Designs Galore

As Monique Day-Wilde and Angie Franke rightly point out, there is nothing worse than being confronted with a blank page. And it’s even worse when something creative is expected of you. Here is where Designs Galore comes in – there are over 400 designs just to get your creative juices flowing.

Monique and Angie have taken some of their most popular drawings from previous publications, along with new illustrations, and put them together in this handy book. Each page is dedicated to single or multiple images, providing you with helpful reference material or inspiration for your own craft projects.

It’s suggested that you use elements from their designs to create your own. Adapt, enlarge and mash-up; all these are great ways to use this book. Designs Galore is the perfect book for classroom or casual use.

There are nine sections to this book: Lines and Designs, Flowers and Foliage, Fruit and Vegetables, Creatures Great and Small, The Birds and the Bees, Forms and Figures, Scenes and Scapes, Classics and Culture, and Cute, Quaint and Quirky. This book will suit anyone with an artistic flair – with such a selection, there’s a design for any art or craft you can think of.

The best thing about Designs Galore is the great local content. It's a nice little surprise for the South African reader. Under the “Forms and Figures” chapter, there are line drawings of African men and women, and in “Scenes and Scapes” there are some wonderful renditions of familiar landscapes – Table Mountain, Cape Agulhas and Mouille Point, for example. In the “Classics and Culture” section, there are a few traditional African motifs as well.

What the book lacks in words is made up in inspiration. Designs Galore is about getting you motivated and getting you creating.

Reviewed by Tarryn Henrick

Published by Metz Press