Coin Designs for the Royal Canadian Mint
Starting in 2016, I had the privilege to be invited several times by the Royal Canadian Mint to design coins for their collector’s editions. The projects I worked on all focused on an aspect of Canada's landscape, culture or heritage, with themes as diverse as nature and wildlife, space exploration and even Viking mythology. Working from a design brief, I proposed my own interpretations of the design, then subsequently modified and improved it by incorporating input from the project manager and academic experts in the coin's subject matter. Upon final approval, the design was then passed on to the engravers to produce the collector coins presented here.
This coin was released on Earth Dat 2018 and was a tribute to the diversity of Canada's nature and wildlife. The main innovation was a 3-dimension drop of water containing the image of the Earth in the center of the coin, and the design had to be created around it. I choose to depict in one image flora and fauna species distributed all throughout Canada from East to West, under an overarching dogwood tree, whose sub-species are found across most of the country.
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This coin won the 2018 "Most Inspirational Coin" category of the 2018 Krause Publications Coin of the Year awards, presented to the Mint in Berlin, at the 2018 World Money Fair, which is the world’s leading convention of the global minting industry.
The third coin in the "water drop" series celebrates the partnership between bees and flowers. For this coin, I illustrated a scene from the alpine prairies in Western Canada, with drop of morning dew reflecting the image of a blanket flower and background alpine ecosystem.
This was the second coin in the "water drop" series, this time focusing on Canadian underwater worlds and endangered species. For this design, I illustrated marine species that live off Canada's east, west and Arctic coasts.
Having a background in space sciences, this coin was very special to me as it was meant to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the historic first space mission of Dr. Roberta Bondar, Canada's first woman astronaut and the world's first neurologist in space. This curved, glow-in-the dark, coin was also the world's first of its kind. It was unveiled in a ceremony on November 01, 2016 by Dr Roberta Bondar herself.
This coin was released in celebration of the 150th Anniversary of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada. What made it exceptionally unique was the inclusion of a real meteorite fragment. It was featured in the medias and was extremely popular. The 5,500 minted copies sold out within 48 hours.
The 3-coin Norse God series honored Canada’s Viking Age (c. 1000) and the influence of Norse mythology and traditions on Western and Canadian culture. The scene depicts Thor's fight to the death with Jörmungandr, the World Serpent, during Ragnarök. An expert in ancient Norse history advised on all 3 Norse God designs to ensure historical accuracy of the outfits and weapons.
The second coin in the Norse God series depicts Odin riding his 8-legged horse, Sleipnir, and accompanied by his animal companions: his 2 wolves, Geri and Freki, and his 2 ravens, Huginn ("thought" in old Norse and Muninn ("memory" or "mind" in old Norse).
The final coin in the Norse God series, represents Frigg, he Queen of Asgard and the highest of the goddesses. I choose to depict her here in one of her many roles: the goddess of the sky. She wears falcon feathers that allow her to shapeshift into that bird, and she is holding the spindle she uses to weave clouds and control the weather. The full moon and falcon in the background are two additional symbols associated with the sky and attributed to Frigg.
