Meet the Designer of our Limited Edition Paddle Board

Meet the Designer of our Limited-Edition Paddle Board

Cast your mind back to summer last year and you might recall a slightly unusual competition we ran that was searching for a creative soul to design a new look for our most popular paddle board the Ride 10’6”. This all-rounder board has won many awards and as the go-to board for many first-time paddlers with a distinguished look that has remained pretty steadfast over the years, our team were just a little cautious as to how this campaign would come to life. Yet, in the name of a good cause and to help raise awareness and funds for our charity partner Love the Oceans, we were excited to see how our global SUP community would interpret the brief and re-imagine the look of our much-loved board.

Fast forward 18 months and here we are finally able to unveil the look of our very first limited-edition Red Paddle Co SUP. But before we get carried away with how good it looks, we wanted to find out a little more about the winning designer, Circe Oropeza, and how her beautiful and timeless design ‘All is Water, Water is All’ came to be.

Hi Circe, congratulations on winning our very first limited-edition board competition. Could you tell us a little bit about yourself…

Hello team Red! My name is Circe Oropeza, and I am a stay-at-home mom by day and a freelance illustrator and surface pattern designer by night. I live in beautiful Hidalgo, Mexico with my partner, the sweetest 2-year-old girl and two fluffy cats. I love drawing and reading with my daughter, spending time outdoors, trying new muffins recipes, taking care of my indoor garden and all things cat 

Have you always been an illustrator? How did you get into art & design and what other artists are you inspired by? 

Even though I had always been drawn to creative careers, after high school I went for a degree in Chemical Engineering in fear of struggling to pay the bills as an artist or designer. I quickly realised this was the wrong choice, I got neither money nor happiness, so I went back to school to study Graphic Design related.

After 6 years of working as a visual designer for several companies, I quit my job to become a freelancer. During this time, I took a lot of illustration courses online and one day, a surface pattern design class crossed my path, I completely fell in love with this form of creative design and couldn't stop. More recently I’ve started working with an art agent and I couldn’t be happier. My everyday job is to make art for a wide variety of products and brands such as fabric, greeting cards and home decor. 

I admire a lot of artists but when it comes to illustrating nature, I'm always inspired by the work of @scaterbee, @rohandahotre, @helenemk_illustration and @kauri_paperstudio. Give them a follow for some imaginative and diverse illustrations, all that embrace the beauty of our natural world.