Tell us about the early design brief
Students studying art and design at colleges and universities throughout Britain were invited to enter a competition with The Royal Mint to design two new coins to celebrate the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
What inspired your design concept?
Before I started to design the £5 coin, I thought about what the Paralympic Games actually meant to me. From initial pencil sketches and a mind-mapping exercise, I came up with three words: accuracy, manoeuvrability and speed, and this is what I wanted to visually communicate in my design. With the coin being circular, I played around with circles found in the Games and decided on a spoked wheel for manoeuvrability, a target for accuracy and a stopwatch for speed. I then split the design into these elements and added the partial clock face of Big Ben to represent London.
What challenges did you face along the way?
I thoroughly enjoyed the process and complexities of designing the coin. It certainly provided me with a real appreciation of the intricacies of designing for such a small medium.
How did it feel to be involved in such an important British project?
I feel honoured, proud and thrilled to have been involved in London 2012. A home Olympics and Paralympics come round once in a blue moon so it was particularly appealing to be a part of British history. Couple this with the fact that The Royal Mint doesn’t usually offer a member of the public the chance to design a coin, and this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity was just too good to miss!