New Boys Pyjamas in store at Tesco

I primarily design kids nightwear for F&F Central Europe, but we're increasingly starting to design in common with the UK. This is one of my first joint-bought designs that is available in the UK, here

The Only Way Is Essex cant get enough of our Delicious Couture

Maria Fowler Rocking my Til Death Us Do Part design. Surreal.

New Designs at Delicious Couture

I was asked by the lovely Nicola T of Wags Boutique and Celebrity Big Brother to collaborate on a new range for her fab label Delicious Couture. Not only is Nicola a pleasure to work with, it was really refreshing to work on a fashion-forward edgy product. I can't wait to see how it is widely receieved.

New pyjama designs in store

High Summer Ts in store at Tu Clothing, Sainsbury's

One of my designs used in marketing material, above...

Branding badges and repeat prints feature on Next Girlswear garment

This girlswear garment currently available at Next features graphics and repeat prints I created. heres the original artwork below:

Next Boys Embroidered Triceratops T-shirt now in store

Above, the original design created in Photoshop

I'm happy with the way this one has turned out almost exactly how I designed it. Available at Next

Revamping My Kitchen

We've been planning and saving to fit a new kitchen for almost a year and when the time came, we had a massive rethink and decided to have a revamp on the cheap instead. Integral to the plan was ripping down an unsightly, cramped wall unit and putting these Ikea shelves up instead. I already had most of the storage items now on display, bit I treated myself to the cornish stripe pasta jar and the red lantern.

With the other simple changes we've made it feels like a new kitchen, and the best bit is the money is stil in the bank :) more pics on flickr

New Designs in Adams

A couple of my designs now available at Adams kidswear...

Character Pyjamas at Dunnes

These are the first intake of a range of character nightwear for new client, Dunnes. I design these via an intermediate supplier. Being a new account of theirs, this was tricky as the buyer was cautious about working with a new supplier, but is apparently they're very pleased with the results and will be looking to book again. I like working on these value ranges as there are no pretensions, there's no question the product is anything other than a fun, well priced item.

New Graphic T in store at New Look

Here's one of my designs currently on sale at New Look. I'm really pleased with how its turned out as it has managed to stay true to the original design throughout the production process in spite of the delicate nature of the design.

Sex and the City Merchandise on sale

Its interesting to see my designs applied to a product other than clothing. This Sex and the City giftware range features graphics I designed earlier this year

I've seen the Pink Light

I was lucky enough to have been recently selected to be represented in the US by design studio, Pink Light. Mary Beth, Pink Light's founder and creative driving force is developing her company's remit by bringing together artists from all around the world to take the US surface pattern market by storm and it's very exciting to be a part of that.

Today is particularly thrilling as not only has my bio gone live on the Pink Light site, I've also had my work featured for the first time on design blog-stroke-bible Print and Pattern, what an unexpected honour!

I've been trying to undertake a more self-directed route this year which has been quite a struggle when I've been really busy with my existing clients. Now it feels like I'm finally managing to find a balance between the heavily brief-led commercial fashion work which I love and the freedom of more personal, unrestricted surface pattern design. Below is a 'holiday' theme design from one of my first Pink Light collections.

Directional ladies fashion prints

I'm working on ladies fashion today which makes a nice change from kids and nightwear. The brief (and I use that term loosely - when I do ladieswear, I rarely get a nice clear, specific brief) calls for etherial, ambiguous imagery with hand sketch and paint techniques. I always struggle when I'm faced with this kind of project as in essence its got to look like nothing, but its still got to be something and that's a real challenge.

I'm enjoying splashing the paints around and doing some hand rendering though, and the eagle design above it the fruits of this mornings labours. I've got to produce at least another 3 in that vein though so I'd better get on...

Paisley Park

A paisley design for the tribal brief...

Make us a brew

While enjoying catching up with some old friends and revisiting familiar haunts in Manchester, I've stumbled across what could be a fun little project. Over a slice of cake and a cup of Mr. Scruff's finest assam in... erm... Cup... I got chatting to a chap working there about the brew. I told him about my late granddad who was head Tea Taster at the Co-Op tea factory in Cheshire and how I still had his silver tea-tasting spoon and that he'd featured in a promotional video about the factory.

It turns out the Co-Op are involved in the Manchester Food & Drink Festival as are Cup, and they would be very interested to see the video and hear more about my Granddad and his work. And would I like to be involved in the festival myself and perhaps present the video? Is the bear Catholic?! What a wheeze.

And what a great inspiration for a little range of tea-inspired illustrations, just the focus I need to get my self-directed work off the ground.

Tribal girlswear butterfly print

I've been continuing with the tribal brief, completing the artwork above which will be a oversize front placement. I've been developing ways to create etherial painterly and photographic effects which are still solid colour and therefore viable for standard screen output and this butterfly is an example of this technique.

I'm off to Manchester now to visit some old friends and soak up some big-city culture (and no doubt get my Urban Outfitters fix)

Have a good weekend!

Working from home on a sunny day - tribal girlswear brief

I've been working on a great brief today for older girlswear 2010, incorporating some lovely tribal elements. There's been lots of hand-rendering involved at this stage so I've been lucky enough to sit outside and work in the garden and enjoy the gorgeous weather we've had today. The jolly pair above who started life in the sunshine will hopefully end up on a girls tee on the high street.

This has been my studio for the day:


My colleague is a bit lazy...


But the locals are friendly.