'Artist's Tools for the Tate'

I am very excited that the collection I have been tweeting and instagramming about in the last couple of weeks has now been launched by TATE!

Read on for a bit of background and some close-up shots of the range.

Photograph by Rita Platts

The overarching idea was to design a collection that would appeal to and create enthusiasm for the artistic process across the diverse community of the Tate visitors – the young and old, men and women, the professional creatives and the less artistically educated, who all have different tastes, but are united in their passion for art.

Photograph by Rita Platts

Colour, as we encounter it in its material form at the beginning of an artistic project, in paints, chalks, inks and pencils, was the starting point for 'Artist's Tools for the Tate'. To introduce a feeling of authenticity into the images, I explored my own creative process, photographing my personal artistic tools in my own studio (with my main creative tool, which is my camera, remaining backstage this time).

Photograph by Rita Platts

                                                                                                 

The material that carries an image and the printing technique that is used have a profound effect on the feel of an image. I wanted to highlight this aspect through the different production methods used across the product range of 'Artist's Tools for the Tate'. (The collection consists of notebooks, mugs, cushions, tea towels, a tray, a bag and a laptop case.) The tea towels, the bag (below) and the laptop cases, for instance, are screen printed, while the cushions like the one above are digitally printed.  

In contrast to the gritty texture of the screen printing on the tea towels or the bag in the image above, the print quality of the tray below is super real. The mugs are special because of their screen printed decals, made by a transfer company in Stoke on Trent (whom I consider to be absolute masters of their trade). I designed the decal to come right up to the edge of the cup and am so pleased that they came out as I intended.

Photograph by Rita Platts

The packaging for all the collection uses my signature cardboard
with a glossy sticker :-)

Overall, my aim was to create a playful, yet sophisticated collection that will enthuse others to pursue their own artistic ideas, perhaps make them go out and start 'that painting' or 'that collage' they have been dreaming about doing, after their visit to the Tate. 

You can now buy the collection in the Tate Gallery Shops and in the TATE Online Shop (they are still adding products as we speak). I hope you find a piece to suit you - as always we're happy to hear from you on our facebook page.

Here's to a creative spring everyone!

Ella x

Special thanks to Rita Platts who photographed me and the insitu products in my studio, and Louie Waller who helped style them, & the cut out product shots were kindly supplied by Tate.

The London Design Festival 2013 - Part I - The Moleskine-Sketch-Relay at the V&A 14th - 22nd September

 

Moleskine and the London Design Festival have invited over 70 London-based designers to participate in the Moleskine Sketch Relay 2013 (exhibited at the V&A Museum from 14th - 22nd September) that is part of the Moleskine Detour Project. I am proud to be one of them and in this post I want to give you a taster of my contribution and the inspiration behind it, which I hope will entice you to come along to the exhibition to see it all.

Online luxury gift retailer Amara explains the idea behind the Moleskine Sketch Relay so nicely at www.amara.com/luxpad/review/Moleskine-Sketch-Relay (including a lovely youTube video of a previous contribution by fashion illustrator Jason Brooks)that I won't go into detail here. 

Just this much: This year the title of the London Design Festival's campaign is 'Design is Here, There and Everywhere' and we, the designers, have been asked to create illustrations around three questions that relate to the campaign.

I have approached the brief using pencil, collage, photographs and prints, inspired by the twentieth century's Pop art movement, which I was researching at the time, as I was also working on my new collection 'Pop Art goes Design' that is launching this week at trade show Maison et Objet in Paris.

The first question was

"...what objects, items, systems, and details could you not live without in your private space or in the public domain?" 

My response to it:

I have left a few pages out, including my response to the second question,"what you feel needs improving within your personal or professional life ...", so you will have to visit to see the rest ;-)

... in response to the third question

"what would you like to design that you haven't had the opportunity to design before?"

I reflected on how I could express that I would love to collaborate with architects and designers on the whole space, beyond the everyday items that fill a space, on the 'fabric' that makes up a space ... and came up with this collage,  

 

wanting to suggest an empty interior that I could imagine designing and filling with colour and light, hinting vaguely at objects, personality, print and pattern that are already present and can be included or replaced. I wasn't aware of it at the time, but later realised how strongly my image was inspired by Richard Hamilton's "Interior II":

I read up on Richard's inspiration for this artwork and found that he was inspired by a still (photograph) from the film Shockproof. The still became the generator of a series of works based around the interior - as a set - a space to explore beyond the normal perspective and assumed reality of things. In his words, courtesy of the Tate,

"It was a film set, not a real room, so wall surfaces were not explicitly conjoined; and the lighting came from several different sources. Since the scale of the room had not become unreasonably enlarged, as one might expect from the use of a wide angle lens, it could be assumed that false perspective had been introduced to counteract its effect yet the foreground remained emphatically close and the recession extreme."

And if - as I hope - this post has got your creative juices flowing, I am happy to say that on Saturday the 14th at Midday, the Victoria and Albert Museum is holding a free public 'Sketchathon' where you can 'drop in and populate the pages of Moleskine notebooks with your sketches, thoughts and doodles, taking design in London as your source of inspiration'.

More on my participation in the London Design Festival to come, so watch this space.