Friday 30 November 2007

RUSSIAN DOLLS AND CHRISTMAS CARDS

I saw this lovely card in my friend's sketch book and found out it came from Oliver Bonas. I was working with some Russian doll designs a little while ago ( see early posts ) and recently print and pattern blog ran a feature on all the Russian dolls around at the moment. So here are some good ones she featured. ( even wall sticker Russian dollS - heaven !)
AURINKO SHOP

Nouvelles Images



some other christmas cards I like :-



Thursday 29 November 2007

PRINTING PRESSES AND WALLSTICKER DESIGNS

A recent wall sticker design I did for a competition. Expect to see more of my own work coming soon as I have been preparing for printing so now I'm ready to get going.







I am thinking about my Identity/logo as I have to put it on my Christmas cards before I send them out. Luckily I have a few contacts in logo and identity design to offer advice but it is a different experience being the client. Whilst researching I came across the company Sea Design that did one of my favourite designer's identity Jocelyn Warner. I have known of Sea Design and loved their work, for awhile but didn't realise they had worked on Jocelyn's identity. Also this is one of the another nice one by Jill Green currently exhibiting at LPS (see below)




the current exhibition at LPS is "Present(ing)" showing the work of john Dilnot Jill Green and Anthony Burrill





I haven't written for a little while because I have been very busy in this place - London Print Studio. I thought I would show the environment I'm spending a lot of time in a the moment and these beautiful machines. For some reason I really like the look of the printing press ?

Tuesday 20 November 2007

EXHIBITION

Yesterday I went to brighton to see an amazing exhition by William Kentridge we also visited The Regency Town House where by chance we had an extremely interesting talk about restoration and discussed a lot about the wallpapers of the time. Apparently the house in Victorian times had gilt gold wallpaper - some serious bling !


Monday 12 November 2007

ETCHING - BEES AND FLEAS

This is a trial plate for a technique called aquatint - it's mainly used to put tone into prints. It's bad photo but it is a very grainy result, I do like how it creates a dreamy image. I would really like to work into this some more even though it's a trail piece.

Saturday 10 November 2007

Donkey cards are printed

I made the observation earlier that 'it's all about styling' so I tried to photograph my newly printed Christmas cards with beautiful Living etc. type props, provided by my very stylish flatmate. Umm... think i need to work on the arrangements!


This is one of my prints from my degree course in the background.
Today whilst I was printing I meet a talented graphic designer Random Boy
Here's some of his illustrations :-

DEBORAH BOWNESS

I was very excited to see that one of my favourite wallpaper designer/printers has done a Christmas linen designs for Habitat - FEAST such a distinctive style that can work across many different subject matters - very clever lady!




Just wanted to say thanks to Keith from minimoderns for letting me know they've updated their site, now it's so easy to get great, beautiful wallpaper that kids go nuts for - gotta love the Muji wooden block skylines in the picture, it's all about styling !



I have the New York version of the "This is London" book which I pour over regularly to bring back happy memories of NYC. It must have been a big influence to Lizzie Allen a recent finalist at 100% design trade show. (image below)
LIZZIE ALLEN really should have her own posting but umbrellas wallpaper is so right for a rainy day like today! Now with all this inspiration, I'm off to do some printing.

Friday 9 November 2007

Maria Kirk Mikkelsen

These are some beautiful designs by Make up the Wall only appears to be sold in Scandinavian countries.






This is a clever idea and a good twist on tradtional wallpaper. There are a lot vinyl wall coverings such as DOMESTIC but here's something more organic about drawing on your own walls. I actually think it could be a great way to design to get scale right, I wonder if my flatmates would notice ?

Wednesday 7 November 2007

MINIMODERNS

New Wallpaper range from minimoderns : -



It's a great idea to use blueprints as wallpapers, I love the aesthetic of technical drawings. As I work in a packaging design studio seeing all the technical drawings of packs laid out flat has always intrigued me. I'm looking at Pie boxes on a colleague's screen right now, would that make good wallpaper ? or just make you hungry ? maybe it would be good for a cafe / restaurant. It could be a funny take on some of the packaging using wallpaper at the moment. So many ideas so little time !