HOT14 Plymouth Graphic Design Show

Next in my series of Plymouth Degree show posts we have Graphic Design. Being an illustrator the design at Plymouth is very type based and not always my cup of tea as someone who prefers pattern and loose lines over order. These are my favourite bits from the show!

Lovely type and tiny line drawings.

I love the vintage feel of the faded ink here.

Blown away by the masterful paper sculpture!

I just like this because of the acrobatics...

HOT14 Plymouth 3D Design Show

Apologies for the late running of these posts, the show is long gone now as I have spent the last two weeks moving house rather than updating my blog with photos!

Still- for all those who didn't get to go to the degree show here are some pictures of the 3D design section. I have always loved  the more crafty side of 3D design. There are always some very unique pieces of furniture, lighting and jewellery in this show, these are some of my favourites.

If you know any of the artists do let me know and I will update this with credits.

This was a branding solution for gandy's flip flops - I just love the liberty print ones and wish I had all the monies in the world for these and some liberty print nikes!

Cheeky self portrait

Let me know what you think of these? What designs are your favourites?

Giftware Inspiration

This past week I had some time off of work and have been all around the country, visiting some uni friends in Plymouth, family in Cornwall and then up to Birmingham today for the Autumn Fair trade show! This post is just a few photos of some of the lovely things I stumbled upon!

I went with my family to Port Isaac, a seaside town in Cornwall where they film the programme "Doc Martin" (if you like random trivia). There were loads of gorgeous little gift shops including a pottery gallery in this amazing building:

Where you could look down over from the top level into the space below. They had some amazing hand painted pottery.

There were also loads of beautiful gifts and decorations:

And today I went to Birmingham for my first ever trade show (as a visitor rather than exhibiting) to see what it was all about and get inspired by other peoples work.

The NEC in Birmingham is a huuge place, there were 5 halls filled with all sorts of commercial goods, mainly types of giftware, greetings and homeware. I stumbled upon some fun things, and we also watched a popcorn making demonstration and found a dinosaur! 

All in all a very fun day with too many amazing things to see and take in at once, some beautiful displays with varying levels of sparkliness and lights, suck uk was quite extreme:

T-rex!

Dancing sandyclaws!!!

Oh and a little inspiration for any fellow graduates who are freaking out about life right now, if this is too cringy just imagine Dory from Finding Nemo "just keep swimming" ;)

The Great British Card Company

So tomorrow I am off to Gloucester to do a 4 day placement with Paperhouse at The Great British Card Company. I had been putting off doing the prep work because I couldn't choose a theme for my cards, I settled on birds but still found it hard to start. I think because I am quite worried about what they want from me... it is a little strange going in with such an open brief and for once I was really nervous about my ideas...

Here is part of one of the visuals I made-bit different to anything I have done before and it isn't quite finished but I hope to get some feedback tomorrow!

London Drawings

I went on a research trip to London with my friend Jess a couple of weeks ago, we did a lot of drawings in the V&A and Tate modern, was really nice to chill and do fun drawing for a change :)

We are planning on making some kind of book/zine with the sketches we like to sell at Bristol Artists Book Event in April so I have been playing around with sets of images, heres a little preview, let me know what you think, am wondering if some of them might work as t-shirt designs!

You can see some of Jess's lovely drawings over here

Tigerprint Competition

I spent the last few weeks working on a collection of surface pattern for Tigerprints "Colour" competition. I had to predict colour trends for Spring/Summer 2014 and create our own patterns that could be applied to a wide range of surfaces!

I was inspired by space and galaxy prints based on the fact that Fayes comet will be passing by in May next year. I really enjoyed making a mood board to submit and playing around with colour palettes.

Here are my 4 final pattern designs:

Pretty pleased with them since this is the first time I have done a project like this, my brain started to melt a little last week after spending 3 full days staring at a screen full of pattern on Photoshop!

I also mocked up a few things to show how they would look on different surfaces :)

Please let me know your opinions on these, am trying to get as much feedback as possible to improve what I am doing in my final major project :)

ghost pattern development

Something I have been working on today, playing around with line quality and patterns. Inspired by toile de juoy patterns and how they link illustrations together with decorative elements.