Christchurch graphic designer and illustrator Llewellyn Parry’s art graces the bottle of Juno Gin’s Spring 2021 Seasonal Gin, one of four stunning collectible bottles released seasonally. He sketches out the details with Cityscape.

Can you describe yourself in one sentence? Caffeine and ADHD, I’m pretty out there.

Your design on the Juno Gin Spring 2021 edition bottle is stunning. Can you tell us about how you came up with it? It was quite an intuitive process, the illustration took around five hours to create. I had a spare evening to myself, and the brief for spring caught my eye. Keeping that in mind, I had an idea of the season of spring coming out of a glass of gin, the florals and the fantasy elements of the characters and birds, the smell of spring taking you back to being young. I wanted to capture the essence of coming out of winter and the magic you get from spring, it feels fresh and new.

What inspired you to submit a design for Juno Gin’s Artist Series? A friend put me onto it and I had a spare evening to myself so I went for it.

Have you tasted the gin yet? How is it? Yes. It was really nice, I had it with some tonic and a little ice and lemon slice, it went down a treat.

Do you prefer a G&T, gin cocktail, or on ice? I’m no bartender, so when I’m out and about I definitely check out the gin cocktails, but at home it’s the G&T for sure.

What sorts of things do you typically design in your line of work? I do a lot of brand work and illustrations. I’m an art director for Canva which is a Sydney-based design platform. The majority of my day is spent creating illustrations or working with my team, critiquing designs to use on the Canva platform.

If you could create an illustration to display anywhere in the world, where would you put it and what would it be? The illustrations I like the most are purely for art or for expression. I’m very connected with Christchurch, and having grown up in Christchurch it would be nice to do something here. We’ve been through the ringer and the city has a lot of resilience – would be great to do something that paid respect or homage to that.

What’s the best piece of advice you ever got? Life isn’t easy.

What’s your best advice for other people? Always try to be nice to people, you don’t know what they’re going through.

What can’t you leave the house without? I always try to have a water bottle on me, it’s good to stay hydrated.

How long have you lived in Christchurch? I moved back from Nelson and have been here since lockdown last year. I’m originally from Christchurch.

What’s the best thing about Christchurch in spring? It comes alive, and you realise just how beautiful it is. One thing that I’ve noticed is how many trees there are, especially as I’m driving up Cashmere Hills or Sumner. Then you get the summer sun coming through and it brings it all to life.

What are you working on next? I’ve put a lot of freelance and contract work on hold with work being pretty busy and taking up a lot of my focus at present.

junogin.com