Research Phase

My name, Dylan, was given to me by my parents because of a Bob Dylan album called "Desire." I also knew my mom enjoyed some of Dylan Thomas' poetry...but the extent of my knowledge ended there. Here's what I learned about my name during the research phase:

• Dylan is a Welsh name, 'dy' meaning 'great', and 'llanw' meaning 'tide' or 'flow'
• other translations are "Son of the Wave", "Born Near the Sea"
• In Welsh mythology, Dylan was a god/hero associated with the sea (and was accidentally slain by his uncle..not cool)
• I also made some notes for Bob Dylan and Dylan Thomas, but didn't end up using them in my final composition

I had a great little visual from all the sea references, so I started sketching for fun based around some of the ideas that came up when I was writing my word web. I liked the idea of a whale as a play on words for "Wales", and I knew I wanted to show the hero/god since that's the main imagery associated with the name meaning. Welsh royalty is associated with a three-feather crown, so I used that too. Since 'Dylan' is rarer as a girl's name, I wanted to depict the hero/god as a female as a way to personalize it a bit. I also did some caricatures of Bob Dylan and Dylan Thomas.

My first full rendering looked like this:

But then i wanted a more simplified version, and landed on this: