Tokyo Plates 2001

I have been looking through some archive images recently and came across these lovely porcelain plates that I designed and produced back in 2001. They feature images from the amazing Tokyo fish market - of which 'tourists' are no longer allowed to wonder around and photograph at their leisure..... a very sad reality.

anyway I also wanted to high light a link to a recent interview with New Designers - as I regularly am asked about my background and design history, for those that want to read more, click here! 

bye for now!

Thank you Katie!

It has been a very busy 3 months here in the studio and Katie our recent intern is on the move to pastures new! Thank you Katie for all your hard work, and stay in touch!  

Katie Allerston graduated from Plymouth with a BA degree in Interior Textiles and Surface Design. She is inspired by nature and her photographs which she manipulates into 3D artworks. These pieces below are the ones that caught my eye at New Designers this summer

To see more of Katie's work visit her website.

Well spotted

Look what I found, my Sunflower umbrella was spotted in The Great British Bake Off finale on BBC

New Lampshade Collection

"Featuring a range of nine modern and nostalgic patterns including Isabel Garden, Bugs and Butterflies and Artist's Tools, her designs are a great way of instantly freshing a room scheme, and would work well in anything from children's bedrooms to retro living rooms" 

Quote from Red Online who just wrote a very nice article about the collection that you can read here.

Stacks and Stripes lampshade above and Fretwork below

Here are a few more shots from my lovely shoot with Asa - we will have them on our website in a few days time. The lampshades are all made in the UK and are available in 8 different designs; Fretwork, Geo, Isabel Garden, Artists Tools, Gridlock, Sevens Red, Bugs and Butterflies and Plimsoles. They are made of parchment paper and are available in two different sizes at the moment, 14" and 20" inch. But we are always happy to quote for larger or smaller sizes, I'll let you know when they go live. But contact us at the studio if you want more info on bespoke ones! 

Above, Gridlock Lampshade and Geo lampshade below

Bye for now!

The Project Group, Oswestry

I am in the midst of working with the lovely folk at The Project Group up in Oswestry Shropshire. You can read all about the fantastic creative work they undertake with their members here. They are an arts based community organization working on commissions for the public and private sector.

The collaboration has been instigated by Design Nation and the Eureka Project - set up by the late Peta Levi. And my role is to help facilitate creating some products using their surface patterns from their archive and the workshops that I will be running. I was the proud winner of the Eureka award back in 2006, so it is an honour to work with this group both in the memory of Peta and to help continue to promote British Design and manufacture.

So here are a few pictures from our first session.. i asked them all to create designs to represent the ELEMENTS in some way - Earth, Fire, Water and Air and members then chose to work in a particular medium i.e. screen printing, string art, wax resist, sewing etc. and here are a few pictures to illustrate....

these lovely prints are based on pebbles - to represent EARTH

here is one stencil waiting to be screened 

and here is a similar one once printed

this image was a very inspired idea for AIR - a tornado with the eye of the storm driving into the black hole... this was all made out of hand dyed string

and then they chose to depict the same image out of pebbles.....

here are some of the lovely designs using wax resist and ink, designed to represent the EARTH, everything from road markings to tractor marks, when positioned all together like this my mind wonders off to flying over beautiful patchwork fields on a clear day.

               

..... here are a few examples of their wonderful string art - these birds are part of one of their commissions which I will tell you more about after my next visit.  

If you want to see more do watch their inspiring video here I shall update you further as we progress with the workshops.
Bye for now.

Joy of Living

Maggie’s Cancer Charity 'Joy Of Living' opened last night at the designjunction - with a live auction with a Christie's auctioneer, so far they have raised over £7k.... but we really hope to get more, so please take a look at what there is left or better still go there yourself. The Old Post office building will be open until the 23rd September.

The project is named after Maggie’s saying “Above all what matters is to not lose the joy of living in the fear of dying.” 

My auntie has just died from cancer, and I chose to make it in memory of her - she spent her last days surrounded by flowers with her 6 children and all their partners and offspring, and my Mum, sisters and I by her side. She had a sheepskin behind her head, which inspired me to search out for a pad filled with wool - I found a company who sell them here in the UK, and the wonderful lady by the name of Catherine Nelson, who I spoke to at  WoolSoft, very kindly donated the pad for the pillow. I then asked my lovely friend Bev Alvarez who is an absolute pro with all things knitted, sewn, or embroidered, to hand-embroider the back of the pillow ’with love’ .... now lets see what it fetches for the wonderful charity ....

I hope you can make it down as it is so worth a look at the space and the wonderful design brands on all 3 floors...

here are a few pics from last night:

Max Fraser on the mic opening the show...

Michael Marriott's Cheese stool ... 

Amos Marchant got involved and is pictured here bringing the Giles Miller screen forward to get the auction warmed up! Well done Amos..... you made a difference!

absolutely LOVE this Rainbow knit chair by Sam Johnson.

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!