Iranian illustrator among top ten artists of Ukrainian contest

TEHRAN,June 6(MNA) -- Iranian illustrator Morteza Zahedi is among the top ten artists in the illustration category at the COW International Design Festival in Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine. Zahedi was selected for the illustrations he made for children’s book “With the Sun in My Eyes” by Argentine writer Jorge Elias Lujan, as he told the Persian service of the Mehr News Agency on Tuesday. The English-Spanish edition of the book was published by the Groundwood Books in February 2012. In this book of short poems, a young boy and girl describe their world and their day-to-day experiences. Nine other top illustrators include Gabriella Barouch from Israel, Andrew Artyukhin from Russia, Anna Kasnyik from Hungary, Marco Tóxico from Bolivia, Omer Hoffmann from USA, Irina Egorova from Russia, Tomaso Marcolla from Italy, Wasted Rita from Portugal and Irina Pryadka from Ukraine. Michael Weinzettl from Germany, Charles Hively from USA, Alexander Kazarin from Russia, and Alexander Leenetsky from Russia were the members of the jury for the Illustration section. The illustration section’s exhibition was held from May 17 to 27. Why cow? The COW acronym represents the importance the organizers place on the design profession. “To us, it is the Center Of the World (COW),” they said on their website. In addition, they give other reasons for selecting the word for the event. “Cows have been an important contributor to humanity since the dawn of time, giving life and health to their owners and clients,” they said. “We can draw many parallels between cows and designers; here are just a few: Cows supply milk and meat — life-giving products. Designers give new life to clients’ products and services through their imaginations and creativity. Cows symbolize wealth. Designers can help you increase your wealth by meeting your bottom-line targets. Cows are very productive — so are good designers,” they stated.