Behind the scenes - photo shooting wallpaper

We are about to launch our first ever wallpaper book. Getting together the in situ images was hard work, but also a lot of fun, some of which I'd like to share with you, for your entertainment and inspiration. As you may remember if you've subscribed to our newsletter, we said a while ago that we wanted to get into the habit of doing more interactive stuff on our facebook page. So I'd like to invite you to tell us which design from the ones featured in this post you like best and why, for a chance to win a 'Sevens' cushion in taupe or red, displayed at the bottom of this post. 

Please post your answers on facebook. We will announce the winner on Friday the 9th May!

So here's the first design: Sunlight through Leaves

photograph by Rita Platts

Doesn't this look innocently enough like a shelf mounted on a wallpapered wall?

... and this one: a proper hallway, decorated with Bikes of Hackney, wouldn't you think?

 photograph by Rita Platts.

Far from it: What you can't see is the hand holding the coat hanger in place, just out of frame to the right. (I was holding it so I don't have a picture to show you.) Special thanks to our local Hackney friends @ Hoxton Mini press and Ally Capellino for their bags on the coat hooks!

 

  photograph by Rita Platts

Paris Marble above, the newest design of my Concrete Inspirations collection. I love the colour accents the objects bring to this shot, styled by Louie Waller. The table is one of my limited edition tables, with a printed Formica top in the Opal design.

 

This design will launch this month, it's called Parquet Inspired by Andrew Stafford, so no link available just yet.

As the name suggests, there's a backstory to this design: 

Over the past few years my friend, furniture designer Andrew Stafford, has worked with me on designing my trade show stands. Prompted by his suggestion, I originally created the artwork for 'Parquet' for our stand at the Home Show 2013 (read the full story in an earlier blogpost here) 

To make up this design I took lots of images of the parquet floor in Andrew's kitchen, and then I have re-pieced each piece of wood  together from my photographs to form a chevron that repeats. It was a lot of work and I'm very happy with the outcome. To give the wood space to 'breathe' I have kept the repeat wider, so this design comes as a double-width 110cm wide, 5m long roll, which I think is very special.

However, if you have looked back on my previous post, you will notice how much bigger the scale was on the one-off artwork for the trade show stand. For my ready-to-buy wallpaper I have altered the scale to make it fit most residential or commercial uses, but as you can see, modern technology gives us a lot of flexibility for scales and sizes.

So if you are interested in having an unusual wall pasted with this design, do get in touch, we can produce it in many different ways to fit your desired specifications. 

 Above is a 'behind the scenes' image of Sevens Taupe wallpaper (no link available yet) that I posted on instagram. I always find it fun to imagine what happens off the frame of a cropped image.

It was harder than it looks, though, to keep the guitar in place and for Rita Platts to get this shot!

 

By the way, Sevens Taupe is new to launch in wallpaper. I have scaled the 45's so they are as close to a 7" record as I could get them for the repeat.

I really look forward to seeing how our customers pick up on this design and how they will use it in their homes ;-)

Below, Fretwork, imagined in a conservatory setting of flowers and vases. 

Lastly, I thought I would add this amusing video on how to put wallpaper/accent murals on your wall. It's by Surface View, whom I work with on many projects and showcases Geo.

Now don't forget to roll on over to our facebook page and tell us your favourite/s from the ones listed above. Here's a picture of the cushion you could win (either red or taupe).

Now don't forget to roll on over to our facebook page and tell us 

your favourite/s from the ones listed above. Here's a picture of the cushion you could win (either red or taupe).

Enjoy your bank holiday everyone,

Ella x

The Making of a Trade Show Stand - for Home Show 2014 in London

So we have returned from our first trade show of 2014, HOME London, and have been busy sorting out all our orders and new contacts from the show. The response to the new products has been beautiful and once again I got lots of compliments for my stand design. Since I always put a lot of thought into my stand, I feel like sharing a bit more about the process of making it ...

 

 

To begin with, we took polystyrene letters from polycraftsupplies and decorated them with newspaper and the best neon acrylic around, Daler Rowney number 544, so they would stand out from the back wall that we covered with black board paint. It's a wonderful mat black that makes every colour stand out against it. Below you can see the letters lined up, as we prepared to stick them onto the wall.

I have used the concept of vibrant colours on mat black background also in one of the designs of my Pop Art goes Design collection. It's called 'Pop Art Dots' and the original art work, which you can see below, is made up from hole punched magazine clippings. Thinking about the positioning of the products on the wall, I realised that I liked the randomness in the 'Pop Art Dots' a lot. So I decided to allow my gut feeling to guide me in distributing the products across my stand. But it wasn't supposed to look careless, so I wanted to hang everything with beautiful hooks, nails, zip ties and ribbons.

Below you can see what I found as I raided all my boxes ... and my friend Andrew Stafford who helped me with my stand planning and building gave me some crown silver light bulbs for the lampshades that added an extra special touch (you can see them in the picture of the whole stand at the bottom of this post)

Below, some of the products attached to the back wall. The cushion on the stool in front of the wall is a new addition to the range of Cameras designs of the 'Pop Art goes Design' collection. It's a digitally printed, 40x40cm linen cushion called Camera Play, and it's now available on our website. The design references Joe Tilson's photo collages of the 60s. If you're interested you can read more about my inspiration for 'Pop Art goes Design' in an earlier post I did on my blog. 

 

Below a close up - yes, I am rather pleased with how it turned out :-)

But to move on: I wanted to use a collection of chairs to offset all the different cushions and ranges, and to give the buyer a feel of how these products might sit in their stores, and indeed their customers' homes. The Thonet bentwood armchairs fabulously showed off my Bike wheel cushions ;-)
And who needs a carpet when you have gorgeous concrete to begin with?

  

 

Especially since the concrete made such an effective backdrop for my first 'Bicycle' rug, which you can now order from our website.

The chair to the left, above, is one of the pieces that Galapagos Designs have upholstered for us as part of our collaboration with them to illustrate to the buyer how my designs can be used on fabric for upholstery. And below I show you another one, of a different model, but with same fabric and neon accents. It's called 'Pop Art Circles Armchair'.

'Pop Art Circles' overall had a fantastic launch: I was very happy that KentLyons (the designers of the 3 shows Home, Top Drawer and Craft) asked to use my Pop Art Circles wallpaper to decorate the pillars at the entrance to the shows.

Here it is in close up: 

And we also make Pop Art Circles cushions, with extra special neon piping. They are available in 3 different shapes square, oblong and round.

Here with another Thonet chair accentuating all the circles..

And here is the full stand at the opening of the show - thanks for reading and I would love to have your comment if you can take the time - 

 

Love,

Ella x 

'At work with Ella Doran' Thank you Homemaker magazine!

SPRING SAMPLE SALE

SPRING SAMPLE SALE 

We are having a spring sample sale now in May, with samples of established and new designs, wallpapers, cushions, trays, mats and coasters, mug, tins and stationary and more!

10-11 MAY

Fri 10am-7pm
Sat 11am-5pm

Ella Doran Design Ltd.
57a Lawford Road
Hackney
London N1 5BJ

Hope to see you there!

January Sale!

To celebrate the new year we are offering 15% off all our products, except roller blinds and coasters. The offer will end the 31st of January and all you need to do to get you 15% discount is to apply our Sale code "JAN13" at the checkout, happy shopping!

Maison Objet September 2012

I thought I would share some images from my week at Maison Objet in Paris;

Here we have the wonderful Åsa and Miranda helping with the set up, having fun deciding on which wallpaper should hang next to one another.....

Voila, the stand finished ready for the first day of trading! 

The brand new Stacks and Stripes lampshade and the new Fretwork wallpaper in the background together with the two old classics Geo and Letterpress... the lampshades are still not in stock, but they will be very soon, so keep a look out on my website.

A sneek peak of whats about to come, one of my new Ella Doran Bike cushions from my Hackney Bikes collection.

That's it from Maison Objet september 2012, thanks to everyone who dropped by and all your orders, and for those who we missed click here for my new brochure download on my website you will see the link at the top of the page!

Stick - It - Up - Wallpapers with Surface View

Here's a short film on Just-Stick-It-Up wallpapers with Surface View!

This innovative format from Surface View features your chosen image, printed in our usual high quality with a new easy-apply adhesive on the reverse. This repositionable adhesive allows easy installation even at large sizes, and means that you can remove and reapply your print over and over again. Just-Stick-It-UP® allows a once specialist job to be undertaken by anyone!

PS. Do not forget that Surface View are offering Ella Doran Blog readers a 10% discount on my collection which includes everything from tiles, murals, canvases and lampshades etc!

Paper room, New Zealand

The lovely shop Paper Room in New Zealand is selling a selection of our digitally printed wallpapers, note books, table mats and coasters if you are local, check them out, if not take a browse of their lovely website here.

PO Box 147-093, Ponsonby Auckland 1144 New Zealand

Isabelle Pink, my new wallpaper made in UK

We are very happy to introduce our new wallpaper design, Isabelle Pink, a floral wallpaper with a vintage feel. It is digitally printed on FSC graded wallpaper, made in the UK and sold in ten meter rolls and is from today it is available in our Online shop

Home London 2012

We exhibited at Home in London a few weeks ago and here are some images from our stand. At the show we launched a new cushion and tray collection as well as a brand new wallpaper design and blinds by Eclectics, here's a sneak peak;

We received a little "Heart and Homes Loves us" sign from Heart and Home Magazine, thank you and thanks to everyone who dropped by!

More information about all the new collections and products will be posted soon.