Basketball

Basketball: Sarah Payne

What got you interested in the competition?

I only heard about the competition through my nan, she saw it in the local paper, gave me a phone call and she knew I enjoyed design so I gave it a go. I actually found out I was shortlisted after she passed away so in between I was able to show her my design and of course when we were shortlisted we had to sign confidentiality not to show anyone the design so I was quite pleased that actually I had got to show the one person who had got me to enter the competition.

What was the inspiration behind your idea?

When I first went into designing a coin there was a big list on the Royal Mint website and it gave links to examples if you weren’t sure what the sport involved so I went through a lot of the sports and when I got to basketball I could capture the movement. It was basically looking and researching, I used the basketball itself as a texture for the background, showing the basketball without having to use the word basketball.

How does it feel to know your coin is going to be in the pockets of millions of people for years to come?

To have my coin in general circulation feels really good, money is a subject you don’t have to be an adult to know about, it’s open to absolutely everyone where as other things I have designed have been specifically for kids or for certain categories so for this item to be open to the public is a privilege that everyone might be able to see my artwork.

How do you feel about being part of the London 2012 Olympic Games?

When you initially think about the Olympics you think about all the hard work involved in the actual sports and competing in the events, not necessarily the wider picture of how people can be involved on the outside and help to promote sport, this has shown that there are other ways of getting involved within the Olympics so it makes it exciting in that from a bystander I have helped to promote the event.