coinage portrait, Jody's work is well known to coin collectors. And, if his Lion of England coin design is anything to go by, we're set to be spoiled with a series of 10 striking coin designs. We recently spoke to Jody to find out more about his
Lion of England design and
The Queen's Beasts series.
How did The Queen's Beasts series come about?The Queen's Beasts series came about as any coin design would, it started with an RMAC ( Royal Mint Advisory Committee) coin design competition. That was a while ago now. For the design competition, we had to design two beasts in the series at first - the griffin and the lion. My design was shortlisted along with a few other artists' work. Having been shortlisted, we had to model the designs ourselves and then, having reviewed that, they chose my designs as the winner.How did you begin to design The Queen's Beasts series?I always start by just hitting the internet and reading books. Taking a day for reading and gathering reference imagery and inspiration. Looking at what has been done before. Anything from just typing words linked to it into Google and seeing what comes up. Anything to get my mind going basically. I normally then get it all out and have a look through it and then just start sketching. I like to create a little template of about 12 mini coins and just fill them up with loads of ideas. I like to limit myself and then get sketching. I think you can spend all day doing research, it's never ending. Something will come out of those 12 ideas that makes you think that it might work well for your design. Read the Entire Article 
Posted 03/24/2017 10:54 am
