kiddin'!

Since waving goodbye to second year I've been spending my time researching, researching and sometimes playing outside in the mud (festival season is here!)

Sticking with all things kid I worked with The City Gallery at Riverside Festival in Leicester. These photos were taken before the kids let loose.. after 12 hours of making cardboard tunnels and playing with glitter, spagetti, rice crispies etc... it didn't look as neat. It was really sunny and very busy, but way more fun than being indoors and serving coffee to snooties.

I've also stumbled across a new favourite website, Pinterest! It's brilliant and my flatmates would tell you it's been the highlight of my life recently. The idea is creatives across the globe 'pin' images they find online (or take themselves) onto boards.. pretty much like a never-ending moodboard. It's really helpful for me as not only does it mean I can find lots of lovely photographs of lots of lovely things (not just design related, there's FOOD too.. bakers haven) but it also means I don't have to save and write down every thing I find and want to print out/remember for later (the images are saved with a link to where there from, also giving makers credit!). If you join look me up and we can share our finds over the big world wide web.

I'd post all the things I've found that have sparked thoughts for my design for children range, but to save space take a look on my Pinterest... there's a whole board dedicated to nursery finds. To give an idea of what's inspiring me here's a nice bullet-pointed list of notes I've been making on a sticky...

BABYWARE: The creative adult is the child who survived

- estimated market value.. £630 million a year! - BBC Britain's next big thing

- wall decals!!!..themes: balloons, dolls house, bunting, interaction & learning - height, the world, cloud & drops, gardens, jigsaw.. back-drop for ceramic wall hangings? photo frames,spelling cards, taxidermy theme, wall lighting.. dwellstudio

- ceramic mobiles - flat shapes to keep light, fitted with lighting, origami folding

- baby blocks - names, letters, shapes, learning blocks.. any other forms

- pull toys

- dolls house & characters

- russian nesting dolls - taking any form: animals, bears, giraffe,

- miniature woodlands, towns

- toy kitchen - toddlers/kids

- spelling cards - wall mounted, detachable, printed ceramics & collections theme!.. vintage, past baby products, scattered plates

- teepees!

To give me some help I've approached a friend at Nottingham Contemporary, she works as community programmer and runs the galleries programme for familes and kids. She's offered me a brief to create something that could fit and be used in their family room, hopefully this will give me a chance to test out my ideas over the summer and also get me involved with a gallery in Nottingham. Check back for more on that over the next few weeks, I have a lot of brainstorming/thought-showers to do.

I'll leave you with something to watch. The website of a book I've found called 'Kid Made Modern' has a KMM TV section with videos showing how modern design can be used to inspire kids activities. To my delight there's a few Marimekko related ones and a free style forts tutorial inspired by Charles and Ray Eames (which I could have done with watching before Riverside Festival... our forts were no where near as sturdy) Of course I had to share... remember kids, it's good to share.

Horde/Hoard

The third years have been working hard setting up their degree shows and selling in the shop over the last few weeks... the workshops have been a little scary but I can see why! I can only hope to live up to the standard they've set next year!

The degree show opens on Thursday in Bonington buildings atrium and will run until June 12th.. it's worth a peek. I'd put up a few photos but don't want to spoil it for them. If you want some idea of what to expect visit Horde, each of the students have a page with snippits of their work and a little explanation. From the site you can find their blogs too if your keen for more, I've had a nice afternoon blogging out to them all.

Summer of ideas: Wall decals

When we decided on a place to live last year the main reason I agreed on this flat was because the previous residents seemed to have done such a good job doing up the rooms... making me forget what was actually outside our front door! The girl who lived in my room had used a clever decorating trick, wall decals. Keeping the landlord happy (no paint, no marks, no nothing when peeled away!) and giving some personality to the usually plain white walls of student residences.

Having got my research on looking at all things nursery and after feedback from tutors suggesting I should find a way of using my drawings as back drops for ceramic objects... I stumbled across some really sweet wall decals for kids rooms. I already have a love for screen printing and illustration, it seems a no brainer to try creating my own. PLUS it would be a change from the usual Dec Arts choice of wall paper design which to me feels restricting and I did try out ceramic decals.. so it all feels relevant!

Searching DwellStudio's online store I found these... customers have complete control over colour and scale and can add/subtract icons they want, completely customisable! The site also offers a tool to show what the decals will look like on customers own walls before buying. The scenes can easily be transformed by adding DwellStudio's creature photo frames, giving me ideas for how I could feature ceramic objects with my own designs.

LittleLion Studio is a graphic design shop specialised in children's universe. The studio manufacture nursery decoration items (namely wall decals) and also license original designs through microstock, meaning their designs are downloadable at a price and can be used for all sorts of purposes.

Each decal tells a different story whether it's a day at the zoo or a picnic in the woods. These are just a few, new designs are added depending on the seasons. You can even buy a stick on christmas tree with all the trimmings if you don't fancy picking up all those needles when your cat goes searching for baubles to play with.

All of this has got me quite excited, I think I've missed the fun I had with print but I wouldn't want to just stick to wall decals... as shown above, that's been done and done very well! All of what I've found has been very simple block images.. I'd look to something with more depth like a whole new room within a wall. I really want to find a way of combining this kind of decoration with 3d form, and hopefully suggest a new approach to interior design. That's a big hope I know!

New born ideas

With final year and all that goes with it approaching (just a degree show, shop opening & most importantly/most scary.. creating something that could ACTUALLY make me a living) ..I've been thinking very hard about what and why I make. I still feel like I haven't started making anything that I'm really passionate about, I was happy I discovered how to mix ceramics and print.. and I'm excited to develop that as a technique.. but as a 'product' I feel i've just been sticking to what I think I should... same ol' tableware. If I get the product right everything else should fall into place, but it HAS to be right for the customer... if watching 'Britain's next big thing' on Iplayer (which I would recommend to you all!) has taught me anything, it's that you have to firstly have a market for your product but also know everything about it.

A market I keep noticing and keep loving is BABYWARE... recently it just seems babies have got so stylish! It all started in Stockholm, the swedish kids all seemed to be dressed better than I was, not just 'pink for the girls and blue for the boys'... Marimekko has a stunning kids range

The nursery shots Ninainvorm shares on her blog are beautiful (she also makes a lovely range of screen-printed vintage ceramics!)

Plus an interview I watched on Gestalten TV with Christine Lemieux, founder of NYC-based 'DwellStudio', confirmed the 'designer baby trend' telling how the Canadian finds inspiration for her top-notch collections—described as 'a treasure for design-savvy parents who can't stand the ubiquitous teddy bears in the nursery anymore.' A must-watch for anyone heading into the design world. The bedding sets here, along with the rest of the entire range, are fully sold out online. Besides the linin surface designs, I love the thought that's gone into the room layouts.

So, right now I'm thinking about how I could fit into this market... I think having a market to work towards is a great start. I've been working backwards creating products and trying to find a market for them... realising now it'd be a million times more worthwhile to create for an already established market and investigate what is actually needed, create something new by filling the gaps. I've been having a few brainwaves... I like the idea of a 'my first ceramics' range of nursery decoration and the possibilities for commissions could be endless ... a summer of ideas is what I'm planning, watch this space.

fini!

I have come to the end of my 'own brief' project and here are the results! I'm happy as my screen-printed transfers WORKED, which means I can still use print but don't have to work onto textiles..and with a bit of fine-tuning I think I could have a potential project to carry though into 3rd year. Let's hope my tutors agree..

p.s. with some of my final pieces I applied too much slip and the colour seems to have burnt out... not the desired effect but I think I managed to get away with it. Either way, I'll be sticking to the colours on the tile samples which are a lot cleaner and brighter... although I might combine them and see what happens. Exciting

collection samples

I ended the last post worried about my clumsy hands and thinking it'd be wise to recycle the unwanted and concentrate on applying surface design. Although I did find some bargain tea sets which I am experimenting on, I've been giving hand-building another try too. I figured I should make the most of the time left this term to see if I could concur clay once and for all...if it's just not meant to be i'll know for 3rd year and will stick to surface decoration (plus I really wanted to try out my letterpress initials).

Some samples here... I've added coloured slips in areas which I will then layer my screen-printed transfers on top of. Fingers crossed they stay crack-free!

Jumbles and bootys

Drawing all sorts of collections for my final project this year. I was originally focusing on interior surroundings and drawing rooms as scenes... e.g. Calke Abbey doodles below! Left me desperate for a home of my own more than ever, I've started picking up things in prep... I'm quickly running out space on my shelves and starting to look like a crazy hoarder. I've moved onto looking at the objects themselves, taking them out of context so I can hopefully have more to work with when turning drawings into designs.

Sneak peek of what i'm planning to produce.. I'm working on combining print with ceramics, screen-printing my illustrations onto transfer paper and creating my own decals... I tried inlay and scraffito last project which worked well as surface decoration BUT I realised i'm just too clumsy for building in clay (this is why there's no updates, broken work isn't nice to look at!) With this in mind i'm testing out putting my designs onto 'vintage' (I hate using that word, people use it to describe anything that wasn't made last month, but I can't think of another which best describes!) ceramics... my idea is to take relatively plainly decorated plates, mugs etc and combine the old aesthetic with my own.

I'm looking at this project as a print project, which is why I don't see recycling and working onto already made forms as 'cheating'. Just the way I'd print onto a fabric and sew it together to make a cushion... I'm printing onto transfer paper and gluing it to make a forgotten about object admirable again!...it's also occurred to me that I worked to a similar aim with my commission project, remember? I wanted to get the boarded up buildings of nottingham noticed again and planned to do so by creating designs which could decorate the architecture and make it more admirable... maybe I've (without knowing) found my passion, recycling to renew?!

Here are some photos I've taken of the type of collections I'm drawing inspiration from... a few from The Hopkinson Gallery jumble sale over easter, and the rest I took this morning at a Nottingham Racecourse Carboot.. it was lovely and sunny + me and Rosie bought just about the whole wardrobe of a recently deceased grandma! (I never thought I'd end a blog post with that..!)

Calke Abbey sketches