First Photo In Print

My Photo in Julys' Cooler magazine...

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.

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

New Designs in Adams

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

Exciting project for Portmeirion

While I've been recovering form my operation, I've been spending time researching inspiration for surface pattern design for gift and homeware. I'm particularly interested in traditional Welsh craft and design after falling in love with the folk style of design on recent holidays in Wales. During the course of my research I've been interested in Portmeirion's 50th Anniversary collections which are celebrating traditional designs from their archive. My particular favourite archive collection is Susan Williams-Ellis' Totem. I love how it represents the Scandinavian quality of Welsh design simplicity.

Image courtesy of Flickr member The_Moog

By Pure coincidence, I was thrilled this week to be asked to work on a range of surface pattern designs using botanical prints from Portmeirion's archive. These are to be considered for a range of soft homewares for the brand. Its a real challenge trying to apply such classic designs in a contemporary way, but I can't think of a more enjoyable project to kick start me back into work after my convalesecence!

Below is one of the original designs I have been asked to work from.

Look After Your Insides

I'm having a laparoscopic cholecystectomy today. Or in laymens terms, gallbladder surgery. I'm less concerned about the operation itself, rather the recovery and how long I'm going to be missing work. I'm hoping somone will buy me this Howies tee to help me feel better...

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.

Dinosaur Print Tee at Next

Drawing dinosaurs from scratch is never a walk in the (Jurassic) park, particularly when the client is Next, who are scrupilous about copyright law and insist that all images generated are completely original and bear no discernable resemblance to any source material.

I was pleased how this one turned out though considering dinosaur drawing is not exactly comfort zone work and I managed to acheive the painterly effect that the brief required. And, unusually for Next, my first draft, completely un-amended design went straight to production. Although that was probably more of a timescale thing than a design-perfection thing!

See it online here.

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.

New placement graphic T at Warehouse

Its a while since I designed this gothic graphic for Warehouse while I was still working in-house for a clothing manufacturer, but its now available to buy. It appears that since I last saw it the buyers have had their usual input and had some wings added and amended the central crest but theres no mistaking the print. It was always tricky to design for this client as the imagery they were prepared to use in the graphics was extremely limited, they wanted to acheive a gothic, etherial, All-Saints style without using skulls, crucifixes or other similar emotive imagery. I think this design strikes the balance though.

Some more pyjamas in production

I'm particularly pleased with the way the check turned out on this set as the idea was to emulate a cosy, aerie/Jack Wills style plaid and I think we've acheived this. It makes a nice change to incorporate some sketchy florals into nightwear

Two new lines I designed for Camille. Commercial, but still quite fun and very strictly to brief.

Nuts

I have been working on lots of lovely hand-rendered girlswear designs for Adams recently. Its nice to have an opportunity to incorporate some original illustrations. This is one of my sketches I have been working with:

Photography Class

I've enrolled in a photography class at my local AE College. I'm not sure if its for me, as I primarily wanted to learn step-by-step how to use my digital SLR, and this course has more of a creative, compositional leaning to the teaching. I'm trying to extract from it what I think will be useful though, and its good in that it gives me the discipline to take the camera off of its automatic setting and try and take better photos every week.

This is one of my favourite images I've made on manual settings on the course so far...

Animal Print Pyjamas at Peacocks

One of most challenging things I get asked to design is original animal all-over repeat prints. Its extremely difficult to come up with something fresh and unique, which is why I'm really pleased with the way this nightwear mix and match set has turned out. I think the print looks really contemporary and on-trend while still commerical.

New Strictly Come Dancing Girls' Clothing Range At Mothercae

I do all my licensed placement graphics via a third party, so I'm never sure where they could end up as the style guides containing my designs may be sold to anyone. Designs from the Strictly Come Dancing range I worked on last year have found their way to Mothercare which is a great retail platform for the collection.

New designs at next.co.uk

I've not blogged for a while as I've been completely swamped with work, and much of it consists of things that can't be released in the public domain yet, so I've not had much to share.

The new season collection is now online at next.co.uk, and here are some of my graphics that feature:

Seaside Photo Fest

I'm back from my holidays and full of inspiration. Last night I enrolled on a photography course at college and I got chatting to the tutor about what it is that I like to photograph. Generally I like to take photos which document my life, and the people and places in it. More specifically though, I love taking photos at the seaside. Probably because I just love the seaside full stop.

On my course, I will be doing a photography project every week so I decided to get organised on Flickr so I would have a place to keep all my projects. I thought I'd start by going through all my old photos and collecting together the seaside shots. It was only then that I realised just how many seaside photos I've taken over the years!

Dancing all day

Tomorrow I'm literally going to dance all day for charity. I'm doing dance classes back-to-back including ballet (eek) in aid of the Variety Club Children's Charity. I'm not particularly fit but I do love a good dance class so it'll be a fun challenge.

Tea time

I went to see my Grandma today to watch the video featuring my Granddad tea tasting. It's great! I found out a lot about his career with the Co-op and how he progressed from a mail-room boy aged 14 to head tea taster and being involved in the commercial development of the teabag.

I was also lucky enough to have been given the Wedgwood commemorative plate my grandparents were presented with to celebrate 100 years of Co-operative tea manufacture. They really were pioneers of Fair Trade.

The original Co-Operative head office in Leman St, LondonThe purpose built tea factory at CreweA tea clipperTea pickers